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The modern MBA is so efficient that is has optimized out research and development and many times the building part, which leads back to r&d. This is great for s

The modern MBA is so efficient that is has optimized out research and development and many times the building part, which leads back to r&d. This is great for short-term and the upper end, bad long-term and for the core product. A big part of the equation missing today is longer term consumer strength i.e. wages, community impact, continue self-disruption/research etc. Startups usually do most of the r&d now, and once it gets to small/mid level and "the process" comes in, the bizdevs take over after it is usually already an established product and r&d mostly completed. Depending on the balance of that takeover it either kills the product, slowly bleeds it, or if the focus is still on product then sometimes a super growth engine. Companies that can keep a focus on r&d, building and changing markets while being very efficient are key. Usually these are engineer led (Amazon, Tesla, Google etc)

tommynicholas 9y ago
No MBA was EVER designed for the R&D part of building a company. I'm constantly surprised at the myth that an MBA has anything to do with teaching you to start or even run a company. MBA's are designed to train middle managers because the modern "firm" realized great middle managers were really valuable (aka they'd pay them a lot) but hard and risky to train. That's where the MBA program comes from. MBA's are ANTITHETICAL to entrepreneurship. That doesn't mean an MBA doesn't have value towards starting a company, just like a degree in economics or history aren't irrelevant to starting a company. But it's not what it's for, in fact, it's for the opposite thing.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- inopinatus 9y ago
  This is a gross generalisation (by which I mean, I think you are wrong). My MBA set me up perfectly to quit my job and launch a startup. Maybe yours was designed to turn out middle managers. Mine wasn't. I had ten elective subjects and they were all towards starting and growing a service business. And the core subjects have proved an invaluable primer in many matters of strategy and day-to-day operations, ones in which I would otherwise be winging it.
  - sh87 9y ago
    Launching a startup does not equal R&D. They have things in common but they aren't the same. And the only convenient thing, I believe, a full time MBA provides is a starting point to build your network.
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    On average MBA's are less likely to start a business than someone from the general population, you are the exception.
    - noway421 9y ago
      Than an average engineer? Maybe. An average someone from general population? Citation needed.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      From FT: Overall, 19 per cent of MBA graduates from the class of 2012 started their own company. This is the average over all schools in their global ranking, and the US has most positions in the top 25 [1]. Meanwhile, only ~300 persons for every 100k start companies per month in the US [2]. Even assuming none start more than one per four years (which is doubtful), that's only 14.4% of the overall population over four years. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/cbd9b418-314c-11e6-bda0-04585c31b153#axzz4CiB1NKyn https://www.ft.com/content/cbd9b418-314c-11e6-bda0-04585c31b... [2] http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research%20reports%20and%20covers/2015/05/kauffman_index_startup_activity_national_trends_2015.pdf http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research%20repo...
    - tommynicholas 9y ago
      This is irrelevant to my point, just to be clear. Whether they're effective at creating founders is debatable, whether they're designed to create founders is not.
      - inopinatus 9y ago
        You made a false and sweeping statement, and now you're doubling down on it with ever more preposterous absolutes. Your understanding is evidently limited to a grossly distorted and narrow perspective on the MBA curriculum. In reality, business schools around the world turn out people who are qualified to start and run a company, and this includes R&D processes. Some people may choose electives that lead to middle-management, but others can and do choose electives in starting up, product development, service process design, negotiations etc etc.
- Animats 9y ago
  It's said of the Harvard Business School that it trains people for two jobs: President and Chairman of the Board.
  - triplesec 9y ago
    ..which demonstrated that it's primarily about the network, and not about what you're learning
- khuey 9y ago
  If that's all true then why did Harvard open a school to train middle managers?
iliketosleep 9y ago
Efficient? You’re too generous. I’d call them short-sighted, or even go as far as to call them looters: they are people who gut companies (again, the word “optimize” is too generous!) to boost short-term profits and line their pockets at the expensive of long-term viability in ways you mentioned (cutting out R&D, building of product, etc.)
- myutil 9y ago
  I call them robots. The robots are great at doing one thing well by hook or crook. Problem is with scale and speed that come with large orgs, the good little robots follow their programming and over optimize the heck out of one little variable. The environment has no time to adapt. Massive unrecoverable collateral damage happens. But the robots are all very pleased with themselves cause their one little self worth defining metric has been met. But as nature already demonstrates highly virulent viruses like these cannot sustain themselves long term. This robot class will die out sooner or later cause the cost for destabilizing the ecosystem every couple days is just too high.
  - mycall 9y ago
    Nope. That robot will find another place to go and optimize another variable.
    - poa78 9y ago
      Virulent viruses don't work like that. Once they destabilize one subsystem, the system as a whole takes hit. By the time they switch to which ever other subsystem they want the body is more or less shutting down. That's why highly optimized virus don't last long.
      - noway421 9y ago
        Maybe we are lucky that admission rates into MBA programs are not that high.
IBM 9y ago
Google is an example of the failure of being engineer led in my opinion. I think it's led to Google having institutional ADD and has left them with countless failed products and others that have been neglected for years (has anyone worked on Google Finance in the past 5 years? Probably not). A lot of successful Google products were acquired (Android, YouTube) and others were able to leverage their dominance in search. But we also saw that approach fail when the entire company was directed at trying to beat Facebook. It infiltrated all their existing properties and employees were directly incentivized with compensation linked to the success of Google+. And yet all of that wasn't able to overcome Facebook's network effect. The go-to Google strategy for creating a hit product failed (and it also explains why they seem to fail at anything that has network effects or requires consumer affinity and brand: 8 messengers and countless failed hardware products). Google stands a good chance of being the next Xerox PARC: good at science projects and technology, but destined to see others capitalize on it. And it makes sense if you think about it. Google's origin story was 2 PhDs coming up with better technology in a market that was already defined and a business model that was already understood. They applied that technology well, but it was only possible because of the openness of the web. It feels very much right place, right time.
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  If Google is an example of "failure", I'm pretty sure a lot of other companies would love to fail. > Android, YouTube First off, Android didn't even exist as a product yet when Google acquired it, and YouTube was popular but nowhere near the behemoth it is now. Taking those things and turning them into world beating juggernauts is a very non-trivial task; as you've probably noticed, most corporate acquisitions of startups have a very different outcome.
  - easilyBored 9y ago
    Google had search and used that to prop the rest. Simple. And Google is making money by removing more and more "free" listings and replacing them ads and their content. Morality aside, eventually they'll lose their effectiveness.
carsongross 9y ago
The MBA thinks in spreadsheets and talks in scalpels.
- Aeolun 9y ago
  Happily, about 90% of business is spreadsheets and scalpels.
  - carsongross 9y ago
    Heh. The fish does not notice the water.

tommynicholas 9y ago

No MBA was EVER designed for the R&D part of building a company. I'm constantly surprised at the myth that an MBA has anything to do with teaching you to start or even run a company. MBA's are designed to train middle managers because the modern "firm" realized great middle managers were really valuable (aka they'd pay them a lot) but hard and risky to train. That's where the MBA program comes from. MBA's are ANTITHETICAL to entrepreneurship. That doesn't mean an MBA doesn't have value towards starting a company, just like a degree in economics or history aren't irrelevant to starting a company. But it's not what it's for, in fact, it's for the opposite thing.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
inopinatus 9y ago
This is a gross generalisation (by which I mean, I think you are wrong). My MBA set me up perfectly to quit my job and launch a startup. Maybe yours was designed to turn out middle managers. Mine wasn't. I had ten elective subjects and they were all towards starting and growing a service business. And the core subjects have proved an invaluable primer in many matters of strategy and day-to-day operations, ones in which I would otherwise be winging it.
- sh87 9y ago
  Launching a startup does not equal R&D. They have things in common but they aren't the same. And the only convenient thing, I believe, a full time MBA provides is a starting point to build your network.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  On average MBA's are less likely to start a business than someone from the general population, you are the exception.
  - noway421 9y ago
    Than an average engineer? Maybe. An average someone from general population? Citation needed.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    From FT: Overall, 19 per cent of MBA graduates from the class of 2012 started their own company. This is the average over all schools in their global ranking, and the US has most positions in the top 25 [1]. Meanwhile, only ~300 persons for every 100k start companies per month in the US [2]. Even assuming none start more than one per four years (which is doubtful), that's only 14.4% of the overall population over four years. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/cbd9b418-314c-11e6-bda0-04585c31b153#axzz4CiB1NKyn https://www.ft.com/content/cbd9b418-314c-11e6-bda0-04585c31b... [2] http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research%20reports%20and%20covers/2015/05/kauffman_index_startup_activity_national_trends_2015.pdf http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research%20repo...
  - tommynicholas 9y ago
    This is irrelevant to my point, just to be clear. Whether they're effective at creating founders is debatable, whether they're designed to create founders is not.
    - inopinatus 9y ago
      You made a false and sweeping statement, and now you're doubling down on it with ever more preposterous absolutes. Your understanding is evidently limited to a grossly distorted and narrow perspective on the MBA curriculum. In reality, business schools around the world turn out people who are qualified to start and run a company, and this includes R&D processes. Some people may choose electives that lead to middle-management, but others can and do choose electives in starting up, product development, service process design, negotiations etc etc.
Animats 9y ago
It's said of the Harvard Business School that it trains people for two jobs: President and Chairman of the Board.
- triplesec 9y ago
  ..which demonstrated that it's primarily about the network, and not about what you're learning
khuey 9y ago
If that's all true then why did Harvard open a school to train middle managers?

iliketosleep 9y ago

Efficient? You’re too generous. I’d call them short-sighted, or even go as far as to call them looters: they are people who gut companies (again, the word “optimize” is too generous!) to boost short-term profits and line their pockets at the expensive of long-term viability in ways you mentioned (cutting out R&D, building of product, etc.)

myutil 9y ago
I call them robots. The robots are great at doing one thing well by hook or crook. Problem is with scale and speed that come with large orgs, the good little robots follow their programming and over optimize the heck out of one little variable. The environment has no time to adapt. Massive unrecoverable collateral damage happens. But the robots are all very pleased with themselves cause their one little self worth defining metric has been met. But as nature already demonstrates highly virulent viruses like these cannot sustain themselves long term. This robot class will die out sooner or later cause the cost for destabilizing the ecosystem every couple days is just too high.
- mycall 9y ago
  Nope. That robot will find another place to go and optimize another variable.
  - poa78 9y ago
    Virulent viruses don't work like that. Once they destabilize one subsystem, the system as a whole takes hit. By the time they switch to which ever other subsystem they want the body is more or less shutting down. That's why highly optimized virus don't last long.
    - noway421 9y ago
      Maybe we are lucky that admission rates into MBA programs are not that high.

IBM 9y ago

Google is an example of the failure of being engineer led in my opinion. I think it's led to Google having institutional ADD and has left them with countless failed products and others that have been neglected for years (has anyone worked on Google Finance in the past 5 years? Probably not). A lot of successful Google products were acquired (Android, YouTube) and others were able to leverage their dominance in search. But we also saw that approach fail when the entire company was directed at trying to beat Facebook. It infiltrated all their existing properties and employees were directly incentivized with compensation linked to the success of Google+. And yet all of that wasn't able to overcome Facebook's network effect. The go-to Google strategy for creating a hit product failed (and it also explains why they seem to fail at anything that has network effects or requires consumer affinity and brand: 8 messengers and countless failed hardware products). Google stands a good chance of being the next Xerox PARC: good at science projects and technology, but destined to see others capitalize on it. And it makes sense if you think about it. Google's origin story was 2 PhDs coming up with better technology in a market that was already defined and a business model that was already understood. They applied that technology well, but it was only possible because of the openness of the web. It feels very much right place, right time.

TulliusCicero 9y ago
If Google is an example of "failure", I'm pretty sure a lot of other companies would love to fail. > Android, YouTube First off, Android didn't even exist as a product yet when Google acquired it, and YouTube was popular but nowhere near the behemoth it is now. Taking those things and turning them into world beating juggernauts is a very non-trivial task; as you've probably noticed, most corporate acquisitions of startups have a very different outcome.
- easilyBored 9y ago
  Google had search and used that to prop the rest. Simple. And Google is making money by removing more and more "free" listings and replacing them ads and their content. Morality aside, eventually they'll lose their effectiveness.

carsongross 9y ago

The MBA thinks in spreadsheets and talks in scalpels.

Aeolun 9y ago
Happily, about 90% of business is spreadsheets and scalpels.
- carsongross 9y ago
  Heh. The fish does not notice the water.