4 ms·

As per my other comment, my wife is currently doing an MBA. Again, skills are not replacement for experience, or even good ideas. They won't make you a pro in

As per my other comment, my wife is currently doing an MBA. Again, skills are not replacement for experience, or even good ideas. They won't make you a pro in those things either. It's a bit like saying a CS degree is useless, because it's impractical, and with programming, you learn by doing anyway. And you can't build a business out of a CS degree alone. Undoubtedly so, and yet a CS degree shows you how large the computer world is, so to speak.

wpietri 6y ago
And again, I don't think the MBA program teaches skills, the main exception being presenting confidently when you don't in fact know much. And I'm not saying an MBA is useless. As I said above, it's very useful for establishing a network. It's also an entry ticket into a bunch of high-caste jobs and a thorough indoctrination into the ideology of managerialism. The starting salary for MBA is proof of its usefulness to their holders. I agree there's some analogy with a CS degree. The main difference being that nobody puts a fresh CS grad in charge of anything important, because we understand they don't know much yet. An MBA, on the other hand, puts people in positions of significant influence despite them knowing little or nothing about the actual work. It's as if somebody went through the book-learning part of a medical degree and then was turned loose to practice on real patients.
- rich_sasha 6y ago
  > And again, I don't think the MBA program teaches skills, the main exception being presenting confidently when you don't in fact know much. What can I say, this is not consistent with my experience. Perhaps it says more about the motivations and attitude of the people attending. Perhaps a core confusion is thus: running a technology-based business requires, well, technological and business acumen. If you try to supplement one with the other, things go wrong, regardless of the direction. When I hear Toyota is ran by engineers, I'm sure the engineers don't negotiate finance deals, manage HR, career development, accounting etc. These boring things are important. Equally, when I hear about Boeing or IBM becoming corporate quagmires, whose core product is developed without a proper engineering input, I'm not suggesting this can work. My personal experience of companies ran by technical folk was, as said, awful. The frustration about MBAs I hear in this thread seems to be when they encroach on technical territories they don't know about, and I agree this cannot work. I think where MBAs work best is where you have mid-career people, already with experience, using this to boost their skills in diverse areas (alongside all other benefits like networking etc.), and I maintain it is great at that. If you take someone who doesn't know anything about anything, give them an MBA, then a random start-up to run, and it all goes wrong, I wouldn't blame the MBA.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    I certainly agree the motivations of the people attending are a problem. But again, it's systemic. Locke and Spender cover it well. You keep being sure about Toyota without any knowledge. That's very MBA of you, but I don't think it advances the discussion. The executives who turned it into a global power were engineers. And that engineering orientation was vital to the creation of the Toyota Way. Deeply influenced by W Edwards Deming, an engineer and statistician. Nobody is denying that "boring" things like finance are important. Indeed, I'm saying the opposite. My point is that giving somebody a quick education that covers many "boring" things in a shallow fashion is not a great way to create executives. It is a great way, though, to create a glib executive caste that is good at extracting cash. Which is why executive comp has risen massively over the decades even though few would argue that executives are massively more competent. You might be right that the MBA is better for people who have already developed actual expertise. But the average age of Harvard MBA applicants is 27, and only 12% are over 30. So if you're correct, then we can at least agree that most MBA grads shouldn't be in charge of anything.

wpietri 6y ago

And again, I don't think the MBA program teaches skills, the main exception being presenting confidently when you don't in fact know much. And I'm not saying an MBA is useless. As I said above, it's very useful for establishing a network. It's also an entry ticket into a bunch of high-caste jobs and a thorough indoctrination into the ideology of managerialism. The starting salary for MBA is proof of its usefulness to their holders. I agree there's some analogy with a CS degree. The main difference being that nobody puts a fresh CS grad in charge of anything important, because we understand they don't know much yet. An MBA, on the other hand, puts people in positions of significant influence despite them knowing little or nothing about the actual work. It's as if somebody went through the book-learning part of a medical degree and then was turned loose to practice on real patients.

rich_sasha 6y ago
> And again, I don't think the MBA program teaches skills, the main exception being presenting confidently when you don't in fact know much. What can I say, this is not consistent with my experience. Perhaps it says more about the motivations and attitude of the people attending. Perhaps a core confusion is thus: running a technology-based business requires, well, technological and business acumen. If you try to supplement one with the other, things go wrong, regardless of the direction. When I hear Toyota is ran by engineers, I'm sure the engineers don't negotiate finance deals, manage HR, career development, accounting etc. These boring things are important. Equally, when I hear about Boeing or IBM becoming corporate quagmires, whose core product is developed without a proper engineering input, I'm not suggesting this can work. My personal experience of companies ran by technical folk was, as said, awful. The frustration about MBAs I hear in this thread seems to be when they encroach on technical territories they don't know about, and I agree this cannot work. I think where MBAs work best is where you have mid-career people, already with experience, using this to boost their skills in diverse areas (alongside all other benefits like networking etc.), and I maintain it is great at that. If you take someone who doesn't know anything about anything, give them an MBA, then a random start-up to run, and it all goes wrong, I wouldn't blame the MBA.
- wpietri 6y ago
  I certainly agree the motivations of the people attending are a problem. But again, it's systemic. Locke and Spender cover it well. You keep being sure about Toyota without any knowledge. That's very MBA of you, but I don't think it advances the discussion. The executives who turned it into a global power were engineers. And that engineering orientation was vital to the creation of the Toyota Way. Deeply influenced by W Edwards Deming, an engineer and statistician. Nobody is denying that "boring" things like finance are important. Indeed, I'm saying the opposite. My point is that giving somebody a quick education that covers many "boring" things in a shallow fashion is not a great way to create executives. It is a great way, though, to create a glib executive caste that is good at extracting cash. Which is why executive comp has risen massively over the decades even though few would argue that executives are massively more competent. You might be right that the MBA is better for people who have already developed actual expertise. But the average age of Harvard MBA applicants is 27, and only 12% are over 30. So if you're correct, then we can at least agree that most MBA grads shouldn't be in charge of anything.