Category: Management

Long Time… Gone

Corporate Fuckery, Entertainment, Management

I have been a fan of Formula One racing since my early teens, which makes me older than just about everyone involved in running F1 today.

Just recently, I had a problem with my AppleTV account and couldn’t change the payment method — no need for details, but it’s a fucking nightmare and would be easier if I just created a new account.  Why am I subscribing to AppleTV, you ask?  Well, late last year F1 told me that their own website (F1.com) would no longer be streaming races because they’d sold the broadcast rights to AppleTV.  Fair enough:  it’s their absolute right to do so, and the AppleTV sub was actually cheaper than the F1 sub;  so that, coupled with my desire to watch the Slow Horses TV series (read the books, loved them), I made the change even though once I’d watched all the episodes, I found that AppleTV doesn’t have much worth watching anyway.  But there was always the F1 racing, which (did I already mention? I’ve loved since my early teens) so what the hell.

Of course, the modern F1 is no longer the F1 I used to love.  Gone were the earsplitting roar and howls of V6- and V12 car engines, and in their place came hybrid engines, using pathetic little 1500cc turbo motors with laptop batteries to “boost” performance because Green Is Mighty and Internal Combustion Engines Are Evil, or some such nonsense.

Then this season saw new rules (a.k.a. the “formula” in the product description), which made the cars even MOAR BATTERY, except of course that batteries when used to propel cars at 300mph run out of spark within yards not miles, so we were greeted with the spectacle of the world’s finest drivers and the world’s most accomplished engineers becoming software managers.  Put in plain terms, cars would overtake other cars, and then immediately lose their position because their batteries were drained whilst their competitors had recharged theirs so could take back the position:  repeat ad nauseam.  Not only was the spectacle unsatisfying, it became outright dangerous, as was seen in the last race where a driver with a full battery was about to move to overtake, but the car in front suddenly lost 25mph because his battery had just gone flat.  At a closing speed of 275mph, no human reactions are quick enough to address that impending crash — but amazingly, young Ollie Bearman’s were almost that quick and he pulled off the track to avoid a massive collision.  Unfortunately, his car’s battery was still in flat-out mode, and Bearman hit the barrier head-on with a force of 50 Gs.  How he survived is a miracle;  how his electric motor didn’t catch fire and turn him extra-crispy is a credit to the engineers who built the car.  Nor did his car crumple like a newspaper and turn his skeleton into soup.

Of course, the F1 organization recognized all this for the disaster it is, and have hurriedly put through a massive rules change.  They were fortunate in that next two Grand Prix races in Saudi Arabian peninsula had been canceled because Trump’s merry war on Iran had resulted in the latter sending missiles raining on the Gulf states — and nobody wanted to see battery-powered race cars having to take action to avoid incoming SCUDs, let alone their competitors’ cars, and F1 audiences in the stands deciding that watching electric go-karts play swapalongs would not be sufficient spectacle to keep them from being turned into hamburger by the aforementioned missiles.  So F1 caught a break, and having three weeks before the next race (Miami GP), changed a whole bunch of rules, making the thing even more complex than before.  (Please watch this video — it’s less than ten minutes long — to see the absolute clusterfuck that F1 racing has become.)

Why am I telling you all this?  Because after sixty-odd years of F1 fandom, I’ve decided that enough is enough.  I’m not interested in watching what F1 has become, I don’t like what F1’s owners, the foul Liberty Media, have created — four races in the Saudi Peninsula?  WTF? — and even worse, losing various countries’ Grand Prix races because European organizers can’t match those of the oil-rich Arabs.  I mean, the entire Grand Prix concept began in France, and there’s no room on the calendar for a French GP?  WTFF?

So I’m walking away.  I would say that I’ll content myself by watching the “highlights” videos on EeewChoob, but honestly, I don’t think there will be any highlights worth watching, anymore.

Here’s a thought:  throw away the stupid hybrid engines and go back to racing with real engines, the aforementioned V6 and V8 monsters, let the drivers race these cars to the utmost limit of mechanical and human performance, and make F1 watchable again.  Like it was in, say, 1975.  (And yes I know, the cars were deathtraps.  I’m not suggesting throwing out the entire car, just the stupid engines.)

I know, I know:  “You can’t stop progress, Kim;  you can’t go back to the old ways.”

And don’t suggest I try to follow other motor racing types, either.  Once you’ve watched Formula 1, all other car types resemble tortoises and hippos racing.  Even Le Mans, which I watch every year, all 24 hours at a time if there’s no highlights video, doesn’t begin to compare.

I think I’ll start watching horse racing instead.  That is, until Liberty Media buys them out, makes the owners strap rockets to their horses’ asses “to improve the spectacle”, and gets fifty racing tracks built in Saudi Arabia to host the new F1 Horse Racing Circuit, doing away with Belmont, Saratoga, Aintree and Epson in the process.

And speaking of horses’ asses:  so long, F1/Liberty Media — and AppleTV.  Neither of you is worth the trouble of supporting anymore.

New Direction, Wrong Direction

Corporate Fuckery, Management

Sometimes I wonder how people stay afloat.  Here’s the latest example:

Mercedes’ upcoming baby-G was supposed to be the cute, chunky electric-only gateway into G-Class ownership. But the automotive market is changing fast, and so are Benz’s plans, as it reacts to cooling demand for EVs in some markets, especially for its own electric cars. As a result, the boxy SUV will now come with hybrid power.

Internally nicknamed Little G, Autocar reports, the compact, GLB-sized, two-row off-roader is due in 2027 and will still be available as a pure EV. But a companion hybrid model is now in development, using the turbocharged four-cylinder from the latest Mercedes-Benz CLA sedan.

The change speaks to a wider reset inside Mercedes. The company has stepped back from its earlier EV-only plans, with CEO Ola Källenius confirming it will keep selling combustion models well into the 2030s to stay flexible across different markets. Tepid demand for the electric G-Class has, by most accounts, helped concentrate minds.

Okay, I would ordinarily be crowing at MB’s total stupidity in chasing after the Net Zero-inspired push to all–electric-and-only-electric mantra, and gleefully pointing at their corporate privates at having to change course.  Been there, done that.

But here’s where stupidity crosses the line into gibbering idiocy, because about that four-banger they’re going to use?

The hybridized 1.5-liter unit is designed by Mercedes and built by Horse Powertrain in China, a joint venture involving Geely and Renault.

So much for that vaunted German engineering and manufacturing prowess, hey?

Now let’s just talk a little about MB’s other idiocy, this time in marketing:

After years of speculation and teasers, Mercedes-Benz’s smaller G-Class is finally edging closer to production, The compact G-Wagen sticks closely to the blocky proportions of its full-sized counterpart, aiming to carry over much of its tough, go-anywhere character.

Shrunk in scale but not in identity, it’s being positioned to take on Land Rover’s downsized Defender in the growing premium off-roader market.

The whole point of the G-wagen is that it represented a badass vibe:  mil-spec toughness, powerful engine, and serious offroad capability.  The fact that it had the aerodynamic qualities of a brick and used gasoline faster than you could throw it out the window in 5-gallon cans was just another middle finger to the eco-fairies, and the G-wagen’s stratospheric price made its target market all the more likely to be use it mostly in suburban commuting rather than where it outperformed almost every other UV on the market:  in challenging offroad adventuring.

In short, the G-wagen was always just an exercise in conspicuous consumption (both of money and of fuel), as was (and is) the Range Rover.

What I find quite risible is that MB is going to use the “Baby G” (good name, guys) to compete with the effeminate new version of the Defender (on which I have poured scorn before).

Here’s what’s going to happen:  Baby G is going to cannibalize sales from Big G, not from the Defender.  And as Big G’s sales start to dip, the marketing rationale for Big G will likewise start to erode until MB has to pull it off the market.  And the massive profits currently earned by Big G will be replaced by the much-smaller profits from Baby G.

You heard it here first.

Interesting Take

Management, Seen On Campus

From Insty, talking about some guy who quit Notre Dame in disgust:

“Members of the managerial class care more about their reputation within that class than about the success of what they manage.”

(Please follow the link first so that the rest of what follows makes sense.)

Glenn’s absolutely correct, if the above is applied (as he does) to academia.

In the real world?  Not so much, because managers there need to ensure that their operation survives in the marketplace, which is more important than collegial reputation.  Perhaps an organization like Notre Dame can shrug off the resignation of one of its star performers, but it’s a rare business that can do so without suffering some form of service- or product degradation.  (Of course, nobody is irreplaceable, especially in a country like the U.S. which is blessed with an abundance — sometimes even a surplus — of talent.)

I would suggest, however, that in contemplating the above, the loss of a star senior manager for the reasons given by the Notre Dame professor (i.e. dissatisfaction with the corporate direction) should be read as an alarm bell by his erstwhile superiors — and it often is.

If that alarm bell is disregarded or belittled, however, there are generally speaking only a couple of reasons why this would be the case.

The first reason might be that the corporation is so rotten and the top executives so incompetent or misguided that the resignation may not only be accepted with a shrug, but welcomed.  If this is the case, then the corporation is doomed.  (Notre Dame, and by extension most of academia itself would be a prime example of this.  When student numbers fall because the product is too expensive and the product’s value is regarded as irrelevant — as with most non-STEM undergraduate degrees — and potential students are drawn instead to trade schools or industries which do not require a degree for admission, it’s hard to argue that a reassessment and redirection of the corporate mission or product isn’t critical.)

The second reason why the resignation of a key player wouldn’t be important to the corporation’s directors is that the value of their product is declining in the market, generally speaking.  It’s an extension of the first reason, of course, but what that says is that the upper management is either oblivious to that reality (i.e. truly incompetent) or else they are fully aware of that product’s decline, but are intent on riding the gravy train even if the train is heading for a distant cliff.  Given the advanced age of senior management in general, this would be entirely understandable albeit contemptible.  Why try to effect change to a long-revered product when that effort would be exhausting, and when your own tenure is soon to end anyway?

Now add to that mindset the fact that attempting to change your product would bring opprobrium and even resistance from your managerial peers in the market — no more invitations to industry conferences in Geneva or Fiji, reduced esteem in the rarified air of the industry oligarchy — and it’s easy to see why such change would be resisted.

And the larger the industry, the more difficult the change.  Imagine trying to change the corporate direction of Microsoft or Oracle, for example, and the scale of the thing becomes clear.

Now imagine the difficulty of changing the corporate direction and mission of an unimportant entity such as the United Nations.  In this situation, the resignation of a key manager — the United States — might well be injurious to the corporation;  but the mission (as it has been transformed from first principles) has become so entrenched in their Weltanschauung  that change would be regarded as not only impossible but destructive.

And by the way:  as with the United Nations, so too with academia.

Well There Ya Go (Part 2)

Business, Drive Time, Management

All-electric, huh?  Wasn’t that the call not even a year ago?  Looks like somebody may be having a change of heart:

Jaguar is reportedly considering performing a dramatic U-turn on its plans to become an exclusively electric car maker, according to reports.

Sources close to the project told the Sunday Times that bosses have instructed engineers in the UK to develop a new petrol-electric hybrid engine it can offer as an alternative option to customers in what would be a significant one eighty on its all-electric rebrand.

The ‘secret initiative’ is part of efforts to ‘soothe drivers’ concerns’ about range anxiety amid a slowdown in EV demand across several major markets, which has already triggered a number of manufacturers to delay their own plans to go all in on battery-powered cars.

And you can all stop that derisive laughter now, okay?

Welcome Back

Business, Management, Marketing / Advertising

This, I think, is Good News:

Long-defunct airline Pan Am is inching towards revival more than three decades after going out of business.

AVi8 Air Capital and Pan American Global Holdings, which owns the intellectual property rights to the Pan Am brand, have begun the certification process with the FAA. AVi8 announced they have completed a business plan for the brand’s revival efforts.

“Avi8 has assembled a world-class team to lead the certification effort and has received strong initial support from aircraft lessors and key vendors,” the company said on Thursday.

If all goes to plan, the company will be based out of Miami with a fleet of Airbus aircrafts*.

Right off the bat, let me say that I loved Pan Am, both the airline and its philosophy — well, before Juan Trippe chased after the lower-income market and cocked up the brand (as documented here).

I just hope that the New Pan Am doesn’t try to be another Spirit or JetBlue (joint motto:  We invented cheap ‘n nasty travel, and we never fail to rub your noses in that ), because that way lies utter, abject failure.

As I said earlier, Pan Am’s road to aviation success and profitability is not through the mass market, but by catering to the affluent traveler, with peerless customer service and spotless aircraft.  Like they used to.

Despite Pan Am’s earlier demise, their brand might still have some cachet left over, even now.  And if they relaunch and re-brand the airline back to its heritage and strengths (including — gasp! comely flight attendants and not grab-a-granny / tattooed slatterns, some overlap), I can almost guarantee they’ll do well.

Go for it, guys.  I for one look forward to your trip [sic] with great anticipation, and I hope that future passengers won’t be able to beat the experience…

And by the way:  resist the impulse to change your old logo.  It was wonderful then, and will serve you well now.

*Ummm… it’s aircraft not aircrafts — “aircraft” is both singular and plural, like “sheep” or “deer”, but let’s not have that interfere with the good news.

When The Market Bites Back

Corporate Fuckery, Management, Marketing / Advertising

Probably one of the first golden rules of business is “Never anger your existing customers, and never ignore those customers in chasing after new customers”.

I seem to bang on about this endlessly, but I’m always reminded of just how stupid management can be in ignoring that rule.

Now add on an unbelievably-stupid rationale for changing a company’s product line, and…

Wait.

There’s a much better way to look at this foolishness.

First, I invite you to watch Richard Hammond talking about some new Porsche he test drives at the old Top Gear track.  Because if you watch his glee and excitement, then this little video about Porsche’s idiocy becomes all the more understandable.  (Note especially the effect of Porsche’s marketing decisions on their share price and earnings.)

Nice one, dickheads.