4.6 • 13.2K Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
With losses from the 737 Max scandal spiraling into the billions, Boeing’s new CEO Dave Calhoun is looking to bring the crisis to a swift end. But he’s about to face major headwinds. Headwinds that threaten to destroy the entire company.
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0:00.0 | Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all four episodes of business wars the unraveling of Boeing early and ad-free right now. |
0:08.0 | Join Wonderly Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. |
0:16.5 | It's January 2020 and Dave Calhoun has flown into the Pacific Northwest on a rescue mission. |
0:25.5 | Last month, as the 737 Max crisis deepened, Calhoun and Boeing's board fired CEO Dennis |
0:32.1 | Mullenberg. Now, Calhoun is the new CEO and tasked with pulling the business out of its tailspin. |
0:39.3 | The 737 Max has been grounded for 11 months now. |
0:43.3 | Boeing is nursing losses of $7 billion. |
0:47.3 | Its borrowing costs are higher because its credit ratings been downgraded, |
0:51.3 | and the company doesn't expect the FAA will let the |
0:54.9 | max fly again until mid-year at the earliest. But while in the new role, Calhoun's not new to Boeing. |
1:02.6 | He spent the past decade on its board, a position that's given him a ring-side seat to many of the |
1:08.1 | decisions that led the company to this point. But now, at the headquarters |
1:12.4 | of Boeing's Commercial Airplane Division in Renton, Washington, he's looking to rebuild trust. |
1:18.1 | In a conference room with views of the overcast skies outside, the 62-year-old Calhoun |
1:23.0 | feels questions from journalists on a teleconference. I believe this culture is a good one. |
1:28.3 | Employees at Boeing care about safety, but their confidence right now is shaken. |
1:33.2 | My job is to restore it. |
1:35.1 | Journalists question why the Max managed to reach the market with deadly flaws in its flight |
1:39.5 | control system. |
1:40.9 | Calhoun says, the problem isn't one of Boeing prizing savings over safety. It's due to |
1:46.7 | assumptions about how pilots would react to problems during a flight, assumptions that proved |
1:52.2 | fatally wrong. It's a judgment everybody wishes they hadn't made. But the media isn't the only |
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