Virtually all marine vessels are certified by organizations such as the American Bureau of Shipping, DNV, or Lloyd’s Register, which ensure that they are built using approved materials and methods and carry appropriate safety gear. It has been widely reported that Rush was dismissive of such certification, but what has not been made public until now is that OceanGate pursued certification with DNV (then known as DNV GL) in 2017—until Rush saw the price. “[DNV] informed me that this was not an easy few thousand dollar project as [it] had presented, but would cost around $50,000,” he later wrote in an email to Rob McCallum, a deep-sea explorer who had also signed Kohnen’s letter.
Later in article:
Reality was more prosaic. Like most startups, OceanGate was in constant need of funds. Rush was trying to save money wherever he could. Interns, who made up around a third of the engineering team, were paid as little as $13 an hour. (When a manager pointed out in 2016 that Washington’s minimum wage was just $9.47 an hour, Rush responded, “I agree we are high. $10 seems fair.”) Rush also downgraded the sub’s titanium components from aerospace grade 5 quality to weaker and cheaper grade 3, says one former employee.
I knew they were being cavalier about safety, but didn’t realize they were penny pinching to this degree.
It’s nice to see a billionaire die because he was a cheap cunt lol, also he took a few other billionaires with him, solid work buddy
The dude in charge wasn’t even a billionaire. He was just some founder whose company wasn’t doing all that well, financially. I think his peak net worth was something like $25 million, and that was mostly in stock in his doomed company. $25 million is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s also not quite enough money to explain the dude’s arrogance.
$50,000 for that certification sounds cheap.
Behind the Bastards did Stockton Rush
Shocked? Absolutely not. Disturbed? Nope, content that some rich no clue CEO idiot went yolo? Perhaps
I mean, the only thing that shocked me, honestly, was that millionaires were willing to get inside that thing.
I mean. It looked like a giant fleshlite.
So, haven’t seen pictures of all the billionaires rockets yet huh?
Rockets are always phallic. And yes, I make fun of them for it too.
Dildo actually. Not flesh light. But maybe during the implosion for a split nano second.
I do feel for the 19 year old who was rightfully terrified of the thing but went on because his dad wanted to bond
Yeah I feel for them as well, because the kid was essentially forced into a one way trip they will never come back from because of their father emotionally guilt tripping them into it
Oh, so more than 1 billionaire? That’s just better.
Wait, three rich ppl were there as customers?
This thing is actually more efficient than I gave it credit.Can we do another one? Beer barrels are probably strong enough for this!
Can we get a GoFundMe going to make more of these billionaire wealth redistributors?
we’re millions saying “eat the rich” with zero success so far. And one dumb guy with a PS5 controller took 4 of them in a sweeping move
I can’t believe all the warning signs
The only shocking thing is that the rich idiot who said “fuck you” to all the safety standards actually suffered consequences.
Too bad he took a 19-year-old with him :/
Which character does James Earl Jones play
He’s the voice of the sub.
You beat me to it, but HELL YES!
That’s terrible. I love it.
I love how the AI art understands that there should be more stuff in a sub. There’s pipes and wires in that image, where on the now crushed sub, it was a smooth room into which they were bolted. Even the AI image controller has a wire on it.
In January 2018, Lochridge sent Rush a quality-control inspection report detailing 27 issues with the vehicle, from questionable O-ring seals on the domes and missing bolts to flammable materials and more concerns about its carbon-fiber hull. Rush fired him the next day. (Although Lochridge later made a whistleblower report to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration about Titan, Rush sued him for breach of contract. The settlement of that lawsuit resulted in Lochridge dropping his complaint, paying OceanGate nearly $10,000, and signing an NDA. Lochridge did not respond to WIRED.)
Ugh
He may have been sued unjustly, but he also isn’t currently a paste at the bottom of the ocean, so who is really laughing now?
You can get sued for putting in a osha complaint? Doesn’t that defeat like the entire purpose of osha?
How can you hear “o-ring issue” and not shit your pants? Did we learn nothing from Challenger?
I’m not a gastroenterologist, but I do believe when you have an o-ring issue you specifically do shit your pants.
I hope he feels it was worth the trouble and the $10k to try to do the right thing and reveal the corruption in the system.
i hope he at least feels vindicated by what happened
My favorite part was the qualified engineer sending him the stress curve graph with the likely crush depth zone marked with literal skull and crossbones and he apparently just ignored it and chose to exceed those depths anyway.
*hits the projected crush depth and doesn’t crush*
“HA I knew it was fine!”
*descends 12 more feet*
*implodes*
You think it was like a "glug!’ sound? Or maybe more like a pop or a clap sound?
I like to imagine it sounded like this:
Surprise surprise big tech company ceo turns out to be a self-entitled, I know it all, asshole. If only it always had negative outcomes on billionaires cause usually it is the exact opposite. Normally they float and common people drown.
I mean given that these guys have lich levels of drive for success and living forever and yet can be so self absorbed in their clearly unjustified and uninformed ideas about very technical topics, that they can literally march themselves and their siblings to certain death. This just proves that they have the capacity to destroy the Earth in the most obvious way and yet not realize it. Like “I am sure a single nuke to China will be fine they have billions” level of stupidity I am talking about here.
I remember a lot of giggling, not as much shock.
I do like the idea of how the billionaires who died didn’t understand that their own hatred of quality control standards applied to every other corporation including the ones they have to rely on for their safety.
I got a good laugh out of it. wouldn’t call it shock.
Did Stockton Rush at least get his Darwin Award? Or is that only for people who do not murder others?
Imagine turning yourself into pink mist for this idiot lmao
Did he have kids?
I hope not!
2 according to Wikipedia
I wished this happened to Bezos and Musk on their space penises. But I’ll take these billionaires.
But it’s still as narcissisticly stupid as we already know it was.
