[_s]

Profit before people / product / planet.

It’s been the downfall of many companies, and in this case, has resulted in the unnecessary death of many individuals.

Boeing is currently in the spotlight, but there are so many other companies - ranging from pharma to agriculture to tech, that also adhere to the above mantra and have been the cause of much death and destruction.

You can’t blame individuals, nor the companies here. The system they operate in requires them to report quarterly; with a priority on short term performance over a longer term outlook (it exists, but not overtly so). When you don’t meet those short term goals, both individuals (employee reviews, getting laid off etc) and the company (value on the public or private market) suffers.

I don’t know if there is a “fix”, or if it needs fixing at all, as our rapid progress is also down to this competitive and unforgiving environment.

[bad_alloc]

> You can’t blame individuals

You can and you have to. Corporations are structuredi nsuch a way that there is always somebody who is in charge of a certain project or descision. Of course this might be hidden. in order to fight "Profit before people / product / planet", these individuals need to be punished. It cannot be allowed that blame diffuses in a corporation. Otherwise there will be no change.

[lisper]

That's actually not true. If the punishment is severe enough then it can be made to diffuse all the way back to the shareholders in a way that they will notice, and that will eventually bring about change.

The problem is that we have insulated the shareholders from responsibility so that granny can buy blue chip stocks to fund her retirement without having to actually pay attention to the bothersome details of corporate governance. Management is doing exactly what it was hired to do: maximize granny's ROI by any means necessary.

[Scoundreller]

> The problem is that we have insulated the shareholders from responsibility

Do we? Shareholders take the hit when the corporation negotiates a fine instead of punishing the decision-makers responsible directly.

How much did dieselgate cost VW shareholders? How much did it impact the people that made the decisions?

[CamperBob2]

How do you propose to punish shareholders?

Fine them? The market already does that, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in the 737 MAX case.

Jail them? Good luck with that.

What else can/should be done to them, in your opinion?

[lisper]

> Fine them? The market already does that, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in the 737 MAX case.

Really? How? The day before the Lion Air crash Boeing stock was just a hair under $360 a share. Today it's at $380. How exactly is that punishing the shareholders?

The market isn't punishing Boeing shareholders because everyone knows full well that the U.S. government will not allow the last domestic producer of commercial jets to go bankrupt.

[CamperBob2]

Really? How? The day before the Lion Air crash Boeing stock was just a hair under $360 a share. Today it's at $380. How exactly is that punishing the shareholders?

Well, that's not exactly the whole story, is it? What happened on March 8?

https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+stock

A single crash won't usually tank the company's stock, nor should it.

[lisper]

> What happened on March 8?

The stock dropped 5%. And your point would be...?

> A single crash won't usually tank the company's stock, nor should it.

This was two crashes. Caused by gross negligence. Yeah, that ought to put a dent in the stock price IMHO.

[btrettel]

> You can’t blame individuals, nor the companies here. The system they operate in requires them to report quarterly; with a priority on short term performance over a longer term outlook (it exists, but not overtly so). When you don’t meet those short term goals, both individuals (employee reviews, getting laid off etc) and the company (value on the public or private market) suffers.

The question of responsibility differs from what one should expect. I think it's perfectly fine to blame the individuals and companies here. "I was just following incentives" is becoming the new Nuremberg defense.

Of course, to change what happens in reality most of the time, it's not enough to blame people; you need to change the incentives.

Related: http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2018/10/02/no-its-not-the-inc...

[still_wrong]

  You can’t blame individuals, 
  nor the companies here. 

Okay, I really want to get on board with your logic here, but there's a layer of abstraction that simply cannot serve as a firewall of protection from real culpability.

Mostly, I'm thinking about synthetic opioids. Mostly because you mentioned pharma in passing. Mostly I'm thinking about Purdue Pharmaceuticals and the Sackler family.

I can't really condone the idea that it's okay to throw your money into a magic black box, and ignore the reason why the black box magically grows your money.

If a pleasant financial advisor sits at a desk and tells you to feed your life savings into a worm hole, and on the other side you'll get triple back, as long as you never ask questions, sure, you'll do that.

But that right there is the origin of hundreds of thousands of lives lost to drug overdoses and addiction. Investors not asking questions, but just demanding returns. Who cares, as long as the checks come through?

The truth is, that level of commoditization is what gets people killed.

  "I don't care how it works,
   I want 10% growth every year, minimum"

Turns out, sometimes a plane crash or massacre isn't the worst thing in the world. Sometimes it's a corporation operating a merciless business plan. But worse things don't always make for good headlines.

[rayiner]

Cheaping out on things is not unique to profit making companies. (For example, government policies that keep gas prices artificially low. Or American cities that keep water/sewer rates too low to fix aging sewers that dump massive amounts of untreated sewage into rivers every time it rains.)

There is no “fix.” It’s human nature.

[gameswithgo]

the most rapid progress we ever had on earth was when bell labs was a monopoly and had no competitive environment at all

[WalterBright]

> Profit before people / product / planet

Socialist organizations do not have a better track record. Without a profit motive (and competition) there is no reason to please customers.