On June 18th, 2023, a submersible called the Titan made its final trip down to the wreckage of Titanic (which is about 3800 meters beneath sea level). It was carrying five passengers, some of which had apparently paid serious money to be part of the voyage (tickets were reportedly 250k a pop). Somewhere along the way, something went wrong, the vessel imploded and the people on board died.
So why are we talking about this? Because the Titan submarine was the brainchild of an entitled silver spooned second-generation job creator known as Stockton Rush. He founded OceanGate which was the company that designed, built and operated the Titan. Funnily enough if you click through and look at Stockton’s wikipedia page, you’ll see that he was originally employed by McDonnell Douglas (the entity Boeing eventually merged with which now produces an epic fail line of space ships and airplanes) as a Test Flight Engineer.
But don’t be fooled, he wasn’t an engineer and he was never an engineer regardless of what his title indicated. He graduated from Princeton with an MBA. Like many kids he dreamed of growing up to become an astronaut, aviator or something along those lines. However unlike the rest of us his family had enough means for him to make something like that happen for himself regardless of how qualified he was or was not. So eventually Stockton starts a company where he builds his own sub. Then decides that he’ll charge rich assholes just like him 250k a pop to catch rides down to see the wreckage of the Titantic. Which on the surface, actually sounds really fucking cool if I’m being honest. But of course there is more to this tale than meets the eye.
Much like most of the leaders in the tech industry, Stockton was a corner cutter. Reality didn’t matter to him. It didn’t phase him that actual engineers told him that this would end badly. Because he kept right on doing what he wanted and how he wanted to do it and it always seemed to work out. Surely thats all the verification one needs right? Fuck physics. Fuck science. Fuck repeated and strenous verifaction of designs before subjecting them to unwitting customers. Fuck due diligence. Fuck taking responsibility. By all accounts, Stockton had multiple opportunities to correct course. Lots of people warned him that his approach was sub-par and could only end in tragedy. But he was rich. He had money. He had ego. He would absolutely not be denied under any circumstances.
So much like the cargo cult leaders aka tech executives of today do: He worked to “improve” his company’s culture by purging it of disagreement. Rather than confront disagreement in a sensible way by using legitimate tactics to win actual victories on the battleground of ideas, instead he just kind of forced people out who dared to put forth counter arguments. David Lochridge was one of those people at OceanGate… at least he was until 2018 when he was fired for raising what turned out to be very legitimate safety concerns:
David Lochridge, a Scottish submarine pilot, began working for OceanGate in Washington State in 2015, first as a contractor and then as director of marine operations, according to a 2018 claim he filed against the company, alleging that he was unfairly fired.
According to the claim, the company held a meeting in January 2018 about concerns over the quality control and safety of the Titan submersible, the 22-foot vessel now missing in the Atlantic Ocean after it dove Sunday morning with five people aboard.
Lochridge had alleged major safety issues: there had been almost no unmanned testing of the craft; the alarm system would only sound off “milliseconds” before an implosion; and the porthole was only certified to withstand pressure of 1,300 meters, even though OceanGate planned to take the submersible 4,000 meters underwater.
Fast forward to June of 2023: The Titan imploded and five passengers died, Stockton among them. Let me be stunningly clear here: Fuck Stockton Rush. I’m glad he is dead. I feel bad for the other people on the vehicle though, even the obnoxiously rich ones. With that being said, outside of the tragedy of the collateral damage (aka the passengers) there is at least some poetic justice in this story: Stockton got exactly what he deserved.
Buried among the tragedy inside the mountain of bad decisions lies a tiny tech tidbit that I can’t help but to be very amused about. The kind of corners that Stockton cut were really something else. Take the control mechanism for the craft for instance:
A video game controller is not that unusual of a navigation system for some craft or even things like military drone pilots, but in this case, it was a $30 Logitech PC controller. It was shown in videos about the sub before it launched with slightly modified thumbsticks, and is a Logitech G F710, currently available on Amazon as a “renewed” (refurbished) version for $30. The original has a 4.2/5 rating.
If you’ve ever used a video game controller, on or off-brand versions, you know that over time, they tend to degrade or can become unreliable. Looking at some reviews of this controller specifically, we can see that like all controllers this also can happen to this one:
“I bought this back in February and I’d like to say I game a decent amount on the daily on my pc. If, that’s also you then I highly recommend you shop around first. The buttons are already dying on me. It’s been a struggle.”
So most of you probably don’t know this, but the only item I own more variations of than mechanical keyboards, happens to be game controllers. Once upon a time, a younger and dumber ITF actually preferred these Logitech F710 controllers, but as of this moment he doesn’t own a single one. What happened? Well at some point I realized that they were crap. Keep in mind the F710 is a wireless controller and its powered by a couple of AA batteries. In any event, its RF capabilities were subpar at best. Lots of lag spikes. On top of that the D-Pad is terrible. Plus it chews through batteries. Who in their right mind wants to deal with that?
But technical criticism and elitism aside, what does the choice of controller prove? Saving $40 by buying a sub-par controller isn’t that big of a deal, right? Well maybe not. On the flip side though, maybe that controller ran out of batteries and they forgot to bring spares. Maybe that controller’s d-pad decided to give up the ghost on that particular day. Maybe there was some sort of undersea phenomena that interfered with the controller’s ability to communicate to its dongle via 2.4ghz. Maybe the controller just gave up the ghost altogether. We’ll probably never know.
The relevant point here is to demonstrate that Stockton probably didn’t buy that controller to save money, but probably because he genuinely thought it was a good option. Which demonstrates that rather than greed or malice he probably more driven by ego and the certainty that he generally knew best despite the fact he probably didn’t have a clue. If you fail at picking something as simple as a controller, what other likely more important and relevant choices did he fail at making? I’m guessing based on the testimony of his ex-employee, there were more than a few.
Okay fine, I hear you asking me again: Why are we talking about this, are you just dunking on the dead dipshit?
There is one big difference between Stockton Rush and the legion of big tech executives out there. That difference is that Stockton Rush was risking his own life right along with everybody elses because he just didn’t know enough to know that he was being malignant. Sadly the same can’t be said for famous big tech CEOs who continue to ignore all of the red flags, good advice and push onward and upward despite the obvious harms their products and policies are inflicting upon the world around them all while carefully avoiding subjecting themselves to any of the harm their products cause. Here are some relevant quotes:
“Get Rich or Die Tryin'”
– 50 Cent aka Curtis Jackson
“Either you’re slingin’ crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot”
– The Notorious B.I.G.
That’s how the tech world operates (and arguably capitalism as a whole). They don’t care about you. They don’t care about their customers. They don’t care about their employees. They don’t even care about their products. They don’t care about the environment, politics, freedom or the planet. They don’t care about anything except what lies between them and their next opportunity to exercise their stock options. If worse comes to worse, they’ll work their golden parachute in the most advantageous way possible all while sticking it to everybody else in the least desirable way possible on their way out the door.
Stockton Rush didn’t care either. But at least he had the decency to pay the price for his own malfeasance which puts him above all of the tech executives. For the most part, they don’t even have the decency to even pretend to subject themselves to their own radioactive failures. Do you think Insta and Facebook are gobbling up all of Zuck’s private data so that, in theory at least, he can see more relevant ads? LOL, fuck no! Do you honestly believe that Sam Altman, Satya Nadella or Sundar Pichai are unironically firing up their AI chat bots every morning and asking them for advice on real decisions that actual matter? LOL, fuck no! Do you think that Tim Cook is actually suffering through the face marring and stunningly uncomfortable experience of using a Vision Pro all day long to get his work done? LOL, fuck no!
So yeah I gotta give Stockton a little credit. At least he was decent (and arguably dumb) enough to put his own skin in the game. I guess if we are being fair we have to acknowledge on some level that makes him far less objectionable than any tech executive we can name between us. That counts for something, right?
Shit, maybe I will miss Stockton… just a little.
Of course, your milege may vary ;)