“Move Fast and Break Stuff” Can Be Deadly

"Move fast and break stuff," was the mantra of early California tech companies. And it is OK if you're making the next version of "Angry Birds," or the next generation of social media software, because no one is likely to die. It is not so good is people's lives are on the line. OceanGate: The 18 warnings Stockton Rush ignored before fatal Titanic trip | Daily Mail Online. OK, here's another post that was stuck in drafts while I dealt with stuff...

There is a list of times, dating back to 2018, where people tried to convince Stockton Rush that he was courting death. He ignored them.

Leaders in the field of deep-sea exploration even wrote to the father-of-two in 2018 - five years before the ill-fated voyage - warning the company's 'experimental' methods could end in a 'catastrophic' disaster.

But instead of heeding the warnings, Rush shrugged them off, even suggesting that to question the Titan's safety credentials was 'personally insulting' to him as he branded claims he was 'going to kill someone' as 'baseless'.

Hitting back, Rush went as far as saying he was 'tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation' as he appeared resentful of the 'obscenely safe' regulations he viewed as an obstacle to development and innovation.

I often say that I love it when politicians pretend they are engineers. I don't really, because it usually costs me money. When billionaires pretend, it costs people their lives. What qualifications did Mr. Rush have to discount the "obscenely safe" regulations? None, aside from his wealth. And it would be one thing if he was the only one to pay for his hubris. He wasn't.

The red flag was signalled by leading deep-sea exploration specialist Rob McCallum who urged Rush to stop using the sub until an independent body assessed it.

According to the emails, he told Rush he was 'mirroring that famous cry' of the Titanic's builders: 'She is unsinkable'.

Rush, a self-proclaimed innovator, knocked back the concerns and raged he was 'tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation'.

He was proud of the fact that ignored the experts.

You're remembered for the rules you break and you know, I've broken some rules'. This was, perhaps, one of the most prophetic comments made by Stockton Rush before he was killed on his doomed submersible.

Rush fired a whistleblower, because safety doesn't matter. He ignored industry experts because, "How dare you disagree with Stockton Rush!" Or something. He died because he thought he knew better than those experts based only on his net worth.

I wonder how he viewed the sentence, "Trust the science." He probably liked it more than trust the engineering.

He was not the first person to be killed by hubris, and he will not be the last.