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It’s one of the popular tropes that’s repeated here and people use it as a lazy way of assigning blame for a phenomenon they do not understand whatsoever. Somet

It’s one of the popular tropes that’s repeated here and people use it as a lazy way of assigning blame for a phenomenon they do not understand whatsoever. Something bad happened? Couldn’t have possibly had a good reason for it, must be those MBA types. When Apple (as an example) turns around and produces groundbreaking chips and fantastic computers at an affordable price nobody gives Mr. MBA (Fuqua) Tim Cook credit for business decisions and leadership that enable this. I’d recommend avoiding this lazy intellectual path because it’s not only incorrect in this context, it perverts your thinking in other contexts as well.

FredPret 5y ago
I would not be so quick to regard this as lazy thinking. It's merely shorthand for this idea: product people produce value, "MBA's" turn value into money. Obviously we need both sides. Tim Cook is an Industrial Engineer with an MBA - a perfect combination. Apple is actually a great example of a company that produces a lot of value and also captures it in the form of dollars. From this point of view, to be "MBA'ed" is to focus on profit while forgetting about producing value. This then waters down brands that were established on the bedrock of value produced by product people.
- ericmay 5y ago
  I don’t think there’s a “both sides”. The reason this is lazy thinking in my view is because usually it’s not associated with the good (Apple example, nobody goes “dang they really MBA’d the price on that MacBook Pro that I love) and because when something “bad” occurs there’s no understanding or analysis of the situation that lead to the current state. Just a bunch of “that’s bad, must be MBAs screwing me”. You find similar issues with “those Silicon Valley engineers all screwing us and stealing our attention” and other common phrases. The MBA one I think is even less nuanced than the contrived Silicon Valley one. If we go back to the MBA thing. Well. I have one. I don’t like fast fashion. I wouldn’t want to support it even if it made more money. The degree doesn’t make you do anything, your incentives and who you are as a person are much more powerful. There’s no class on fast fashion (or similar) where MBA students are trained to maximize profit at all costs or not think about sociological impact. At least at Ohio State (Fisher) that was the case in all classes I attended. We spent a lot more time learning about not doing such things and how they are bad for business and society in the long run. My classmates had a lot of empathy. Maybe it’s because like me they were/are regular people just trying to do better. So I really hate seeing this. To the extent it can happen on an internet board I find it a little offensive and disrespectful. Not a big deal or something just saying if you joined some forum and everybody said all the bad decisions were because of software engineers, well you’d probably at least get tired of hearing about it. Especially when you’re a regular person trying to be nice and do good, value-add work. Idk. Thanks for your comment.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    Perhaps you are taking it personally because you have an MBA. It's not meant as a personal attack on literal MBA's. I use the term as shorthand for the people who do the vital work of making a business run efficiently and profitably. When companies focus on that to the exclusion of the actual value-creating, bad things happen. The opposite case is when a startup does not find a market and only focuses on making a product. This, too, fails. As an investor, I look for companies that do well on both ends of the spectrum.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      No, I wouldn’t say I’m taking it personally. My self-worth exists independent of a degree, of which is obtainable by many. What I find disrespectful* is lumping large groups of people in together based on a degree, and then saying “that group is responsible for all the bad decisions”. I have to imagine you can see why this is simply lazy thinking. Let me give you another contrived example: “Social media co is found to have withheld information that lead to bad social thing” “This is what happens when companies become Software Engineered. They lose all focus on the customer and society just to create better algorithms”. You don’t think that if we just constantly repeated something like this that would be a bad thing and might alienate people? Especially when it’s not true and ignores good things that people have done as well? What I’ll say is this. It’ll stop being lazy and disrespectful when large groups here also give credit where credit is due instead of only blame without evidence. * Note that I don’t actually care, I’m never at home offended by something, I’m just commenting on the nature of the action, which I would classify as disrespectful.
      - dasil003 5y ago
        The problem with your counter example is that it doesn't recognize prevailing power dynamics. In the vast majority of cases, software engineers, designers, product managers, and other people hands-on in the business of creating commercial software products, are outranked and have less authority than MBAs within their sphere of interaction. Many of us have been forced to be party to terrible decisions made by someone who has focused on an executive career path with no skill-based qualifications, and a deficient moral compass. Very often, these type of individuals happen to have an MBA, and so the stereotype was born. While it certainly isn't fair to tar all individuals with that brush, the short-hand has been earned by the actions of many MBAs over the decades. Whether you agree with that or not, the bottom line is you're simply not going to get much sympathy around here for the plight of the poor maligned MBA.
candiddevmike 5y ago
Isn't it ironic that this comment thread was originally about devices not lasting long enough and you bring up Apple, who purposefully crippled old phones and created AirPods to generate enormous amounts of e-waste, as an example of MBA types doing a good thing?
- ericmay 5y ago
  Does Apple do any good things?
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    They had some interesting UX in early apps like Hypercard. Too bad none of it was free software so it's lost in this day and age.
- chrischen 5y ago
  Have you actually looked at the competition and see how long android phones last and/are maintained? Apple also has a pretty accessible recycling program but more importantly Apple products hold their value more, leading to a pretty good used market. No doubt this is bolstered by Apple’s fairly generous global warranty policy that is also transferrable. Btw the “crippling” you referred to was apple throttling phones so weakened batteries were able to supply enough voltage to prevent the phone from randomly shutting off. It was not some secret attempt to blanket slow down old phones. If you replaced old batteries the problem would not happened. It was just bad communication and built up sentiment that old phones kept getting slower with each new update.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    > Have you actually looked at the competition and see how long android phones last and/are maintained? Yes the Fairphone are doing well thank you. Very easy to tear apart, setup the system of your choice, and find replacement parts for. > Apple products hold their value more, leading to a pretty good used market. What does that mean? Money is just imaginary numbers. A phone is a phone: either it works good or it doesn't, how much and why it's valued by people brainwashed into a commercial cult [0] matters little in the equation. > No doubt this is bolstered by Apple’s fairly generous global warranty policy that is also transferrable. Kudos for them to respect the law. Although i must point out that for some years, at least in France, they were obviously breaking EU laws by saying their phones had only 1y warranty (2y minimum by law) and selling people "upgrades" to get the 2 years. > It was not some secret attempt to blanket slow down old phones. If you replaced old batteries the problem would not happened. Do you have a source for this? It's the first time i hear that explanation, and it certainly was not put forward by Apple in their update log at the time (suggesting malice). Also worth noting that Apple makes it harder than it should to crack your phone open to replace the battery, so i don't think that's a strong argument in their defense. [0] https://www.techspot.com/news/43884-neurologists-apple-is-like-a-religion.html https://www.techspot.com/news/43884-neurologists-apple-is-li...

FredPret 5y ago

I would not be so quick to regard this as lazy thinking. It's merely shorthand for this idea: product people produce value, "MBA's" turn value into money. Obviously we need both sides. Tim Cook is an Industrial Engineer with an MBA - a perfect combination. Apple is actually a great example of a company that produces a lot of value and also captures it in the form of dollars. From this point of view, to be "MBA'ed" is to focus on profit while forgetting about producing value. This then waters down brands that were established on the bedrock of value produced by product people.

ericmay 5y ago
I don’t think there’s a “both sides”. The reason this is lazy thinking in my view is because usually it’s not associated with the good (Apple example, nobody goes “dang they really MBA’d the price on that MacBook Pro that I love) and because when something “bad” occurs there’s no understanding or analysis of the situation that lead to the current state. Just a bunch of “that’s bad, must be MBAs screwing me”. You find similar issues with “those Silicon Valley engineers all screwing us and stealing our attention” and other common phrases. The MBA one I think is even less nuanced than the contrived Silicon Valley one. If we go back to the MBA thing. Well. I have one. I don’t like fast fashion. I wouldn’t want to support it even if it made more money. The degree doesn’t make you do anything, your incentives and who you are as a person are much more powerful. There’s no class on fast fashion (or similar) where MBA students are trained to maximize profit at all costs or not think about sociological impact. At least at Ohio State (Fisher) that was the case in all classes I attended. We spent a lot more time learning about not doing such things and how they are bad for business and society in the long run. My classmates had a lot of empathy. Maybe it’s because like me they were/are regular people just trying to do better. So I really hate seeing this. To the extent it can happen on an internet board I find it a little offensive and disrespectful. Not a big deal or something just saying if you joined some forum and everybody said all the bad decisions were because of software engineers, well you’d probably at least get tired of hearing about it. Especially when you’re a regular person trying to be nice and do good, value-add work. Idk. Thanks for your comment.
- FredPret 5y ago
  Perhaps you are taking it personally because you have an MBA. It's not meant as a personal attack on literal MBA's. I use the term as shorthand for the people who do the vital work of making a business run efficiently and profitably. When companies focus on that to the exclusion of the actual value-creating, bad things happen. The opposite case is when a startup does not find a market and only focuses on making a product. This, too, fails. As an investor, I look for companies that do well on both ends of the spectrum.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    No, I wouldn’t say I’m taking it personally. My self-worth exists independent of a degree, of which is obtainable by many. What I find disrespectful* is lumping large groups of people in together based on a degree, and then saying “that group is responsible for all the bad decisions”. I have to imagine you can see why this is simply lazy thinking. Let me give you another contrived example: “Social media co is found to have withheld information that lead to bad social thing” “This is what happens when companies become Software Engineered. They lose all focus on the customer and society just to create better algorithms”. You don’t think that if we just constantly repeated something like this that would be a bad thing and might alienate people? Especially when it’s not true and ignores good things that people have done as well? What I’ll say is this. It’ll stop being lazy and disrespectful when large groups here also give credit where credit is due instead of only blame without evidence. * Note that I don’t actually care, I’m never at home offended by something, I’m just commenting on the nature of the action, which I would classify as disrespectful.
    - dasil003 5y ago
      The problem with your counter example is that it doesn't recognize prevailing power dynamics. In the vast majority of cases, software engineers, designers, product managers, and other people hands-on in the business of creating commercial software products, are outranked and have less authority than MBAs within their sphere of interaction. Many of us have been forced to be party to terrible decisions made by someone who has focused on an executive career path with no skill-based qualifications, and a deficient moral compass. Very often, these type of individuals happen to have an MBA, and so the stereotype was born. While it certainly isn't fair to tar all individuals with that brush, the short-hand has been earned by the actions of many MBAs over the decades. Whether you agree with that or not, the bottom line is you're simply not going to get much sympathy around here for the plight of the poor maligned MBA.

candiddevmike 5y ago

Isn't it ironic that this comment thread was originally about devices not lasting long enough and you bring up Apple, who purposefully crippled old phones and created AirPods to generate enormous amounts of e-waste, as an example of MBA types doing a good thing?

ericmay 5y ago
Does Apple do any good things?
- southerntofu 5y ago
  They had some interesting UX in early apps like Hypercard. Too bad none of it was free software so it's lost in this day and age.
chrischen 5y ago
Have you actually looked at the competition and see how long android phones last and/are maintained? Apple also has a pretty accessible recycling program but more importantly Apple products hold their value more, leading to a pretty good used market. No doubt this is bolstered by Apple’s fairly generous global warranty policy that is also transferrable. Btw the “crippling” you referred to was apple throttling phones so weakened batteries were able to supply enough voltage to prevent the phone from randomly shutting off. It was not some secret attempt to blanket slow down old phones. If you replaced old batteries the problem would not happened. It was just bad communication and built up sentiment that old phones kept getting slower with each new update.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > Have you actually looked at the competition and see how long android phones last and/are maintained? Yes the Fairphone are doing well thank you. Very easy to tear apart, setup the system of your choice, and find replacement parts for. > Apple products hold their value more, leading to a pretty good used market. What does that mean? Money is just imaginary numbers. A phone is a phone: either it works good or it doesn't, how much and why it's valued by people brainwashed into a commercial cult [0] matters little in the equation. > No doubt this is bolstered by Apple’s fairly generous global warranty policy that is also transferrable. Kudos for them to respect the law. Although i must point out that for some years, at least in France, they were obviously breaking EU laws by saying their phones had only 1y warranty (2y minimum by law) and selling people "upgrades" to get the 2 years. > It was not some secret attempt to blanket slow down old phones. If you replaced old batteries the problem would not happened. Do you have a source for this? It's the first time i hear that explanation, and it certainly was not put forward by Apple in their update log at the time (suggesting malice). Also worth noting that Apple makes it harder than it should to crack your phone open to replace the battery, so i don't think that's a strong argument in their defense. [0] https://www.techspot.com/news/43884-neurologists-apple-is-like-a-religion.html https://www.techspot.com/news/43884-neurologists-apple-is-li...