“The ego is a fascinating monster.” – Alanis Morrissett
Everyone will have a stubborn jackass for a boss one day, if they haven’t suffered one already.
Someone who won’t heed warnings from subordinates or follow basic rules. Someone who wants everything done on the cheap, yet demands top-dollar results. Someone who passionately insists they know every damn thing.
Sometimes the best thing to do is kick back and watch this fool implode.
Perhaps no such C-suite chucklehead has ever imploded as literally as OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who tragically piloted his slap-dash submarine to the Titanic and added himself and four other souls to this century-old, watery grave yard.
On Tuesday, the Coast Guard released a 327-page report detailing its two-year investigation into the June 2023 disaster that befell OceanGate’s Titan submarine.
It concluded that the disaster was preventable, and that Rush was so reckless that he’d likely be facing criminal charges – if he hadn’t, you know, imploded.
Read More from Business Blunders: Watery Grave
As Business Blunders observed in September following a 10-day public hearing on the debacle:
“The final analysis will show that OceanGate’s Titan submersible was a shoddy, carbon-fiber canister operated by an ego maniac with a video game controller. And for this OceanGate charged some passengers $250,000 a seat.”
The report confirmed that Rush checked all the boxes of a delusional and deceitful CEO. Here are just a few highlights:
“OceanGate's management, particularly Mr. Rush, fostered an organizational culture that increased operational risk and allowed financial pressures, operational demands, and mission specialist expectations, to override their Mission Director’s duties and authorities.”
“A false sense of safety and security was created by Mr. Rush through his misrepresentation of the TITAN's safety, achieved by falsely claiming substantial safety margins, misleading mission specialists regarding testing procedures, and exaggerating the number of hull test dives for the final TITAN hull.
“Mr. Rush, in his dual role as CEO and as the acting Master or Pilot of the TITAN submersible, exhibited negligence that contributed to the deaths of four individuals. As both a corporate executive responsible for the vessel’s operation and its Master during the casualty, Mr. Rush may have been subject to criminal liability.”
He was no ordinary submariner. He was a sub moron.
Have you suffered a boss like Stockton Rush? Probably not quite that bad, right? I’d love to read your story:
Stocking Dead
A Colorado funeral business owner pleaded guilty on Tuesday after collecting nearly $900,000 in Covid-19 relief funds and $130,000 from grieving customers … and then …
… and then … and then … stocking nearly 200 dead bodies inside their dilapidated building like cord wood and leaving them to rot.
Oh, but on the more positive side, they did send concrete powder to some families which kinda looked like ashes. Who’s going to check?
Carie Hallford, 48, of Colorado Springs pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and will be sentenced in December. Her co-conspirator husband, Jon Hallford, 45, was sentenced in June to 20 years in federal prison and ordered to pay over $1 million in restitution.
Their building in Penrose, Colo., was declared a toxic waste site and demolished. It was like a scene from “The Walking Dead.”
I’ll leave the cinematic details to CNN: “Investigators found bodies stacked atop each other, swarms of bugs and maggots, and so much liquid on the ground it had to be pumped out.”
They called their business “Return To Nature Funeral Home.” I suppose that in the end, we all return to nature – one way or the other.
Even CNBC can be duped
A former CNBC talking head just got five years in prison for securities fraud.
What? Do you mean CNBC is platforming charlatans? Hey, I used to work there. Say it ain’t so.
James Arthur McDonald Jr., 53, went on the run after scamming his investors out of millions of dollars. He was a paid contributor on CNBC as well as the CEO of two investment firms in Los Angeles: Hercules Investments and Index Strategy Advisors Inc.
Read More from Business Blunders: The Fugitive
He was also a lousy investor. He made a big bet that President Joe Biden was due for a downturn that never came. And he lost his clients between $30 million and $40 million,” according to the Justice Department.
But McDonald didn’t just lose his customers’ money. He misappropriated millions to pay for business expenses, rent, credit card bills and even a 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet for $174,000, prosecutors alleged.
Aggrandizing stock pickers is simply one of the worst things financial journalists do. Just sayin’.
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Brutal.
It's certainly unfortunate but it happens so often that people who purchase whatever want it so badly that they don't take the time to completely investigate it's history including it's pros and cons. This could have been avoided and lives saved if they did their due diligence.