What bewilders me is that I've read (maybe here on HN) that the issue with some of those planes is a lot of the key people who built the previous generations were moved around to different departments, and I'm just thinking to myself, are you guys going to get the right people in the right spots? This is embarrassing and downright evil if you aren't taking steps to ensure the quality of your aircrafts.

I read a great book about Boeing called Flying Blind by Peter Robinson about the 737 crisis and the downfall of Boeing, its main premise was how a toxic corporate culture took over, removed power from scientists, safety and engineers and gave power to lobbyists and MBA finance types. They pressure regulators to approve the 737 and rush production, skimping on safety and qualifications. The McDonnell Douglas merger poisoned Boeing’s culture as MBA style management replaced an engineering first culture and shifted priorities from “build the safest airplane in the world” to “hit aggressive quarterly targets.”

A key component was the move of corporate HQ and power base from Seattle to Chicago where the execs lived, wrestling it away from the engineers in Seattle. Later they moved their HQ again to Washington DC to be closer to lobbying!

It's a publicly traded company that is enslaved to it's investors, growth, profit and quarterly reporting.

The more time passes the more I hate publicly traded companies. I feel like the stock market rots companies.

Also the same seems to extend to things when private companies discussed. Nothing is enough you cannot be happy with company making million in post tax profit a year. Next year you must do two million, then 4 and 8 and so on... Even not attempting this is somehow failure for some people...

Not nearly to the same degree. It's easier for a privately held company to focus on long-term goals without CEOs having to hit quarterly targets set by external analysts (Wall Street).

It feels more skewed for public companies for me. There's definitely "well off" small private companies that have good returns (mom and pop shops) and keep going and making their customers happy for decades, and those aren't an issue. There'll definitely be 'evil' private companies, but something about the stock market ruins companies. You are too dependent on the perception of your company and the markets reaction to it and your decisions. Investors do a lot of knee jerk selling. Meanwhile billionaires swoop in and purchase a chunk of your company at a discount.

Then mom and pop retire, the shop is sold to PE, and they do the same thing as a public company.

Yeah I noticed any time original founders are replaced, companies degrade. The pride of running a good company just isn't there. That's not ALWAYS the case though. I have a relative who bought an AC repair company out, and made it into the amazing company that it is today.

It's not just about pride. Companies, artistic productions, projects of any kind...they require vision and focus. When the people in charge change, maintaining these becomes a challenge.

The East India Company set the template for joint-stock corporations, and the model was basically a weaponized extension of post-Norman politics. Its leadership acted like a portable aristocracy. Accountable only upward to investors and the Crown never to the people they ruled. Their mandate was extraction, not participation. Communist regimes are always pointed out, but that pure Free Markets look like the East India company is never highlighted.

That mindset carried straight into corporate governance. Joint-stock companies inherited a Norman-style hierarchy where a self-defined ruling stratum treats populations as revenue sources, not stakeholders. Legitimacy comes from charter and capital (today: job/founder title and investment), not from any connection to the community affected.

In Norman social architecture you have a ruling stratum that views itself as distinct from and superior to the alien conquered population under it, bound by obligation only to peers and superiors, not to the commons. The joint-stock corporation inherited that same operating philosophy. The “company” wasn’t conceived as part of society; it was a chartered power structure hovering above society. Local populations are revenue sources, not stakeholders. Accountability runs up the hierarchy, not down. Legitimacy comes from charter (now job title/founder title) and capital, not community integration. The company's goal is to be a mini Norman conqueror of it's specific market. The logic of Norman style extraction from a conquered people, rather than participation/obligation/upholding social norms, sits at its core. Norman style extraction first, everything else second.

Ironically enough, they just got a Pentagon contract for 6th generation fighters.

Benefits of moving their HQ to Washington DC for closer proximity to lobbying starting to pay off! Relocating corporate to DC puts their execs within arm's reach of the ones who approve their contracts, oversee it's safety regulations and bail it out when the plane's software causes crashes.

Sadly and surprisingly, the quality and lifetime costs of the finished product is completely irrelevant here.

Yet this product is also the cornerstone of our national defense infrastructure.

That's because Boeing is now a defense contractor that also happens to make commercial aircraft. Which is why being located in DC is important.

MacDonnell Douglas was primarily a defense contractor with a long record of subpar performance and technical failures in the service of those contracts. At the time of 'merger' with Boeing in 1997, the not-very-exclusively internal joke a was that MD used Boeing's own funds to acquire Boeing; and the years since have proven the truth in this perspective. Boeing went from being an Engineer led company which produced superior equipment, to being a Management led company which produces shareholders, and which has fully reformed to the MD model of Washington centered, defense industry, lowest bid and highest level of 'acceptable failures' in both the defense and commercial product markets. More lives will continue to be lost in a calculus of least cost risk mitigation.

They've been a defense contractor for decades...