I’ve seen this happen on a smaller scale, watching with sadness as companies that focused on providing good product and great service get absolutely ruined when they get bought out. One example that stands out in my mind is a company that was always a pleasure to work with. It was a company we could count on to provide what we needed on time with no mistakes, and the culture was cheerful and professional. It was like a breath of fresh air permanently blew through the air handlers of their building, and they never failed to impress me.

Enter the “boss’s son” culture of the terrible company that bought them, and we had to stop using them for their services because they became so unreliable. They began to fix things that weren’t broken to put their own stamp on the company, firing all the top people who had been doing their jobs with excellence and integrity to replace them with their own people. The remaining original people all left in disgust, and the cheerful friendly atmosphere disappeared like a dense wet fog had come dripping in. It all happened so quickly it was hard to believe that business people could be so destructive of their own interests, and it was for nothing because that’s all they wound up with in the end.

It might be there is dark purpose behind the destruction of Boeing, but in my experience all it takes to destroy a good company is educated stupidity.