5 ms·

One of my in-laws is a geologist who works for the oil companies, and he tells me in that industry almost all the big executives are engineers. Since he's been

One of my in-laws is a geologist who works for the oil companies, and he tells me in that industry almost all the big executives are engineers. Since he's been in the news, take Rex Tillerson. His degree is in engineering. Or take any of "the professions": law, accounting, medicine, business consulting, engineering firms. In all those cases you have "partners" who have moved into sales and management. Sometimes they are even still practicing too. Also I get the impression their management is more about giving expert direction to their team, rather than watching Gantt charts. Also when I read Skunk Works by Ben Rich, it sounded like the upper management had come up through engineering. So I don't think management-by-MBAs is necessarily the right thing for tech workers. The more you consider programming to be "knowledge work", the more it seems like managers should be experts in the field. Of course they will need to learn new skills---to lead, to manage, to design products, to sell, to hire, to budget, to read financial statements, etc.---but having that technical background seems very important.

analog31 10y ago
My hypothesis is that the MBA degree is largely valued by other people with MBA degrees, so you have pockets of high MBA concentration that grow within specific businesses. MBA's hire other MBA's, but also encourage their most promising subordinates to get MBA's.
- VLM 10y ago
  Progressive political views work the same way. As a more obscure example at a former nationwide financial services employer I was the only WAN engineer ever hired on to the team who wasn't involved in a specific niche of IPSC competitive handgun shooting. I got hired only because I was ex-military and the VP assumed I had experience with the 1911 platform (actually we had M9 by then) so I'd join the team once the paychecks rolled in. Its an expression of human nature in general.
- DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  > My hypothesis is that the MBA degree is largely valued by other people with MBA degrees, so you have pockets of high MBA concentration that grow within specific businesses. I have a friend who got a specialist business degree and then got an MBA. I don't really recall him ever really talking about what he studied or learned during the MBA, but he did talk a lot about networking. A lot of the program consisted of taking many foreign "educational" trips all over the world (networking with classmates) and then access to the alumni network was supposed to help you get a job. It really sounded more like a high-class job placement club than an educational pursuit. If that's how it actually is, I can totally see how a business can get colonized by MBAs once one gets his foot in the door. My friend himself is a good guy, but a couple of his classmates are some of the shallowest people I've ever met.
  - _jgvg 10y ago
    I have an undergrad in computer engineering, and an MBA from a top-10 or top-5 (depending who you ask) school. I learned a LOT from it, even though my experience after my undergrad degree was mostly in business. Businesses, finance markets are far more complex than people usually think, and if you like to learn, an MBA is a great way to build a solid base for being a product manager, or a director who actually understands the sides of the company: how products are made, how they are sold/monetized/etc. and how to manage the overall structure of the company. Sadly, I know a lot of great product managers, directors, etc. who are former engineers and have little understanding of competitive strategy, market forces, economics, marketing & finance. In terms of learning, I took a generalist approach, but focused mostly on strategy & game theory, finance and technology. Here's some of the key things I learned, which I actually use frequently: - Overconfidence bias: we usually think we're better than the average on something we know how to do (driving) and worse than the average in something we don't (juggling), even if almost nobody knows juggling and everyone knows how to drive - No alpha (aka can't beat the market): you can only consistently beat the market if you're far better at financial analysis than a lot of people who do it every day all day. So don't bother trying. - Value chain vs. profits: you'll find that most of the excess profits in the value chain of a product will be concentrated in the link that has the least competition - Non-linearity of utility functions: the utility of item n of something is smaller than item n-1. Also, the utility of losing $1 is smaller than (1/1000) utility of losing 1000. This explains insurance and lotteries: using linear utility function, both have a negative payout, but they make sense when the utility function isn't linear - Bullwhip effect in supply chain: a small variation in one link of the supply chain can cause massive impacts further up or down as those responsible for each link overreact to the variation (also explains a lot of traffic jams) - Little's law: in supply chain (and a lot of other fields): number of units in a system = arrival rate * time in the system Sadly, a lot of people in my class weren't that interested in learning, and focused solely on the networking and entertainment parts of the MBA.
    - losteverything 10y ago
      Book please. Link please. More please. Awesome reply.
- eli 10y ago
  You don't think any of the skills needed to manage people or businesses can be taught in school? I feel very fortunate that one of my cofounders has an MBA. We'd be much worse off if I had to build financial models and negotiate contracts and motivate the team myself. Having an MBA obviously doesn't automatically qualify you to manage a dev team (nor does being a good engineer), but speaking from my first hand experience, the skills have value.
  - analog31 10y ago
    I think the ability to manage either people or businesses varies all over the map, and between techies and MBA's, maybe it's like a pair of overlapping distributions. For managing people, I think that there are both positive and negative skills, and I'm not sure MBA's learn exclusively one kind in the absence of the other. Stack ranking and open plan offices had to have come from somewhere. Negotiating contracts is win-lose, so it's at best a coin toss. I could see certain tasks being performed by someone who has shown a motivation to learn how, such as making business plans, schedules, and contracts. The MBA's at my workplace are certainly busy. But it could be selection bias: People with MBA's are selected from among people who want to learn those skills.
misiogames 10y ago
In big oil, most execs have a degree in engineering but they go up the ranks after they got their MBA's, look at Rex's replacement --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Woods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Woods
saryant 10y ago
Tillerson's predecessor Lee Raymond (who had a far bigger impact on the industry) had a PhD in chemical engineering.
kamaal 10y ago
Unlike programming/software engineering most engineering managers in other domains have other work to do than just approve leaves/vacations and forward emails. You can't do real work without real experience.

analog31 10y ago

My hypothesis is that the MBA degree is largely valued by other people with MBA degrees, so you have pockets of high MBA concentration that grow within specific businesses. MBA's hire other MBA's, but also encourage their most promising subordinates to get MBA's.

VLM 10y ago
Progressive political views work the same way. As a more obscure example at a former nationwide financial services employer I was the only WAN engineer ever hired on to the team who wasn't involved in a specific niche of IPSC competitive handgun shooting. I got hired only because I was ex-military and the VP assumed I had experience with the 1911 platform (actually we had M9 by then) so I'd join the team once the paychecks rolled in. Its an expression of human nature in general.
DashRattlesnake 10y ago
> My hypothesis is that the MBA degree is largely valued by other people with MBA degrees, so you have pockets of high MBA concentration that grow within specific businesses. I have a friend who got a specialist business degree and then got an MBA. I don't really recall him ever really talking about what he studied or learned during the MBA, but he did talk a lot about networking. A lot of the program consisted of taking many foreign "educational" trips all over the world (networking with classmates) and then access to the alumni network was supposed to help you get a job. It really sounded more like a high-class job placement club than an educational pursuit. If that's how it actually is, I can totally see how a business can get colonized by MBAs once one gets his foot in the door. My friend himself is a good guy, but a couple of his classmates are some of the shallowest people I've ever met.
- _jgvg 10y ago
  I have an undergrad in computer engineering, and an MBA from a top-10 or top-5 (depending who you ask) school. I learned a LOT from it, even though my experience after my undergrad degree was mostly in business. Businesses, finance markets are far more complex than people usually think, and if you like to learn, an MBA is a great way to build a solid base for being a product manager, or a director who actually understands the sides of the company: how products are made, how they are sold/monetized/etc. and how to manage the overall structure of the company. Sadly, I know a lot of great product managers, directors, etc. who are former engineers and have little understanding of competitive strategy, market forces, economics, marketing & finance. In terms of learning, I took a generalist approach, but focused mostly on strategy & game theory, finance and technology. Here's some of the key things I learned, which I actually use frequently: - Overconfidence bias: we usually think we're better than the average on something we know how to do (driving) and worse than the average in something we don't (juggling), even if almost nobody knows juggling and everyone knows how to drive - No alpha (aka can't beat the market): you can only consistently beat the market if you're far better at financial analysis than a lot of people who do it every day all day. So don't bother trying. - Value chain vs. profits: you'll find that most of the excess profits in the value chain of a product will be concentrated in the link that has the least competition - Non-linearity of utility functions: the utility of item n of something is smaller than item n-1. Also, the utility of losing $1 is smaller than (1/1000) utility of losing 1000. This explains insurance and lotteries: using linear utility function, both have a negative payout, but they make sense when the utility function isn't linear - Bullwhip effect in supply chain: a small variation in one link of the supply chain can cause massive impacts further up or down as those responsible for each link overreact to the variation (also explains a lot of traffic jams) - Little's law: in supply chain (and a lot of other fields): number of units in a system = arrival rate * time in the system Sadly, a lot of people in my class weren't that interested in learning, and focused solely on the networking and entertainment parts of the MBA.
  - losteverything 10y ago
    Book please. Link please. More please. Awesome reply.
eli 10y ago
You don't think any of the skills needed to manage people or businesses can be taught in school? I feel very fortunate that one of my cofounders has an MBA. We'd be much worse off if I had to build financial models and negotiate contracts and motivate the team myself. Having an MBA obviously doesn't automatically qualify you to manage a dev team (nor does being a good engineer), but speaking from my first hand experience, the skills have value.
- analog31 10y ago
  I think the ability to manage either people or businesses varies all over the map, and between techies and MBA's, maybe it's like a pair of overlapping distributions. For managing people, I think that there are both positive and negative skills, and I'm not sure MBA's learn exclusively one kind in the absence of the other. Stack ranking and open plan offices had to have come from somewhere. Negotiating contracts is win-lose, so it's at best a coin toss. I could see certain tasks being performed by someone who has shown a motivation to learn how, such as making business plans, schedules, and contracts. The MBA's at my workplace are certainly busy. But it could be selection bias: People with MBA's are selected from among people who want to learn those skills.

misiogames 10y ago

In big oil, most execs have a degree in engineering but they go up the ranks after they got their MBA's, look at Rex's replacement --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Woods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Woods

saryant 10y ago

Tillerson's predecessor Lee Raymond (who had a far bigger impact on the industry) had a PhD in chemical engineering.

kamaal 10y ago

Unlike programming/software engineering most engineering managers in other domains have other work to do than just approve leaves/vacations and forward emails. You can't do real work without real experience.