5 ms·

Like Boeing there are too many MBAs and not enough engineers in charge!

by lsllc 6y ago

ethbr0 6y ago
Yeah! Why differentiate in quality, when we can blame all holders of a type of degree?!
- skolsuper 6y ago
  It's perfectly fair. If they had hired all chefs into upper management, one could say "too many chefs and not enough engineers!", regardless of the quality of the chefs.
  - jodrellblank 6y ago
    Only if you think "Master of Business Administration" and "Chef" convey equal amounts of business administration skill. The exective board page linked above is 22 people, even if all of them held MBAs could it really be that 22 expert business administrators is too many for a global company with 350,000 employees?
    - wokwokwok 6y ago
      It's not about skills, it's about priorities. Their job is to make money; they don't care, and they are not paid to care about anything else. Now... the question is, does someone with a different background care about the company vs making money in different proportions to the set of 'expert business administrators'? I posit that yes, someone with a different background will have different priorities to simply 'make as much money as possible right now'. Maybe even a chef.
    - AlphaSite 6y ago
      As a % top leadership, yeah it totally can be too much.
- wahern 6y ago
  "The secret of Costco’s success revealed! (hint: no MBAs need apply)", https://washingtonmonthly.com/2013/06/09/the-secret-of-costcos-success-revealed-hint-no-mbas-need-apply/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/2013/06/09/the-secret-of-costc... "... Costco does not hire business school graduates—thanks to another idiosyncrasy meant to preserve its distinct company culture. It cultivates employees who work the floor in its warehouses and sponsors them through graduate school." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-06/costco-ceo-craig-jelinek-leads-the-cheapest-happiest-company-in-the-world https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-06/costco-ce...
Graphguy 6y ago
I see this type of comment thrown around a bit, but a quick pass of the senior management suggests otherwise. https://newsroom.ibm.com/executive-bios https://newsroom.ibm.com/executive-bios? Not a whole lot of MBAs and a decent amount of engineers.
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  Ask those managers when the last time they wrote a line of production code was :)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ponker 6y ago
    Even the most technical CEOs like Bill Gates stopped writing code pretty early in their careers
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    When's the last time Tim Cook or Satya Nadella wrote a line of code?
    - sushshshsh 6y ago
      Something about cherrypicking outliers compared to the droves of managers who haven't written code in 20 years and have been converted to the dogma of management
- rhizome 6y ago
  If you loosen your sense of "MBA"... - Rometty (Chair): Technical degrees, held technical positions for first 10yrs at IBM, then in sales for the 90s, two decades working primarily with finance customers and she worked the PWC acquisition. - Krishna (CEO): EE, Idea guy. - Whitehurst (Pres): MBA - Boville (SVP Cloud): Business degrees (UK) - Browdy (SVP Legal): IP attorney - Foster (SVP Services): Art degree, Accenture guy - Gherson (SVP): Management degrees - Gil (Dir IBM Research): EE/CS - Kavanaugh (CFO): MBA - Got bored One trait is pretty dominant: decades at IBM

Like Boeing there are too many MBAs and not enough engineers in charge!

by lsllc 6y ago

Like Boeing there are too many MBAs and not enough engineers in charge!

ethbr0 6y ago

Yeah! Why differentiate in quality, when we can blame all holders of a type of degree?!

skolsuper 6y ago
It's perfectly fair. If they had hired all chefs into upper management, one could say "too many chefs and not enough engineers!", regardless of the quality of the chefs.
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  Only if you think "Master of Business Administration" and "Chef" convey equal amounts of business administration skill. The exective board page linked above is 22 people, even if all of them held MBAs could it really be that 22 expert business administrators is too many for a global company with 350,000 employees?
  - wokwokwok 6y ago
    It's not about skills, it's about priorities. Their job is to make money; they don't care, and they are not paid to care about anything else. Now... the question is, does someone with a different background care about the company vs making money in different proportions to the set of 'expert business administrators'? I posit that yes, someone with a different background will have different priorities to simply 'make as much money as possible right now'. Maybe even a chef.
  - AlphaSite 6y ago
    As a % top leadership, yeah it totally can be too much.
wahern 6y ago
"The secret of Costco’s success revealed! (hint: no MBAs need apply)", https://washingtonmonthly.com/2013/06/09/the-secret-of-costcos-success-revealed-hint-no-mbas-need-apply/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/2013/06/09/the-secret-of-costc... "... Costco does not hire business school graduates—thanks to another idiosyncrasy meant to preserve its distinct company culture. It cultivates employees who work the floor in its warehouses and sponsors them through graduate school." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-06/costco-ceo-craig-jelinek-leads-the-cheapest-happiest-company-in-the-world https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-06/costco-ce...

Graphguy 6y ago

I see this type of comment thrown around a bit, but a quick pass of the senior management suggests otherwise. https://newsroom.ibm.com/executive-bios https://newsroom.ibm.com/executive-bios? Not a whole lot of MBAs and a decent amount of engineers.

sushshshsh 6y ago
Ask those managers when the last time they wrote a line of production code was :)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ponker 6y ago
  Even the most technical CEOs like Bill Gates stopped writing code pretty early in their careers
- missedthecue 6y ago
  When's the last time Tim Cook or Satya Nadella wrote a line of code?
  - sushshshsh 6y ago
    Something about cherrypicking outliers compared to the droves of managers who haven't written code in 20 years and have been converted to the dogma of management
rhizome 6y ago
If you loosen your sense of "MBA"... - Rometty (Chair): Technical degrees, held technical positions for first 10yrs at IBM, then in sales for the 90s, two decades working primarily with finance customers and she worked the PWC acquisition. - Krishna (CEO): EE, Idea guy. - Whitehurst (Pres): MBA - Boville (SVP Cloud): Business degrees (UK) - Browdy (SVP Legal): IP attorney - Foster (SVP Services): Art degree, Accenture guy - Gherson (SVP): Management degrees - Gil (Dir IBM Research): EE/CS - Kavanaugh (CFO): MBA - Got bored One trait is pretty dominant: decades at IBM