Do recent events at Boeing and WeWork mean that American corporations can no longer afford to give the CEO job and the board chairman job to the same person?

To recap: during Dennis Muilenburg’s just-concluded tenure as both CEO and chairman of Boeing, Co., the nation’s 28^th largest corporation attempted to contain costs and speed regulatory approval by outfitting its flagship airliner with a flawed flight control system. It then failed to tell pilots and the FAA about the flaws, despite apparently knowing about them.

These choices resulted in two plane crashes, the grounding of almost 500 planes worldwide, company losses that will exceed $7 billion, and the loss of 346 lives. Apparently seeing a connection between these results and the decision to let one man try to perform two jobs, the board removed Muilenburg as board chairman.

Meanwhile, during the last three and a half years of Adam Neumann’s just-concluded tenure as both CEO and chairman of WeWork, the office subleasing start-up’s financial reports regularly showed it spending two dollars for every dollar earned. The corporation’s commitment to this burn rate during those years resulted in operating losses that exceed $4 billion.

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