Not just human decency. We all know that some CEOs will sacrifice your child for their goal. In fact, many people are ready to sacrifice other people children as long as they are distant enough, war wouldn't be a thing if we didn't.
But saying it out loud is another thing, it is, to me, a terrible blunder in terms of communication, and executives who talk like that should 100% get fired. They are the face of the company, what they say and how they say it matters. Maybe it matters even more than the technical part of their job. If they get a pass for saying things like that, that's even worse, because it means that it is what the shareholders and customers want to hear.
See the guidelines “Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.”
Just because this story points out that one executive many years ago said something very unsavory is not a generalization for all executives.
I don't know why it's so hard to believe. It's well established that people say (and do) very nasty stuff when under stress (see: war). It's also well established that people with power tend to minimize the distress of those less powerful. Between these two, how hard is it to imagine that some mandarin at Boeing would say something like this if he thinks his bonus/summer house/childrens' private school tuition are in jeopardy?
Of course there is not zero percent chance executive said it. If you dont believe so, you never listened to what people including executives actually say in practice.
But saying it out loud is another thing, it is, to me, a terrible blunder in terms of communication, and executives who talk like that should 100% get fired. They are the face of the company, what they say and how they say it matters. Maybe it matters even more than the technical part of their job. If they get a pass for saying things like that, that's even worse, because it means that it is what the shareholders and customers want to hear.