8 ms·

Reading all comments grilling MBAs in HN is one of my guilty pleasures. I think I need to collect them all and put them in one place.

yaboy 6y ago
I worked at a startup that was acquired by an unsexy behemoth. It was not covered in TechCrunch. We had a sales guy who easily cleared over $1MM in salary and bonuses, several times the CEO and founders, because he went above and beyond, closing $15MM of new business a year. When the MBA consultants and salespeople from the acquirer found out, they couldn’t believe he made that much — all while they personally managed $2MM-$3MM books of business. What do you think happened? He was slowly stripped of responsibilities and eventually forced out, for the crime of standing out as an exceptional performer.
- SCHiM 6y ago
  I know how that goes I guess. Slowly "rules" and "procedures" from the behemoth come into play. Before he knows it, his successful methods are "against the rules", and doors slowly close. I love that dynamic /s
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    To play devil's advocate here: are any of those rules and procedures in place to prevent sales tactics that, while they might be successful, are also predatory?
    - whatshisface 6y ago
      We can write whatever story we want in between the details we were told... Maybe the salesman was secretly an FSB agent. Maybe he was an alien. Maybe he was Superman's alter-ego. It's not really conducive to communication to fill in the blanks like that, even though any person in someone else's work story could be one of Them walking among us... ;)
      - MajorBee 6y ago
        Or maybe he employed more run-of-the-mill unsavoury techniques like low-level bribery (gifts, expensive wine-and-dine), plenty of shmoozing and the like. These techniques are not exactly useless in getting new business; however, most modern workplace rulebooks will consider them illegal/unethical.
        saiya-jin 6y ago
        You are joking right? It in the rulebook of most sales folks... everywhere. Companies have special budgets for this. I don't mean some trading-only companies like Cargill who have extra prostitues budgets (at least 5 years ago that was true, and with expensive alcohol parties was the only way to do any business in places like Russia or most 3rd world countries). I mean any kind of bigger corporation. Banks have it. Any kind of finance business does. You won't get far without it. There are obviously rules, but often they go the other way - employees shouldn't accept bribes in forms of these gifts. But getting clients, that's a free for all, the winner takes all (and biggest bonus).
        MajorBee 6y ago
        Hmm my company's anti-corruption training material states very explicitly that the only gifts allowed are very minor ones (probably things like company-branded T-shirts or something) and dinners need to be on a modest budget, definitely no paid vacations and the like. Of course, this is just training material which I'm sure they make mandatory primarily to avoid liability, and I'm pretty far removed from the actual sales people in the company. It's entirely possible the training is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules, to paraphrase Hector Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean.
        smabie 6y ago
        how are gifts corruption? It's a business and if you need to spend tons of money to close a high value deal, then that is what is required.
        6y ago
- cbozeman 6y ago
  "I have a master's degree and I went to <insert supposedly prestigious school here>, therefore no one's supposed to make more money than me!" We need to get people out of this kind of thinking, and the sooner the better.
  - dandanua 6y ago
    Aha, good luck with that. Entire human history is full of such social differentiation, where a particular group, caste, nation, etc. think that they are better and deserve more than the others. MBAs, in my experience, is the worst example of it. They treat themselves as some higher order creatures, without actual skills or understanding of things.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    $NOT_CODE is cheap, show me the code.
- i_am_proteus 6y ago
  Stories like this make The Organization Man by W. H. Whyte[0] seem prescient. And never forget Pournelle's iron law: >Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": >First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. >Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. >The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization. [0] https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/13785.html https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/13785.html [1] https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
  - ccmonnett 6y ago
    You sound like someone who has read Systemantics/The Systems Bible by John Gall? If not, you are likely to enjoy it. For anyone else reading, I enjoyed it tremendously and highly recommend it. It's a very fun book to read.
prox 6y ago
Look up some talks from Guy Kawasaki, art of the start for example, it’s quite good and harmless humor.
arwhatever 6y ago
Put all the MBAs in one place, or put all the HN comments in one place? :-)
ignoramous 6y ago
"Calling me a moron is one thing, but accusing me of having an MBA is really too much." -pg, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10670
- hobofan 6y ago
  Damn, that whole comment section is an amazing time capsule of sentiment regarding Microsoft and other tech companies! Well worth a read.
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    This comment is amazing... "Microsoft recently came to my graduate school to recruit for user experience design and user experience research positions. 10 folks out of my program (about 25% of us) scored and interview. Every single one of us had no intention of working for Microsoft and joked about it intensely. Microsoft had be relegated to the realm of other boring places to do our type of work but that you interview at for practice (and, you know, just in case that job at google doesn't pan out). In my interview, the topic of digg.com came up and neither interviewer had heard of them. I said they were like a type of slahsdot, or maybe magnolia. Never heard of those either I quipped "oh, maybe you're not involve much in the web / web development world". "Actually, I'm one of the project managers for Internet Explorer." The interview went downhill, from Microsoft, from that point forward. My heart wasn't even in it "just in case" anymore." Hard to believe Microsoft was so utterly reviled by competent people in 2007. Nowadays I look at some of the things they're doing (mostly Surface line) and I would love to be involved with that. I feel like, even though they're not always hitting the bullseye, Microsoft is really aiming for the target with Surface devices. I know the Surface Duo got a lot of hate, and I really wanted to get one, but I feel like it just isn't "there" yet. Microsoft has been on that sort of track record for the past 5 years or so... the first version of a new product is a little questionable, the second is decent enough, but the third iteration, they're really nailing it. My Surface Book 3 is the best laptop I have ever owned, and I've had many.
    - syncsynchalt 6y ago
corpMaverick 6y ago
:) Why is it that MBA types always end up on top ? My pet theory is that they just have more time to spent scheming, and influencing others. While engineers are busy trying to get shit done.
- atmosx 6y ago
  I don't think they do. Not in small-to-medium size tech companies. Usually, one way or another it is the engineering department running the show. I am not sure about large orgs/behemoths.
- als0 6y ago
  > While engineers are busy trying to get shit done. and/or too busy arguing with product/engineering managers (for better or worse)
- ResearchCode 6y ago
  Stronger socioeconomic background, as with any success.
- refurb 6y ago
  As someone who has worked with an MBA who was good at "scheming and influencing others", they can be an absolute godsend in clearing away the corporate detritus so you can actually get your job done.
devmunchies 6y ago
I would include lawyers and accountants in the same bucket. Those three groups tend to put innovation and design/engineering excellence low on priorities.
- 1996 6y ago
  You are funny maybe without intending to be. They all share the same "pointless" features: - lawyers: reason for hiring: the company doesn't get sued for breaking laws (boils down to reducing costs even if you only consider the statutory damages) - accountants: reason for hiring: the company doesn't hide deficits / key employees can't divert money (boils down to reducing costs) - MBAs: reason for hiring: so that existing processed are optimized, and employees don't slack off too much (boils down to reducing costs) To which I'd add HR: - HR: reason for hiring: so that the company doesn't get sued for discrimination or gets bad PR that will reduce sales/good hires (boils down to reducing costs) -- connected to lawyers, except HR may also care about stuff that doesn't directly break laws. So I think all of them are important! Then again, I'm now a capitalist pig, so feel free to dismiss my concerns. But even if you only care about the visible features of a product, understand you can't innovate or even excel on a budget - which means reducing costs and trimming expenses whenever possible.
  - devmunchies 6y ago
    I forgot about HR!!! :) > reducing costs yeah, or risk mitigation. Haven't decided which is truer. > Then again, I'm now a capitalist pig, so feel free to dismiss my concerns Yeah I own a company with ~50-60 employees (call me Mr. Pig). Business owners need to take input from these risk-mitigation roles into consideration but, ultimately, they shouldn't be decision makers. Taking risk is important. Decision makers should be creators (eng, design) and the sellers (sales, marketing). Businesses aren't built on reducing costs, they are built on making money. But, then again, you can use money you save by reducing costs and feed it into the creation->sales machine. It's a balance.
    - 1996 6y ago
      > call me Mr. Pig Hello Mr Pig, nice to meet a fellow pig :) > yeah, or risk mitigation. Haven't decided which is truer. Same thing to me. What do you "risk", except not making money? It all boils down to money. > ultimately, they shouldn't be decision makers. Taking risk is important Agreed - as long as you can take said risk, because again it all boils down to money. These people help you do that by not spending as much while achieving the same (or better) outcomes. > It's a balance. Totally! As for MBAs and the likes, I see them as XOs: I decide on the direction and give the orders. They implement them. Their perspective is different from mine - which is surprisingly closer to the first line workers, who hold a lot of valuable insights (about optimization, client needs, etc) that may be lost due to the middle layer (of MBAs etc) But the middle layer has its own role to play, to save money and keep operations smooth and reduce costs (risks) whenever possible.
ryandrake 6y ago
Unashamed MBA checking in here! MBAs are the classic punching bags for HN. It seems we’re willing to bend the “civility” rules a bit here in order to have a nice hearty MBA-bash. I’ve seen all sorts of awful generalizations posted here about MBAs that would get you flagkilled if made about other professions or degrees. Some of us actually have tech/coding backgrounds and aren’t the stereotypical pointy-headed-bosses, and it sucks to get lumped in with them but it’s ok—we don’t take it personally. Try to keep in mind though that we aren’t all bad!
- ignoramous 6y ago
  If it helps, all those MBA-bashing cool tech startups busy giving away a percentage of their revenue to Amazon, don't realise that AWS was the brain-child of a Harvard MBA.
  - reducesuffering 6y ago
    Jassy didn't propose, code, or solely invent AWS in any way.
    - ignoramous 6y ago
      You're right but Andy, for lack of a better word, willed AWS into existence: https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/02/andy-jassys-brief-history-of-the-genesis-of-aws/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/02/andy-jassys-brief-history-... That's gotta count for something.
    - lordnacho 6y ago
      Yes precisely. The MBA skill was to get credit for an obvious strategic possibility that required a huge team to pull off. Happens on many levels though, it's not as if engineers don't get credit for team efforts.
  - johncena33 6y ago
    Yes, the "idea man" deserves all the credit and everyone else is just a drone there to execute their vision. Sounds like classic MBA culture to me.
harha 6y ago
To be honest I don’t think they’re (MBAs) completely useless, I just think they often end up in the wrong position for the wrong reasons. I’ve had some great market research done by providing assignments to MBA students (though when I did my engineering MS and we had joint classes I stayed as far away from group work with them as I could - different grading gives different incentives), I just feel they sometimes might have difficulties understanding concepts like opportunity cost, probability or non-linear developments.
jack_riminton 6y ago
Me too. I'm thinking of knocking up a quick site just to dunk on MBAs...
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
I hesitated to post that because it would be interpreted that way. In the case I described, the issue was literally that having an MBA put you on a lower payscale than being a mid-tier engineer. The problem was that we had several people who invested years of their lives and six figures into post-graduate MBA education with the expectation that it was a cheat code for moving them up to the top of the payscale. It was a shock to land in a company where that was not true at all, and furthermore that it was codified into the payscale. Having an MBA is certainly not a negative signal like HN tends to suggest. The bigger issue is resistance to the modern dual-track career ladders. Many people still want the management title (or an MBA credential) to guarantee them higher compensation, and they're resistant to any system which doesn't match those expectations.

yaboy 6y ago

I worked at a startup that was acquired by an unsexy behemoth. It was not covered in TechCrunch. We had a sales guy who easily cleared over $1MM in salary and bonuses, several times the CEO and founders, because he went above and beyond, closing $15MM of new business a year. When the MBA consultants and salespeople from the acquirer found out, they couldn’t believe he made that much — all while they personally managed $2MM-$3MM books of business. What do you think happened? He was slowly stripped of responsibilities and eventually forced out, for the crime of standing out as an exceptional performer.

SCHiM 6y ago
I know how that goes I guess. Slowly "rules" and "procedures" from the behemoth come into play. Before he knows it, his successful methods are "against the rules", and doors slowly close. I love that dynamic /s
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  To play devil's advocate here: are any of those rules and procedures in place to prevent sales tactics that, while they might be successful, are also predatory?
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    We can write whatever story we want in between the details we were told... Maybe the salesman was secretly an FSB agent. Maybe he was an alien. Maybe he was Superman's alter-ego. It's not really conducive to communication to fill in the blanks like that, even though any person in someone else's work story could be one of Them walking among us... ;)
    - MajorBee 6y ago
      Or maybe he employed more run-of-the-mill unsavoury techniques like low-level bribery (gifts, expensive wine-and-dine), plenty of shmoozing and the like. These techniques are not exactly useless in getting new business; however, most modern workplace rulebooks will consider them illegal/unethical.
      - saiya-jin 6y ago
        You are joking right? It in the rulebook of most sales folks... everywhere. Companies have special budgets for this. I don't mean some trading-only companies like Cargill who have extra prostitues budgets (at least 5 years ago that was true, and with expensive alcohol parties was the only way to do any business in places like Russia or most 3rd world countries). I mean any kind of bigger corporation. Banks have it. Any kind of finance business does. You won't get far without it. There are obviously rules, but often they go the other way - employees shouldn't accept bribes in forms of these gifts. But getting clients, that's a free for all, the winner takes all (and biggest bonus).
        MajorBee 6y ago
        Hmm my company's anti-corruption training material states very explicitly that the only gifts allowed are very minor ones (probably things like company-branded T-shirts or something) and dinners need to be on a modest budget, definitely no paid vacations and the like. Of course, this is just training material which I'm sure they make mandatory primarily to avoid liability, and I'm pretty far removed from the actual sales people in the company. It's entirely possible the training is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules, to paraphrase Hector Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean.
        smabie 6y ago
        how are gifts corruption? It's a business and if you need to spend tons of money to close a high value deal, then that is what is required.
      - 6y ago
cbozeman 6y ago
"I have a master's degree and I went to <insert supposedly prestigious school here>, therefore no one's supposed to make more money than me!" We need to get people out of this kind of thinking, and the sooner the better.
- dandanua 6y ago
  Aha, good luck with that. Entire human history is full of such social differentiation, where a particular group, caste, nation, etc. think that they are better and deserve more than the others. MBAs, in my experience, is the worst example of it. They treat themselves as some higher order creatures, without actual skills or understanding of things.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  $NOT_CODE is cheap, show me the code.
i_am_proteus 6y ago
Stories like this make The Organization Man by W. H. Whyte[0] seem prescient. And never forget Pournelle's iron law: >Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": >First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. >Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. >The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization. [0] https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/13785.html https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/13785.html [1] https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
- ccmonnett 6y ago
  You sound like someone who has read Systemantics/The Systems Bible by John Gall? If not, you are likely to enjoy it. For anyone else reading, I enjoyed it tremendously and highly recommend it. It's a very fun book to read.

prox 6y ago

Look up some talks from Guy Kawasaki, art of the start for example, it’s quite good and harmless humor.

arwhatever 6y ago

Put all the MBAs in one place, or put all the HN comments in one place? :-)

ignoramous 6y ago

"Calling me a moron is one thing, but accusing me of having an MBA is really too much." -pg, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10670 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10670

hobofan 6y ago
Damn, that whole comment section is an amazing time capsule of sentiment regarding Microsoft and other tech companies! Well worth a read.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  This comment is amazing... "Microsoft recently came to my graduate school to recruit for user experience design and user experience research positions. 10 folks out of my program (about 25% of us) scored and interview. Every single one of us had no intention of working for Microsoft and joked about it intensely. Microsoft had be relegated to the realm of other boring places to do our type of work but that you interview at for practice (and, you know, just in case that job at google doesn't pan out). In my interview, the topic of digg.com came up and neither interviewer had heard of them. I said they were like a type of slahsdot, or maybe magnolia. Never heard of those either I quipped "oh, maybe you're not involve much in the web / web development world". "Actually, I'm one of the project managers for Internet Explorer." The interview went downhill, from Microsoft, from that point forward. My heart wasn't even in it "just in case" anymore." Hard to believe Microsoft was so utterly reviled by competent people in 2007. Nowadays I look at some of the things they're doing (mostly Surface line) and I would love to be involved with that. I feel like, even though they're not always hitting the bullseye, Microsoft is really aiming for the target with Surface devices. I know the Surface Duo got a lot of hate, and I really wanted to get one, but I feel like it just isn't "there" yet. Microsoft has been on that sort of track record for the past 5 years or so... the first version of a new product is a little questionable, the second is decent enough, but the third iteration, they're really nailing it. My Surface Book 3 is the best laptop I have ever owned, and I've had many.
  - syncsynchalt 6y ago

corpMaverick 6y ago

:) Why is it that MBA types always end up on top ? My pet theory is that they just have more time to spent scheming, and influencing others. While engineers are busy trying to get shit done.

atmosx 6y ago
I don't think they do. Not in small-to-medium size tech companies. Usually, one way or another it is the engineering department running the show. I am not sure about large orgs/behemoths.
als0 6y ago
> While engineers are busy trying to get shit done. and/or too busy arguing with product/engineering managers (for better or worse)
ResearchCode 6y ago
Stronger socioeconomic background, as with any success.
refurb 6y ago
As someone who has worked with an MBA who was good at "scheming and influencing others", they can be an absolute godsend in clearing away the corporate detritus so you can actually get your job done.

devmunchies 6y ago

I would include lawyers and accountants in the same bucket. Those three groups tend to put innovation and design/engineering excellence low on priorities.

1996 6y ago
You are funny maybe without intending to be. They all share the same "pointless" features: - lawyers: reason for hiring: the company doesn't get sued for breaking laws (boils down to reducing costs even if you only consider the statutory damages) - accountants: reason for hiring: the company doesn't hide deficits / key employees can't divert money (boils down to reducing costs) - MBAs: reason for hiring: so that existing processed are optimized, and employees don't slack off too much (boils down to reducing costs) To which I'd add HR: - HR: reason for hiring: so that the company doesn't get sued for discrimination or gets bad PR that will reduce sales/good hires (boils down to reducing costs) -- connected to lawyers, except HR may also care about stuff that doesn't directly break laws. So I think all of them are important! Then again, I'm now a capitalist pig, so feel free to dismiss my concerns. But even if you only care about the visible features of a product, understand you can't innovate or even excel on a budget - which means reducing costs and trimming expenses whenever possible.
- devmunchies 6y ago
  I forgot about HR!!! :) > reducing costs yeah, or risk mitigation. Haven't decided which is truer. > Then again, I'm now a capitalist pig, so feel free to dismiss my concerns Yeah I own a company with ~50-60 employees (call me Mr. Pig). Business owners need to take input from these risk-mitigation roles into consideration but, ultimately, they shouldn't be decision makers. Taking risk is important. Decision makers should be creators (eng, design) and the sellers (sales, marketing). Businesses aren't built on reducing costs, they are built on making money. But, then again, you can use money you save by reducing costs and feed it into the creation->sales machine. It's a balance.
  - 1996 6y ago
    > call me Mr. Pig Hello Mr Pig, nice to meet a fellow pig :) > yeah, or risk mitigation. Haven't decided which is truer. Same thing to me. What do you "risk", except not making money? It all boils down to money. > ultimately, they shouldn't be decision makers. Taking risk is important Agreed - as long as you can take said risk, because again it all boils down to money. These people help you do that by not spending as much while achieving the same (or better) outcomes. > It's a balance. Totally! As for MBAs and the likes, I see them as XOs: I decide on the direction and give the orders. They implement them. Their perspective is different from mine - which is surprisingly closer to the first line workers, who hold a lot of valuable insights (about optimization, client needs, etc) that may be lost due to the middle layer (of MBAs etc) But the middle layer has its own role to play, to save money and keep operations smooth and reduce costs (risks) whenever possible.

ryandrake 6y ago

Unashamed MBA checking in here! MBAs are the classic punching bags for HN. It seems we’re willing to bend the “civility” rules a bit here in order to have a nice hearty MBA-bash. I’ve seen all sorts of awful generalizations posted here about MBAs that would get you flagkilled if made about other professions or degrees. Some of us actually have tech/coding backgrounds and aren’t the stereotypical pointy-headed-bosses, and it sucks to get lumped in with them but it’s ok—we don’t take it personally. Try to keep in mind though that we aren’t all bad!

ignoramous 6y ago
If it helps, all those MBA-bashing cool tech startups busy giving away a percentage of their revenue to Amazon, don't realise that AWS was the brain-child of a Harvard MBA.
- reducesuffering 6y ago
  Jassy didn't propose, code, or solely invent AWS in any way.
  - ignoramous 6y ago
    You're right but Andy, for lack of a better word, willed AWS into existence: https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/02/andy-jassys-brief-history-of-the-genesis-of-aws/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/02/andy-jassys-brief-history-... That's gotta count for something.
  - lordnacho 6y ago
    Yes precisely. The MBA skill was to get credit for an obvious strategic possibility that required a huge team to pull off. Happens on many levels though, it's not as if engineers don't get credit for team efforts.
- johncena33 6y ago
  Yes, the "idea man" deserves all the credit and everyone else is just a drone there to execute their vision. Sounds like classic MBA culture to me.

harha 6y ago

To be honest I don’t think they’re (MBAs) completely useless, I just think they often end up in the wrong position for the wrong reasons. I’ve had some great market research done by providing assignments to MBA students (though when I did my engineering MS and we had joint classes I stayed as far away from group work with them as I could - different grading gives different incentives), I just feel they sometimes might have difficulties understanding concepts like opportunity cost, probability or non-linear developments.

jack_riminton 6y ago

Me too. I'm thinking of knocking up a quick site just to dunk on MBAs...

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

I hesitated to post that because it would be interpreted that way. In the case I described, the issue was literally that having an MBA put you on a lower payscale than being a mid-tier engineer. The problem was that we had several people who invested years of their lives and six figures into post-graduate MBA education with the expectation that it was a cheat code for moving them up to the top of the payscale. It was a shock to land in a company where that was not true at all, and furthermore that it was codified into the payscale. Having an MBA is certainly not a negative signal like HN tends to suggest. The bigger issue is resistance to the modern dual-track career ladders. Many people still want the management title (or an MBA credential) to guarantee them higher compensation, and they're resistant to any system which doesn't match those expectations.