Samsung killed the Note 7 today. Not “recalled” — KILLED. Dead product line. The replacement units for the fire-prone phones (#090) ALSO caught fire, including one on an airliner, and after a second recall in two months Samsung pulled the plug on the whole model: production halted, refunds for everyone, an estimated multi-billion-dollar write-off. The engineering post-incident question is brutal and familiar: the first RCA blamed one battery supplier, they switched suppliers, and the fires continued — which means the root cause analysis was WRONG while the fix shipped at global scale. A postmortem that names the wrong cause is worse than no postmortem; it converts confidence into fuel. (Literally, here.)
Airlines now announce the phone by name pre-flight. That’s a new tier of incident severity: FAA-recognized.
Elsewhere: Google went full hardware — the Pixel launch event pitched “made by Google” phones with the Assistant baked in, plus Home, plus Daydream VR. Google copying Apple’s integration playbook while Apple copies Google’s services playbook; the giants are converging on the same shape from opposite directions.
F1 title fight: ALIVE and terrifying between Hamilton and Rosberg. More in fifteen days, when I will either be insufferable or inconsolable.
TIL: RCA validation — how do you TEST that your root cause is THE cause before scaling the fix? Samsung’s answer arrived on fire. Reproduce before you remediate. Slow is smooth.