Podcasts · The Jordan Harbinger Show

1404: Alex Davies | The Grizzly Truth About How Safety Gets Tested

27 Oct 2026 · 1 h 40 min · Episode 1404

Alex Davies explains why "user error" often hides a design failure, and how testers — from grizzlies to toddlers — keep the modern world from breaking.

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1404

What We Discuss with Alex Davies:

• How Kobuk the Destroyer, an orphaned grizzly at a Montana bear sanctuary, became the gold standard for certifying products as bear-resistant — and why a wild bear named Yellow-Yellow still cracked canisters that had passed the test. • Why every good test must balance real-world similarity against repeatability, and how the de Havilland Comet’s earlier maximum-pressure test unknowingly strengthened its test fuselage, producing false confidence before the jets began exploding midair. • What the factor of safety means for airplane wings (1.5), steel mill cranes, and elevator hoist cables (11 or 12), and why these margins are negotiated compromises rather than numbers handed down on stone tablets. • How shifting from “user error” to “use error” — redesigning B-17 landing-gear buttons, morphine pump interfaces, and table saws like SawStop — beats warning labels, which sit at the very bottom of the safety hierarchy. • How to borrow a product tester’s mindset: ask what mistake your setup is counting on you never making, then change it so that mistake is harder to make or less costly when it happens — because “I’ll just be more careful” is a terrible safety feature. • And much more...

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Links in the notes 3

• https://jordanharbinger.com/1404
• https://art19.com/privacy
• https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info