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Comment by sseveran

5 years ago

The CEO that Boeing fired at the end of 2019 was an aerospace engineer who had been with the company since 1985.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg

7 comments

sseveran

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brokencode  5 years ago

Sure but I’m not talking about just the CEO. I’m talking engineering managers all the way down. And I guess I’m not really talking about specific college degrees either, but a culture and mindset of engineering.

Here’s an interesting article about how engineers lost influence in Boeing: https://perell.com/essay/boeing-737-max/

  • dennis_jeeves  5 years ago

    >Sure but I’m not talking about just the CEO. I’m talking engineering managers all the way down. And I guess I’m not really talking about specific college degrees either, but a culture and mindset of engineering.

    Many here have misunderstood you,conflating the the stereotypical MBA type ( who is a essentially a con man) with an MBA degree. A 'mindset' of engineering BTW has to to be explained to the non-engineering personalities. Besides the obvious inclination for technical things, the next best trait is perhaps that of integrity. You really cannot put together a working great product unless there is there is a commitment at several levels, all of which could be loosely lumped under the personality trait of integrity.

fsh  5 years ago

He only became CEO in 2015. His handling of the Max crashes was shameful, but you can't blame him for Boeing's long-term strategy faults.

  • astrange  5 years ago

    It seems like the problem with Boeing is that they acquired a failing company (McDonnell-Douglas), but then kept all the executives and let them run Boeing, even though they'd just ruined the last company.

    Maybe they preferred that over letting some pleb engineer into the executive aristocracy.

  • sseveran  5 years ago

    Oh, I don't blame him at all. A commercial airliner is a decade long project to undertake. However its clear he was not the leader to lead a company through a crisis.