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This cannot be emphasized or repeated enough. Before the acquisition, Boeing was led and run by engineers. After the acquisition, MBAs and Finance people were put in charge.
This happens at all large companies, eventually, and it's why they all inevitably shit the bed. It's just in this case, it's killing a lot of people in the process.
It's the basis of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal novel, a biting send-up of modern corporate kleptocracy.
Also a BBC miniseries.
Gods I love Going Postal. I remember reading it when I was much younger (almost two decades ago) and loving it, but had forgotten enough of it that it almost felt new during my current reread of the Discworld series. Now I’m on Making Money and it’s just as good.
GNU Terry Pratchett
May you live as long as your name scintillates in the ether. GNU, brother.
Loved that novel; it was one of the first Discworld books I read. And Pratchett had a great way of representing the fundamental truths of governments of whatever structure, except that we should be so lucky to have as brilliant (and, perhaps ironically, benevolent in that he mainly just wants things to function smoothly, despite his Machiavellian ethics) a statesman as The Patrician in charge.
People seem to hate the concept of enshittification for some reason, but it's a perfect encapsulation of the modern economy. Things that were once good are abused to extract wealth for shareholders. That is their only purpose. As far as the board of directors at Boeing are concerned, if they narrowly miss an accident they don't have to report and it nets them an additional $1 million, then all the better. High quality engineering, the collaboration of engineers and machinists, and especially safety are only valuable insofar as they make more money. And they'll be damned if they leave any money on the table to avoid a plane breaking up mid-air, killing everybody.
Probably because it makes everything more shitty for everyone but the shareholders. I don't believe that CEO's like knowing that that everybody hates what they're doing: their customers hate them, their employees hate them, and they know it. But I'd they don't satisfy the shareholders, they get fired - just as you say.
The infuriating thing is that it isn't about profit; it's about maximizing profit. Companies can be profitable without enshittification. It's the sin of gluttony that drives profit maximization, and the best thing these people can hope for is that the atheists are right and there is no heaven, because they're for sure going to hell for bald-faced greed.