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Why does HN love to bash "MBA types" so much? The bit you quoted doesn't even have anything to do with any type of technical background. Do you think that only

Why does HN love to bash "MBA types" so much? The bit you quoted doesn't even have anything to do with any type of technical background. Do you think that only people with MBAs are taught that they need to meet deadlines and obligations? Do you seriously think that someone with an engineering degree would for some reason say "actually we don't need to meet deadlines, I won't pressure you to finish these planes on time"?

michaelcampbell 7y ago
> The bit you quoted doesn't even have anything to do with any type of technical background. That could be why he led with "I wonder..."
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
achillesheels 7y ago
Because their decision making is political and short-sighted with no sense of ownership of their management decisions for the future of the company; rather they are looking for their next golden parachute.
mo1ok 7y ago
Honestly, and I'm being really frank here, a lot of the management "expertise" at fortune 50+ firms that come from traditional (re: MBA) tracks has just two tools in their toolbelt: 1. Meetings to "align" 2. Cracking the whip. That's it. That's all they have. They have poor insight into creating team chemistry, culture, focused work environments, mentorship, long-term planning, QA processes, sourcing efficiency feedback, etc. - all those things that are crucial to boosting productivity and creating supersonic teams. The people that really know their stuff and can work miracles are people that have been in the trenches for 20 years, regardless of profession. And they hands-down make the best managers. That's my honest 2 cents, it's a bit of disgruntlement from working in large enterprise environments with engineering and technology.
- txcwpalpha 7y ago
  That’s a hilariously narrow minded generalization. If that’s your honest opinion then I have to assume you’ve never actually sat down and had a real conversation with any of these “MBA types” and talked about what they do. My guess is that the reason you think all they do is crack the whip and hold pointless meetings because that’s the only interaction you have with them, but I can guarantee you that every organization you have ever worked in has had plenty of “MBA types” working in ways that are invisible to you building exactly the team chemistries, culture, planning, processes etc that you mentioned.
  - mo1ok 7y ago
    I would agree that this is narrow minded - and would say that this opinion is a result of exactly what you mentioned - my interaction with them being fairly limited and clinical, despite them having a direct leadership role in my org. I would argue that this is the problem unto itself. The idea that a manager can work invisibly "behind the scenes" to create these conditions is the squarest negative stereotype of the MBA - that they are clerical, remote, number-crunchers who don't have an intuitive human grasp of the unique challenges their teams face, because they lack experience where the rubber meets of the road of their organization. I think this Boeing case conforms to this stereotype, as does my personal experience. But I don't believe they're a scourge, or anything. I quantified it with "a lot" but not "most" ;)
    - txcwpalpha 7y ago
      When I said they work in ways invisible to you, I did not mean it as they are intentionally working “behind the scenes”. It is more likely that your narrowmindedness just blinds you to all of the things they do. The work is probably all done out in the open, and in almost all cases I’ve ever seen, the “MBA types” specifically seek out interaction with and input from “rubber meets the road” folks (side note: this is another hilarious notion that MBAs apparently aren’t involved in “rubber meets the road” tasks), but it’s generally the engineers that shy away from this interaction and then blame management for being out of touch.
ptx 7y ago
Leaders with a technical background will have a better understanding of how increasing the pressure leads to poor workmanship and worsens the chances of finishing on time in the long run.
allovernow 7y ago
I don't speak for HN but personally I find the notion that business management can be distilled and generically applied across industries and disciplines to be nonsensical, when every technical project requires a firm grasp of at least the basic scientific/engineering principles to make sound planning decisions at all scales. How can you possibly estimate how long something will take to code for example, or evaluate the estimates of your subordinates, if you don't know how to code? Sure, this isn't the best example as code estimation is notoriously unreliable, but the point applies to technical work in general. Much of the trouble at Boeing has been explained by various sources as having started with the replacement of managing engineers at a company known to be founded and run by engineers with executive types after the "reverse takeover"[1] by McDonnel. This seems to be as close as one could get to an A/B test and the results are exactly what I would have expected, as technical constraints are relaxed to boost margins and shrink/meet deadlines. Though I admit this is a small sample size and could be confirmation bias on my part. >Do you seriously think that someone with an engineering degree would for some reason say actually we don't need to meet deadlines, I won't pressure you to finish these planes on time No, but I would expect a manager with an engineering degree to be more likely to understand the absurdity and danger of building passenger aircraft with missing tools and incorrect instructions, red flag such issues, and push back deadlines to resolve them. 1. theatlantic.com/amp/article/602188/
- dboreham 7y ago
  Some of it is down to personality traits, which are not domain-specific+. +That's not strictly true, people can have different personalities at work vs family for example.
- ativzzz 7y ago
  > I would expect a manager with an engineering degree to be more likely to understand the absurdity and danger of building passenger aircraft with missing tools and incorrect instructions, red flag such issues, and push back deadlines to resolve them. You don't need to be an engineer to do any of these things. You really just need to ask questions to people who understand the details and listen to them. A good manager will know the right people to ask these questions to and follow their advice. Good management is not an easy skill however.
guru4consulting 7y ago
yes, someone with engineering background will be more inclined to say 'no' to unrealistic deadlines because they are aware of all the technical challenges and sometimes even overestimate the tech challenges.. someone with MBA would never know all things that could possibly go wrong, and might be focused more on the release features, deadlines and the budget cost.
appleiigs 7y ago
Technical people think the "traveling salesman" is an interesting and difficult problem. Difficult even though the robot salesman will do everything exactly as the tech commands him to. Now what if the salesman was human. This human has a feelings and a personality and other things going on in its life. Now what if you have to manage 100 of these salesmen, all with different culture, religion, education and age... and when you put these salesmen together in teams, they all have a different group dynamic. Sometimes you'll get a salesman who will even try to sabotage you. Plus you need to motivate, train, and lead all of them. For some reason technical people think this problem is so easy. (I'm not an MBA by the way)
scott_s 7y ago
This piece in The Atlantic, "The Long-Forgotten Flight That Sent Boeing Off Course" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21583001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21583001), blames management from afar by executives with no understanding of the engineering processes around aviation as the start of Boeing's current problems.

michaelcampbell 7y ago

> The bit you quoted doesn't even have anything to do with any type of technical background. That could be why he led with "I wonder..."

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

achillesheels 7y ago

Because their decision making is political and short-sighted with no sense of ownership of their management decisions for the future of the company; rather they are looking for their next golden parachute.

mo1ok 7y ago

Honestly, and I'm being really frank here, a lot of the management "expertise" at fortune 50+ firms that come from traditional (re: MBA) tracks has just two tools in their toolbelt: 1. Meetings to "align" 2. Cracking the whip. That's it. That's all they have. They have poor insight into creating team chemistry, culture, focused work environments, mentorship, long-term planning, QA processes, sourcing efficiency feedback, etc. - all those things that are crucial to boosting productivity and creating supersonic teams. The people that really know their stuff and can work miracles are people that have been in the trenches for 20 years, regardless of profession. And they hands-down make the best managers. That's my honest 2 cents, it's a bit of disgruntlement from working in large enterprise environments with engineering and technology.

txcwpalpha 7y ago
That’s a hilariously narrow minded generalization. If that’s your honest opinion then I have to assume you’ve never actually sat down and had a real conversation with any of these “MBA types” and talked about what they do. My guess is that the reason you think all they do is crack the whip and hold pointless meetings because that’s the only interaction you have with them, but I can guarantee you that every organization you have ever worked in has had plenty of “MBA types” working in ways that are invisible to you building exactly the team chemistries, culture, planning, processes etc that you mentioned.
- mo1ok 7y ago
  I would agree that this is narrow minded - and would say that this opinion is a result of exactly what you mentioned - my interaction with them being fairly limited and clinical, despite them having a direct leadership role in my org. I would argue that this is the problem unto itself. The idea that a manager can work invisibly "behind the scenes" to create these conditions is the squarest negative stereotype of the MBA - that they are clerical, remote, number-crunchers who don't have an intuitive human grasp of the unique challenges their teams face, because they lack experience where the rubber meets of the road of their organization. I think this Boeing case conforms to this stereotype, as does my personal experience. But I don't believe they're a scourge, or anything. I quantified it with "a lot" but not "most" ;)
  - txcwpalpha 7y ago
    When I said they work in ways invisible to you, I did not mean it as they are intentionally working “behind the scenes”. It is more likely that your narrowmindedness just blinds you to all of the things they do. The work is probably all done out in the open, and in almost all cases I’ve ever seen, the “MBA types” specifically seek out interaction with and input from “rubber meets the road” folks (side note: this is another hilarious notion that MBAs apparently aren’t involved in “rubber meets the road” tasks), but it’s generally the engineers that shy away from this interaction and then blame management for being out of touch.

ptx 7y ago

Leaders with a technical background will have a better understanding of how increasing the pressure leads to poor workmanship and worsens the chances of finishing on time in the long run.

allovernow 7y ago

I don't speak for HN but personally I find the notion that business management can be distilled and generically applied across industries and disciplines to be nonsensical, when every technical project requires a firm grasp of at least the basic scientific/engineering principles to make sound planning decisions at all scales. How can you possibly estimate how long something will take to code for example, or evaluate the estimates of your subordinates, if you don't know how to code? Sure, this isn't the best example as code estimation is notoriously unreliable, but the point applies to technical work in general. Much of the trouble at Boeing has been explained by various sources as having started with the replacement of managing engineers at a company known to be founded and run by engineers with executive types after the "reverse takeover"[1] by McDonnel. This seems to be as close as one could get to an A/B test and the results are exactly what I would have expected, as technical constraints are relaxed to boost margins and shrink/meet deadlines. Though I admit this is a small sample size and could be confirmation bias on my part. >Do you seriously think that someone with an engineering degree would for some reason say actually we don't need to meet deadlines, I won't pressure you to finish these planes on time No, but I would expect a manager with an engineering degree to be more likely to understand the absurdity and danger of building passenger aircraft with missing tools and incorrect instructions, red flag such issues, and push back deadlines to resolve them. 1. theatlantic.com/amp/article/602188/

dboreham 7y ago
Some of it is down to personality traits, which are not domain-specific+. +That's not strictly true, people can have different personalities at work vs family for example.
ativzzz 7y ago
> I would expect a manager with an engineering degree to be more likely to understand the absurdity and danger of building passenger aircraft with missing tools and incorrect instructions, red flag such issues, and push back deadlines to resolve them. You don't need to be an engineer to do any of these things. You really just need to ask questions to people who understand the details and listen to them. A good manager will know the right people to ask these questions to and follow their advice. Good management is not an easy skill however.

guru4consulting 7y ago

yes, someone with engineering background will be more inclined to say 'no' to unrealistic deadlines because they are aware of all the technical challenges and sometimes even overestimate the tech challenges.. someone with MBA would never know all things that could possibly go wrong, and might be focused more on the release features, deadlines and the budget cost.

appleiigs 7y ago

Technical people think the "traveling salesman" is an interesting and difficult problem. Difficult even though the robot salesman will do everything exactly as the tech commands him to. Now what if the salesman was human. This human has a feelings and a personality and other things going on in its life. Now what if you have to manage 100 of these salesmen, all with different culture, religion, education and age... and when you put these salesmen together in teams, they all have a different group dynamic. Sometimes you'll get a salesman who will even try to sabotage you. Plus you need to motivate, train, and lead all of them. For some reason technical people think this problem is so easy. (I'm not an MBA by the way)

scott_s 7y ago

This piece in The Atlantic, "The Long-Forgotten Flight That Sent Boeing Off Course" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21583001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21583001), blames management from afar by executives with no understanding of the engineering processes around aviation as the start of Boeing's current problems.