5 ms·

"When I began my career in the late 80s and early 90s, MBAs ran most of the best new technology companies." Not exactly. By 1993, MBAs were already starting to

"When I began my career in the late 80s and early 90s, MBAs ran most of the best new technology companies." Not exactly. By 1993, MBAs were already starting to turn AOL into the "how much can we milk you before you'll walk away?" behemoth it became. They'd tried to weasel out of our promise of a "lifetime 20% discount" for charter members, they'd rounded up in some directions and down in others, and they'd literally removed the "Sign Off" button from the toolbar because we billed by the hour, and -- Well, I'll let the MBA tell you. "We needed to drop one icon because of space/look and feel and it made sense to us out of all the other functionality to drop exit. In addition, some folks were uncomfortable with how visible the ability to get out of the service was--all in keeping with our philosophy to keep them online for that one additional minute :)"

dkrich 14y ago
You think that is unique to AOL or MBA's? Try deleting your Facebook account sometime if you'd like a real good mindfucking. Then tell me MBA's are the one's behind it.
- Estragon 14y ago
  > Try deleting your Facebook account sometime if you'd like > a real good mindfucking What happens? (I deleted mine in 2008. I get plaintive emails from them to sign up again, but that's about it.)
  - dkrich 14y ago
    You can only set your profile to not appear publicly in searches, and even that is non-trivial. If you want your profile permanently deleted, you have to email them with a form that I could only find through a Google search that led to their Q&A forum. Even then I'm not sure how "permanent" that permanent deletion is. Point is that the OP was suggesting that AOL MBA's fucked up the company by making the sign out process overly complicated to maximize revenue. That's not unique to MBA's or AOL, but for some reason that's the perception I suppose because AOL isn't as cool as Facebook.
    - jaylevitt 14y ago
      No, but (to me at least) it's MBA thinking. Technologists were thinking "How can we build something cool?" (An interactive mouse-driven sketchpad - over dialup in 1989.) Product folks were thinking "How can we build something great?" (What if we connected the whole world via e-mail and IM?) MBA's were thinking "How can we maximize short-term revenue?" Modal popup ads!
raverbashing 14y ago
Humm the icon thing: not an MBA thing I guess a group of engineers could do the same That's called Design by Committee. See also: Windows Vista
- jaylevitt 14y ago
  No. It wasn't a committee. It was specifically the new, MBA-credentialed "product marketing" person.

dkrich 14y ago

You think that is unique to AOL or MBA's? Try deleting your Facebook account sometime if you'd like a real good mindfucking. Then tell me MBA's are the one's behind it.

Estragon 14y ago
> Try deleting your Facebook account sometime if you'd like > a real good mindfucking What happens? (I deleted mine in 2008. I get plaintive emails from them to sign up again, but that's about it.)
- dkrich 14y ago
  You can only set your profile to not appear publicly in searches, and even that is non-trivial. If you want your profile permanently deleted, you have to email them with a form that I could only find through a Google search that led to their Q&A forum. Even then I'm not sure how "permanent" that permanent deletion is. Point is that the OP was suggesting that AOL MBA's fucked up the company by making the sign out process overly complicated to maximize revenue. That's not unique to MBA's or AOL, but for some reason that's the perception I suppose because AOL isn't as cool as Facebook.
  - jaylevitt 14y ago
    No, but (to me at least) it's MBA thinking. Technologists were thinking "How can we build something cool?" (An interactive mouse-driven sketchpad - over dialup in 1989.) Product folks were thinking "How can we build something great?" (What if we connected the whole world via e-mail and IM?) MBA's were thinking "How can we maximize short-term revenue?" Modal popup ads!

raverbashing 14y ago

Humm the icon thing: not an MBA thing I guess a group of engineers could do the same That's called Design by Committee. See also: Windows Vista

jaylevitt 14y ago
No. It wasn't a committee. It was specifically the new, MBA-credentialed "product marketing" person.