[Jtsummers]

It is reasonable, when your estimates are good and you're honest with regulators and customers. Sometimes your estimates are off by a factor of 10.

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

And you kill over 100 people, lie to regulators, lie to consumers, and end up spending billions trying to rectify the situation (recalls, settling suits, fines).

[pc86]

Yes, using the outcome of a formula to determine your actions generally relies on the formula being accurate.

[DINKDINK]

It also relies on whomever is modeling the reductive, simplistic "cost model" to know the effect of all the other variables that factor into the companies success. Do these people really think that the legal/compensation costs are the only effect? How many sales did Ford miss out on because they were labeled as the "There is a known issue in this car that might kill you but until your life is worth more than a replacement part we wont repair it" car company? Did they factor in those costs into their revenue model projections? Did they factor in the sag in price point demand "Boss I wouldn't bid the same on that contract because they've shown themselves to sell a known defective product and we'll open ourselves to legal issues if one of their cars kill one of our customers we're transporting in their vehicles"

Despite what an MBA will tell you, the world is more complicated that X<Y*Z

[SilasX]

There will always be things you can do that increase safety at a cost, but some of them will necessarily not be worth the effort, or you're forced to spend without bound on ever-more safety to the point that it's not worth using (and which may push people into still-riskier alternatives).

>How many sales did Ford miss out on because they were labeled as the "There is a known issue in this car that might kill you but until your life is worth more than a replacement part we wont repair it"

If you're turning down a company for making such a tradeoff, that's like saying "I'll buy a Ford rather than a GM because people might die in GMs."

You're right that you can legitimately criticize a company for failing to include certain things as costs, but it's not fair to fault them for somehow making this inevitable tradeoff, especially in the belief that you have some alternative provider that isn't.

(And example of such a cost -- that they can legitimately be expected to but don't -- would be something like "impact on general perception of risk", "impact on reputation of the car industry".)

>Despite what an MBA will tell you, the world is more complicated that X<Y*Z

It sounds more like you're agreeing that it's that simple, but that Z (events worthy of consideration) is not as simple as in typical models.

[Ntrails]

Which is why actuarial reports have around 2 pages of conclusions and 20 pages explaining the assumptions underlying them.