Originally Posted by
BFSGrad
You are underselling the myth of Phil. By resume, Phil should have been the most successful Boeing CEO ever. He had the most robust engineering education credentials. He held all the right engineering jobs. Yet, he made some poor business decisions as CEO. Having an engineer as CEO will not inoculate Boeing against further failure.
As a college drop-out, somehow Bill Boeing managed to muddle along at the helm of his company for a decade and a half. I’m guessing he counted a few beans along the way.
I don't think I'm "underselling" Condit - I'm sure he was quite a good engineer (I didn't actually know the guy, although I knew one of his wives quite well - worked with her for years). The problem was he was a shining example of the "Peter Principle" in action. Worse, even though he was way over his head as CEO, he still thought he was the smartest guy in the room and didn't need to listen to differing opinions. He decided to turn Boeing into a huge conglomerate - years after that path had fallen out of favor - and in building his empire hugely overpaid for the various companies that Boeing acquired under his watch. It takes a special kind of mindset to buy another company for billions, only to turn around and write off half it's value six months later. Even more special is the ability to then make the same mistake repeatedly. This finally culminating with the MacDac merger (worked out in a hotel room over a weekend with almost no expert input) - not realizing that 'buying' closely held MacDac with Boeing stock would turn MacDac into the largest shareholders is the 'new' Boeing and hence putting MacDac in charge of the merged company.