I always thought that the stereotype arises (at least for the direction engineer -> business guy) from the fact that the engineers perceive themselves as doing

I always thought that the stereotype arises (at least for the direction engineer -> business guy) from the fact that the engineers perceive themselves as doing (or being able to do) intellectually demanding work and the business people as not doing (and not being able to do) the same. And yet it's the business guys who run the companies and tell the engineers what to do (in a sense). So it boils down to a fairness issue based on the engineers' central value: intelligence and intellect. It's the same kind of perception that makes you feel like the top of the class kids in high school go into engineering and the bottom of the class kids go into economics. Or that the engineers are the ones who work so hard to make a product while the business guys get all the fame by merely talking about it. I remember my A.I. professor complaining that the economics students would never make it through a CS class, yet they will be the ones who end up with a big car and the beautiful girls. I think this attitude is over-generalizing (and a bit bitter, too, perhaps). It's easy to be a bad business guy, as it is easy to be a bad engineer. But it's not so simple to be successful, at either profession - just that they're vastly different types of professions. And for every engineer who complains, there's nothing stopping them from going into economics, too. (P.S.: Sorry for the many parentheses...)