Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

If they can't work another executive job, they can't go around harming other businesses and people. The first thing that should happen is that the bad actions stop happening, by whatever means necessary. Justice can come later if that's truly necessary.

I think the GP is on the right track. Business leaders need fear consequences, so they moderate their behavior, and that means messages must be sent. It would be perfect to have some fortune 100 CEO go to Davos one year, then return the next in a prison jumpsuit to tell all the collected elites about what it feels like to be utterly ruined. Then do it again and again until the message gets through.

There's no need to resort to extreme measure, unless things are truly beyond the pale. It matters far more that regulations are enforced and consequences are enacted. Consequence don't need to be dire, unless actions are so beyond the pale that it required criminal investigations and consequences. If things escalated to the point of criminal investigation, your system isn't working.

The first step is early detection, enforcement, and auditing. The FAA should be beefed up so that they can rely on their own agents for enforcing the rules, together with the ability to ramp up fines, stop production, and other gradual escalation until there are compliance to regulation.




> unless things are truly beyond the pale

What does that mean to you? People have died in fatal 737 Max crashes - is that not truly beyond the pale?


> Consequence don't need to be dire

Sometimes, consequences _do_ need to be dire.

I had a boss once who used to calm everybody down when things were going badly saying "It's OK. Nobody is going to die." And he was right. We just build websites. No matter which customer was yelling on the phone like the world was ending, it was at worst a website outage.

But some jobs, you can't say "Nobody is going to die." Canonically these are rocket science and brain surgery. But building airliners is 100% a job where if you don't do it right people are going to die. And airliners are more serious, brain surgery kills one patient when you make a mistake, rocket science kills a few astronauts. Faulty airliners kill hundreds of passengers at once.

In my opinion, consequences for trading off even small increases in risk of death for hundreds of people at once just to meet financial targets _should_ be dire.


Minor consequences are guardrail before major consequences come into play. If you don't have feedback mechanism for minor infractions, problem will pile up.

Boeing didn't kill people overnight, it comes as gradual escalation and ignoring boneheaded mistakes over and over again.

If someone is being investigated for crime, the problem with the company began a long time ago. Consequences doesn't matter because what was minor issues became big issues.

Dire consequences doesn't do anything. You're looking at justice not prevention.


Heads this works and we make billions and I make 100M; tails it goes bad but I get 10M. That's a high expected return bet you should always make.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: