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Ask HN: How do you deal with MBA-types who degrade what you do?
I'm a self-taught programmer, and I constantly come across MBA-types who think that building software is blue-collar, "hire-an-Indian" labor. I even experience this within my family. "It's not that hard," "Coder monkey," "It's just a website, anybody can do that" are all phrases I hear and it's making me feel like total shit. I don't feel like what I'm doing is that easy. When I think someone else has it easy, I don't open my mouth and berate that person.
Their only exception is for people who work at large enterprise-y software companies: "Oh, you should talk to Joe, he writes all the software at Oracle. He's so smart. I bet you could learn a thing or two from him." I'm not opposed to learning from anyone, but the people they're impressed with are more often than not, not very good.
Have any of you experienced this type of sentiment among family or peers? Does it make you feel as shitty as it makes me feel?
Sorry, had to vent. :P
- PaulHoule 10y agoIt is a real issue. Even though "software is eating the world" technical folks often face a "glass ceiling" and have to take orders from people who just don't understand. In my extended family too I have some relatives who think I should be doing something better.
- LeoSolaris 10y agoThere are entire industries built around programming and IT. There are precisely zero industries built around pure management. Any loud idiot with a smattering of charm can be a manager. Children at McDonald's get promoted to manager all the time. Hierarchical management and bureaucracy are antique methods of communication within businesses. Now they only serve as information gatekeepers. They have delusions of being more important because they talk to people "higher up the chain"... who are doing exactly the same thing they do for more money. The MBA exists to keep the numbers down by making it artificially expensive to get your foot in the door anywhere decent. It requires zero real thought, originality, or skill. Just parrot a few cliched profundities and buzzwords, get a cheap suit and a clean haircut, then you're golden. The HR people will be swooning. At least programmers create something new from raw logic and math! Sure, cheap and low skilled alternatives exist... Because the pace of IT requires making the basic tools easy to learn and free. This does make the barrier to entry low. Just like real leaders, good programmers are in a league of their own. They take the basic tools and build completely new tools that make others more efficient in their jobs. With good IT team innovating, everyone's toolsets grow, which allows the company to do more than they could before. Meanwhile, the low skilled turn out the same precise package with a tiny change over and over. They just keep things working with no additional value while the company as a whole falls behind their competition. There are far more genius level intellects who program than there are climbers of corporate ladders. Why waste the time? Learn enough as a programmer and build your own company. Every business needs IT for both support and innovation in today's economy. On the other hand, management rarely ever innovates. They simply get the resources for the people who do, then try to claim the glory of their hard work. Teams can work just fine with very little to no management. Businesses collapse without strong IT. Just look at the number of Fortune 500 companies from the 50's that have closed in the last 15 years. Management has no bearing on positive growth at best, and at worst will actively derail a company's future for a buck. IT has the power to make meaningful contrabutions to the company's bottom line right now and contribute towards future growth by creating the tools needed for that growth. The concept of hierarchical management and their "middle managers" is dead. The lessons taught by MBA degrees don't reflect this reality, nor do the numbers of MBA graduates. Without some careful limiting, the MBA will be the next Art or Literature degree. Basic market supply saturation effects. Outsourcing is the balancing to IT's power over companies. Remember, most companies that did outsource suffered in the long run.
- coreyp_1 10y agoTell them to write the software themselves. Then, when they say that they can't, tell them that most of the rest of the world can't, either. There's a reason that it's a specialty. Whether or not you are as good as an expert does not matter. Whether or not you are good enough to do the job that they can't do for themselves, does.
- mankash666 10y agoI don't think this behavior is restricted to the MBA types. That said, I don't think you should pay heed to everyone's opinion on things. There are those who believe evolution is fiction and global warming a left wing conspiracy. You can't spend your energy fighting obvious falsehoods. On the contrary, you can channel their ignorance to push you to be more overtly "successful", if such a thing exists. Getting richer than them might be one way, and software has certainly been one of the top sources of wealth in recent times.