I hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving and hopefully found some killer savings on Black Friday!

This week, we turn to Boeing, a name that has meant reliability, engineering excellence, and innovation for more than a century. Today, however, Boeing is facing the most defining moment in its history. It is trying to regain something that once felt unbreakable. The trust of regulators, airlines, the flying public, and its own employees.

Boeing’s story is not just about manufacturing failure or corporate missteps. It is about identity. It is about a company that once built its culture on precision and safety, then slowly drifted away from what made it great. Now, Boeing stands at a crossroads, trying to rebuild not only its aircraft, but its soul.

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Boeing began in 1916 with wooden seaplanes, a small workshop, and an ambitious dream. Founded by William Boeing, a timber businessman turned aviation enthusiast, the company entered the world at a time when flight was still a thrilling experiment. Over the decades that followed, Boeing helped transform aviation from a daredevil pursuit into a global infrastructure.

By the mid-20th century, Boeing wasn’t just a plane company. It was a defining force in American innovation. The 707 made jet travel mainstream. The 747 reshaped global mobility, turning the world into something that felt smaller, more connected, more accessible. Boeing’s aircraft carried presidents, families, business travelers, freight, and soldiers. They became part of the fabric of international society.

The company’s culture was built on engineering excellence. It recruited the best minds from universities and the military. Its engineers weren’t simply designing airplanes. They were advancing human capability. Everything about Boeing’s identity reinforced the idea that safety and technical rigor came first. Profit was a byproduct of performance.

That culture didn’t just foster innovation. It created trust. Airlines trusted Boeing to deliver aircraft that performed exactly as promised. Pilots trusted Boeing to keep them safe. Passengers trusted Boeing without even thinking about it. Trust was Boeing’s currency, and the company earned it through decades of consistency.

But even the strongest cultures can shift slowly, quietly, and dangerously.

The turning point came gradually. When Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997, the company entered a new era. The leadership mindset began shifting from engineering-driven to financially-driven. The balance between technical mastery and shareholder performance tilted toward cost control, efficiency metrics, and production speed.

This shift was not immediate, nor was it malicious. It was subtle and cumulative, the kind of change that happens when a company grows so large that its priorities stretch in different directions. Yet culture is like gravity. Once it starts to shift, everything else begins to follow.

Boeing’s workforce began to feel the pressure. Engineers raised concerns about production timelines. Quality control processes became strained. The company increasingly emphasized meeting delivery schedules, protecting margins, and staying competitive with Airbus. The result was an erosion of the internal culture that had once defined Boeing’s excellence.

This cultural drift reached its breaking point with the 737 MAX crisis. Two tragic crashes in 2018 and 2019 revealed deep failures in communication, oversight, and decision-making. Boeing went from being the world’s most trusted aircraft maker to the center of global scrutiny. Airlines grounded hundreds of aircraft. The FAA, once deeply aligned with Boeing, took a more aggressive regulatory stance. International regulators demanded stricter certification. Pilots and unions voiced anger and disbelief.

Most devastating of all, the public began to question something unimaginable only a decade earlier. Whether Boeing planes were safe.

Trust, built over a century, evaporated almost overnight.

Today, Boeing is in the middle of a long rebuild. This is not a story of immediate redemption. It is a story of humility, reflection, and the slow, deliberate work required to restore confidence.

One of the most significant steps Boeing has taken is committing to slower, more intentional production. In an industry where speed once represented competitive advantage, Boeing is choosing to step back. Slowing production lines allows the company to reintroduce the discipline and rigor that once defined its operations. It also signals something important. That safety is not something to rush.

Boeing is investing heavily in engineering talent once again. Many veterans who left the company have been invited back. New pipelines are being built with universities. The message is clear. Boeing cannot rebuild quality without rebuilding the expertise behind it. Engineering, not financial optimization, must guide the company’s future.

Quality oversight has expanded dramatically. Inspections that were once sampled are now more comprehensive. Internal auditing teams have been strengthened. The FAA has increased its presence inside Boeing’s facilities, and instead of resisting, Boeing has embraced the partnership. This level of transparency, while difficult and sometimes uncomfortable, is a necessary foundation for rebuilding credibility.

Supplier relationships have also become a central focus. Aircraft are complex ecosystems built from systems manufactured around the world. In the years leading up to the MAX crisis, supplier pressure mirrored the internal pressure Boeing faced. Now the company is working more closely with partners, supporting their quality initiatives, and committing to more collaborative timelines.

Above all, Boeing is taking responsibility for repairing its internal culture. Leadership is talking more openly about mistakes. Employees are encouraged to speak up. Whistleblower protections are strengthened. There is a renewed push to ensure that technical concerns reach decision-makers early and clearly. Culture does not change through press releases. It changes through decisions, habits, and the behaviors leaders reward or reject.

Rebuilding trust is not an engineering task. It is a human one.

There is a reason Boeing’s rebuild story matters, even to people who will never step foot inside a factory or design a single aircraft. Boeing is a living example of what happens when a company’s identity drifts from its foundation. And it is a case study in how painful and slow the path back can be.

The simplest truth is that Boeing forgot what made it great. It forgot that safety and excellence were not slogans. They were the core of its existence. Without them, the company’s legacy meant very little. Culture can support greatness, but it can also erode it if misaligned with a company’s mission.

This is where the real lesson lies. Companies do not collapse because of one bad decision. They collapse because many small choices slowly distance them from their purpose. In Boeing’s case, the shift toward financial priorities over engineering principles created cracks that eventually widened into crisis.

The rebuild shows the opposite pattern. Trust is regained through consistency, not declarations. Through humility, not defensiveness. Through investing in people, not just processes. Boeing is learning that trust cannot be restored by saying the right things. It can only be restored by proving them over time.

For founders and operators, this serves as a powerful reminder. No company is too large to lose its way. No brand is too iconic to be questioned. And no amount of past success can protect a company from the consequences of forgetting its core identity. The businesses that last are the ones that remain anchored in their purpose, especially when pressured to drift.

Boeing is not fixed yet. But it is trying. And that matters. The company’s willingness to slow down, to accept scrutiny, to rebuild culture, and to recommit to engineering excellence shows that long-term endurance requires courage. Not the courage to act quickly, but the courage to act correctly.

In many ways, Boeing’s story is a reminder that being built to last does not mean being perfect. It means being willing to confront the truth and change.

Boeing’s rebuild is one of the most important corporate transformations happening today. It is the story of a giant learning to be humble. A company rediscovering the principles that once made it a global leader. And a culture trying to regain its footing after losing sight of its purpose.

The path forward will not be fast. Trust rarely returns quickly. But Boeing is doing what companies must do when their foundation cracks. It is slowing down. It is listening. It is rebuilding. And in that process, it is rediscovering the identity that allowed it to last more than one hundred years.

I would love to hear your thoughts and who should we explore next week.

Thanks for reading, sharing, and being part of the Built to Last community. Until next time!

— The Built To Last Team