Blackberry's revenue peaked in 2011, and things didn't really appear to be hopeless in 2014, with the iPhone 6. Apple had gone through roughly 3 major hardware revisions (3G, 4, 6) before RIM's hopelessness was reflected in their yearly revenues.
I'm not unconvinced that organizational rot in a slower moving company like Boeing took 3 decades to fully spoil the org.
Blackberry failed because they didn't spend 5+ years building a complete mobile OS that carried all the amazing stuff that desktop OS had at the time (top tier, networking, graphics multi tasking etc.). By the time the iPhone launched, all the competitors were already screwed.
I think the point is that "Internet experts" (derogatory) believe they are being knowledgeable and clever when they ascribe any and everything that goes wrong with a Boeing product to McDonnell Douglas.
I believe there's also an element of "MBA bad, engineer good" resentment of management at play.
But the real truth is much more nuanced, no matter how satisfying it is to drop pithy one-liners about the MD merger.
I worked at Boeing. The reason people attribute McDonnell Douglas is because it caused a fundamental shift in leadership expectations.
It was clear as day on the ground that something had switched, suddenly every conversation was about minimizing cost. Every meeting was about maximizing value. Efficiency above safety.
I cannot overemphasize that it really did fundamentally shift the language, the incentives, etc. I started having to prove I needed vms to two different business panels.
Sometimes you are right, the root cause is too simple, but I was there for this one. It really was that simple this time.
I like this: "MBA bad, engineer good". As a joke: If you ask an LLM trained on HN discussions to describe, in its best "cave man speak" how to HN views MBA vs engineer, you will get exactly this phrase.
It is also crazy to me that people speak as if Boeing is "falling apart", but managed to produce many successful models since the MD merger, including the amazing 787.
This is Hacker News; I assume we're here to have thoughtful, curious discussions concerning topics of business (YCombinator, after all) and most things computers ("Hacker" News).
Dropping the McD one liner meme is neither thoughtful nor curious and it certainly doesn't explain anything.
It's like saying a McDonald's Big Mac is made of bread, beef, lettuce, and some mayonnaise like that's some conclusive end-all be-all. That's cool, but are we actually going to speak about something worth the time of day?
"It certainly doesn't explain anything" is some irrational hyperbolic bullshit. You're talking nonsense. Of course it explains something. Listen to people who actually worked at Boeing. One of the dudes who worked there just replied in this thread. This is not a stupid internet meme. This is reality. I recommend you watch the documentary: "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing".
