8 ms·

I love this story. This is also why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech compa

I love this story. This is also why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company. I never understood this. For a group of people (programmers) that presumably have been ostracized, shunned, and picked on in their formative years, why do so many in the valley do this to 'MBAs'. It's ignorant at best. The fact is, as has been shown time and time again, the #1 factor for success in a startup is not technical knowledge (or even business knowledge). It's just an unshakeable will to figure it out and get it done. If you are a technical startup with non-technical founders, that's just 1 set of challenges you have to deal with. However, if you are a technical founder and are bad with finance and other business stuff (and are trying to raise money or do a partnership deal with another company) you will have a commensurate amount of problems. I wish we all, on HN (at the very least), would stop painting with a broad brush and bashing large swathes of people. Everybody here wants the same thing. To build a lasting business. Who cares what background they have. Congrats to you guys for doing this - despite, what I am sure, were incessant snarky comments you got from geeks. P.S. I apologize for the rant, but I am both a geek & an MBA - both of which I would never apologize for, and both of which have completely changed my life.

ThomPete 14y ago
I don't believe it's the MBA but rather the experience people have that make them able to do run a successful company. MBAs aren't making you a good businessman anymore than studying philosophy is making you a good philosopher. You still need the experience and the insights in order to create something like this. But I wholeheartedly agree that you don't need to be a technical co-founder to do a company like this. However you do need someone to do it for you.
- marcamillion 14y ago
  Well...my point was simply that there is no silver bullet other than a dogged will to get it done. There are many brilliant programmers who will never build a sustainable business because they just don't have the will to get it done. Likewise, there are many MBAs that will be middle management in LargeCo. all their lives for the same reason. It has become Valley lore that u need to be a geek to build a successful business - when it is patently clear that is false. None of the AirBnB guys are geeks - they are designers!
  - ThomPete 14y ago
    I think it has become the lore that you need to be a geek to build a successful software business. There are always exceptions. With regards to MBA's is there any evidence that getting one makes people more sucessful in their careers? I know it helps if you already have a job to climb the ladder, but I don't think there is much in an MBA that isn't covered in a book like "The Personal MBA" and isn't much you will learn the hard way that isn't covered by starting your own company or joining a startup. But each to their own.
    - marcamillion 14y ago
      So...I guess I disagree with the premise. There is no single educational achievement that anyone can get that will single-handedly assure success in their career. Have there been many success stories of people with MBAs? Yes. Have there been many success stories of people with law /medicine/accounting degrees? Yes. Do each of those guarantee success. Hells no. Does an education guarantee success? No. The only thing that guarantees success is determination to be successful. For me...my MBA taught me how the world works. It is surprising how few people understand how it truly works - yet they speak as if they know. For that single achievement alone, I would encourage everyone to get an MBA. That being said, does that mean that everyone that gets an MBA understands the world? No. I think it was more my finance/economics slant that did that. Even still...does everybody with those slants achieve the results I did? Absolutely not. So as I said.....it's not about the single data point that will make you a success - it's more than that. Survivor's bias (not sure if that is the correct term here) does lead people to link the two - i.e. the people that are more likely to be successful are the ones that are more likely to get a degree like that. That being said...all people who get those degrees won't be "successful" and all successful people won't have those degrees.
      - cygwin98 14y ago
        For me...my MBA taught me how the world works. It is surprising how few people understand how it truly works - yet they speak as if they know. For that single achievement alone, I would encourage everyone to get an MBA. That sounds like quite a claim. Can you shed some lights on how the world works from an MBA's perspective?
- mkbrody 14y ago
  You are absolutely right ThomPete, you need to either employ or contract someone technically sound to build a great software product. Mike Scharf is a great evaluator and hirer of people. This has helped our business tremendously.
mkbrody 14y ago
Thank you for the supportive comments Marcamillion. Mike Scharf hired me to offset his technical inefficiencies. He in turn is the type of entrepreneur and business visionary who is great to work with.
modarts 14y ago
I think a lot of the disparagement comes mainly from interactions many of us have with a lot of these types of individuals. A lot of the time the "MBAs" place an overemphasis on the ideas themselves being more important than the ability to execute on them from a technical perspective (although i'd have to say that a lot of developers may have the reverse disposition)
- marcamillion 14y ago
  I understand where it comes from - but that doesn't justify it. The focus should be on the issue - i.e. people focusing on ideas and less on execution - rather than an archetype.
jconley 14y ago
"This is also why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company." I realize this is probably just semantics but I want to chime in on one little tidbit here. These guys didn't start a technology company in the sense that they needed technology innovation to succeed. They started an innovative cleaning business that uses some technology. They were building software in well trodden territory with a clear scope and execution path. If you want to revolutionize web search, or be the first company to create an eCommerce store, or run a PaaS hosting business, then you probably have a tech company. If you're starting one of these, you damn well better have a nerd or two around. :)
- marcamillion 14y ago
  I understand where you are going, but definitely semantics :)
  - nilkn 14y ago
    I think the difference is legitimately more than semantics. There's a very real difference between starting something like Heroku and something like MyClean. I'm not saying one is easier than the other. I'm just saying different expertise is required. MyClean sounds like a perfect company to be run by MBAs with technology pushed to the side. My gut feeling is the opposite for Heroku.
- shenberg 14y ago
  This equally true for a bunch of YC companies, like AirBnB and Dropbox, where the technical challenge is in dealing with scaling, but the actual innovation is in the product.
  - SurfScore 14y ago
    Dropbox is a very technically challenging product, so I don't know if that's the best example.
physcab 14y ago
> why do so many in the valley do this to 'MBAs'. Because every technical person has a story about: - "Idea people" telling them what to do and taking all the credit. - A non-technical manager setting unreasonable deadlines. - A non-technical manager trivializing a complex task. - "Oh we'll just get him/her to write some code". - Being treated as if their talents are a commodity. - Being treated as if they cannot communicate like other humans. - Putting in blood, sweat, and tears into a project for little or no pay. - Studying like mad in college while everyone else seemed to be partying (or this could just be me)
- marcamillion 14y ago
  I think the correct term for those people are "douchebags"...not "MBAs".
  - jaggederest 14y ago
    A = douchebags B = MBAs B ⊆ A
    - mahmud 14y ago
      Quite the startling fallacy there, even if disguised in symbols.
    - marcamillion 14y ago
      C = Some People C ⊆ A
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
larrys 14y ago
"why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company." PG's outlook (if you are correct) is based on his background perhaps - this from his wikipedia page: "Graham has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Cornell University.... He then attended Harvard University, earning Master of Science (1988) and Doctor of Philosophy (1990) degrees in Applied Sciences with a specialization in computer science.... He has also studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence." From this I can deduce that PG wasn't "business minded" in high school although maybe he did run some business on the side etc to make money (I don't know). But he wasn't interested enough in it to attend a business school as an undergraduate. If that had been the case instead of going to Cornell he might have chosen Wharton for undergraduate business. In Wharton UG (I graduated) most of the people - the majority of people that I met - knew that they wanted to be in business just like some people know growing up they want to be doctors. Only difference is those people can do something before college obviously nobody is going to practice medicine prior to training. So I would suspect that PG's view of the world was based upon his ability to program and put together viaweb and without that programming skill (especially back then) viaweb probably wouldn't have happened. (Morris on the other hand, while a programmer, is a bit devious (worm) so that definitely is a quality that is helpful in business.
- sillysaurus 14y ago
  If you don't know what you're talking about, then why are you talking about it? "Morris is devious for his worm, which is a quality helpful in business." You don't have any idea what Robert is like.
  - larrys 14y ago
    If I am wrong and I don't know what I'm talking about, then instead of saying "If you don't know what you're talking about, then why are you talking about it?" why don't you provide backup for your statement "you don't have any idea what Robert is like" which refutes the fact that I think someone who did what Morris did is "devious"? I would make the same statement about Steve Jobs with regards to the blue boxes. With respect to Morris, this statement (wikipedia) to me indicates he is "devious": "According to its creator, the Morris worm was not written to cause damage, but to gauge the size of the Internet. However, the worm was released from MIT to disguise the fact that the worm originally came from Cornell."
pg 14y ago
You're attacking a straw man here. We've funded lots of companies started by people who weren't programmers. In the YC FAQ, we recommend that such people find cofounders who are, if they can. But we don't insist even on that. http://paulgraham.com/identity.html http://paulgraham.com/identity.html
- mkbrody 14y ago
  Eventually Mike Scharf realized he needed some true technical expertise in house. Once we nail this component sky is the limit!
- marcamillion 14y ago
  I never meant to attack you personally - it was more the sentiment that is often espoused in many comments & stories that appear on HN. You can even see some in this thread! Some of that sentiment appear in your essays (and perhaps comments) - which people may take out of context.
kolbe 14y ago
This is such macho-induced cliche drivel that I feel like you're caricaturing one of these 'MBAs'. First you try to belittle geeks for having been friendless, then call them ignorant. Then you break out the whole 'number one' nonsense, and even utilize a pound sign. And my favorite part is when you turn to the tautology of the 'unshakeable will to figure it out and get it done'. Ha. Yeah, people who do can do X are the ones who can get X done. Hard to argue with that. And this group of 'MBAs', while they posses no uses that can actually be communicated or quantified, they have tons of je ne sais quoi to get it done with. And they'll fucking pwn the shit out of business with their endless supply of je ne sais quoi. And nerds? Ha, MBAs have more je ne sais quoi leaking out of them after slaying two 10s. The point of dismissing these so-called 'MBAs' is not that a masters in business is some inherent flaw, but it's in calling that degree (or the concept of doing nothing, but 'being' awesome) an asset. It's in the type of person who does nothing, but wants to take from everyone else's pool of human capital and ride in their wake while pretending that the 'decisions' they make on the golf course while other employees are off actually working mean anything.
- marcamillion 14y ago
  Again...sweeping generalizations...which you have proved just now.
  - kolbe 14y ago
    When you come here and completely fulfill all of the other presumptions what are we supposed to think? You think saying nerds were friendless, then spouting off meaningless one-liners about it is a way to entice people into moving beyond generalizations?
    - marcamillion 14y ago
      If a nerd can't talk about generalizations about nerds...who can?
dannyr 14y ago
"This is also why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company." "I wish we all, on HN (at the very least), would stop painting with a broad brush and bashing large swathes of people." Pretty conflicting statements. Asking HN not to disparage people while disparaging people in Silicon valley himself. If a non-technical founder wants to build a photo-sharing app, how would she/he even build a minimum viable product without learning how to code or getting a technical partner? It depends on the business. Some ideas like MyClean don't need much technical skills to start. It's pretty disappointing that this is the top comment on this thread.
- rtpg 14y ago
  I don't understand how a photo-shapring app would require more technical knowledge than MyClean. The point is still valid though. People sit here acting as if moan-technical people can't understand what is fundamental a people problem (is there a market for this)? A lot of startups might spend all the time in the world making the most elegant software in the world, but if nobody wants to use it it's game over. Bad execution doesn't matter if the problem is important enough to them(think of all the people running around still doing things in buggy DOS software from 1996). But if I don't want to use your social network for cats, it's a lot harder to get people to care about your website than it is to hire motivated people to make your site better. Craigslist is a great example of using (relatively) low-tech means to get things done. It used to be a mailing list. Shady download websites with 10000 popups and buggy captchas and timers also show that it's about the demand. Of course if someone else is competing in the same domain as you, the best differentiator (after previous mind-share) is a good UX (lot easier to make with good software).
- hef19898 14y ago
  And if a technical guy wants to built a photo sharing app which also modifies the photos somehow without any idea of photography? It's hard for a single person to built a successfull product or company, simply due to a lack of skills. That's why you need partner, co-founders, employees and contractors. What makes a good founder IMHO is the ability to see what kind of skills are currently missing. The next trick is to get these skills somehow.
Aloisius 14y ago
For a group of people (programmers) that presumably have been ostracized, shunned, and picked on in their formative years, why do so many in the valley do this to 'MBAs'. It is hard to classify any group as being monolithic, but it has been my experience that an MBA really prepares you to be a good middle manager or consultant. Indeed, this is what MBA programs were originally designed to do and it still shows. It also makes sense that middle managers would be the last people you'd want to hire at a startup (literally, middle managers are the last to get hired). Of course, there are exceptions. A lot of exceptions in this case. If you have the startup bug, MBA or not, you'll start a company, but let's not pretend like this train of thought is completely unwarranted.
colemorrison 14y ago
It's simple really: Because people make the mistake of constant blanket statements: Technical people say: "MBAs always suck." Non-Technicals say: "Techies are incessant and snarky geeks." One blanket statement results in the retort of another statement, and then group polarization takes effect. So by making this rant, you're just setting a precedent for Techies to be flamed at MBAs even more.

ThomPete 14y ago

I don't believe it's the MBA but rather the experience people have that make them able to do run a successful company. MBAs aren't making you a good businessman anymore than studying philosophy is making you a good philosopher. You still need the experience and the insights in order to create something like this. But I wholeheartedly agree that you don't need to be a technical co-founder to do a company like this. However you do need someone to do it for you.

marcamillion 14y ago
Well...my point was simply that there is no silver bullet other than a dogged will to get it done. There are many brilliant programmers who will never build a sustainable business because they just don't have the will to get it done. Likewise, there are many MBAs that will be middle management in LargeCo. all their lives for the same reason. It has become Valley lore that u need to be a geek to build a successful business - when it is patently clear that is false. None of the AirBnB guys are geeks - they are designers!
- ThomPete 14y ago
  I think it has become the lore that you need to be a geek to build a successful software business. There are always exceptions. With regards to MBA's is there any evidence that getting one makes people more sucessful in their careers? I know it helps if you already have a job to climb the ladder, but I don't think there is much in an MBA that isn't covered in a book like "The Personal MBA" and isn't much you will learn the hard way that isn't covered by starting your own company or joining a startup. But each to their own.
  - marcamillion 14y ago
    So...I guess I disagree with the premise. There is no single educational achievement that anyone can get that will single-handedly assure success in their career. Have there been many success stories of people with MBAs? Yes. Have there been many success stories of people with law /medicine/accounting degrees? Yes. Do each of those guarantee success. Hells no. Does an education guarantee success? No. The only thing that guarantees success is determination to be successful. For me...my MBA taught me how the world works. It is surprising how few people understand how it truly works - yet they speak as if they know. For that single achievement alone, I would encourage everyone to get an MBA. That being said, does that mean that everyone that gets an MBA understands the world? No. I think it was more my finance/economics slant that did that. Even still...does everybody with those slants achieve the results I did? Absolutely not. So as I said.....it's not about the single data point that will make you a success - it's more than that. Survivor's bias (not sure if that is the correct term here) does lead people to link the two - i.e. the people that are more likely to be successful are the ones that are more likely to get a degree like that. That being said...all people who get those degrees won't be "successful" and all successful people won't have those degrees.
    - cygwin98 14y ago
      For me...my MBA taught me how the world works. It is surprising how few people understand how it truly works - yet they speak as if they know. For that single achievement alone, I would encourage everyone to get an MBA. That sounds like quite a claim. Can you shed some lights on how the world works from an MBA's perspective?
mkbrody 14y ago
You are absolutely right ThomPete, you need to either employ or contract someone technically sound to build a great software product. Mike Scharf is a great evaluator and hirer of people. This has helped our business tremendously.

mkbrody 14y ago

Thank you for the supportive comments Marcamillion. Mike Scharf hired me to offset his technical inefficiencies. He in turn is the type of entrepreneur and business visionary who is great to work with.

modarts 14y ago

I think a lot of the disparagement comes mainly from interactions many of us have with a lot of these types of individuals. A lot of the time the "MBAs" place an overemphasis on the ideas themselves being more important than the ability to execute on them from a technical perspective (although i'd have to say that a lot of developers may have the reverse disposition)

marcamillion 14y ago
I understand where it comes from - but that doesn't justify it. The focus should be on the issue - i.e. people focusing on ideas and less on execution - rather than an archetype.

jconley 14y ago

"This is also why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company." I realize this is probably just semantics but I want to chime in on one little tidbit here. These guys didn't start a technology company in the sense that they needed technology innovation to succeed. They started an innovative cleaning business that uses some technology. They were building software in well trodden territory with a clear scope and execution path. If you want to revolutionize web search, or be the first company to create an eCommerce store, or run a PaaS hosting business, then you probably have a tech company. If you're starting one of these, you damn well better have a nerd or two around. :)

marcamillion 14y ago
I understand where you are going, but definitely semantics :)
- nilkn 14y ago
  I think the difference is legitimately more than semantics. There's a very real difference between starting something like Heroku and something like MyClean. I'm not saying one is easier than the other. I'm just saying different expertise is required. MyClean sounds like a perfect company to be run by MBAs with technology pushed to the side. My gut feeling is the opposite for Heroku.
shenberg 14y ago
This equally true for a bunch of YC companies, like AirBnB and Dropbox, where the technical challenge is in dealing with scaling, but the actual innovation is in the product.
- SurfScore 14y ago
  Dropbox is a very technically challenging product, so I don't know if that's the best example.

physcab 14y ago

> why do so many in the valley do this to 'MBAs'. Because every technical person has a story about: - "Idea people" telling them what to do and taking all the credit. - A non-technical manager setting unreasonable deadlines. - A non-technical manager trivializing a complex task. - "Oh we'll just get him/her to write some code". - Being treated as if their talents are a commodity. - Being treated as if they cannot communicate like other humans. - Putting in blood, sweat, and tears into a project for little or no pay. - Studying like mad in college while everyone else seemed to be partying (or this could just be me)

marcamillion 14y ago
I think the correct term for those people are "douchebags"...not "MBAs".
- jaggederest 14y ago
  A = douchebags B = MBAs B ⊆ A
  - mahmud 14y ago
    Quite the startling fallacy there, even if disguised in symbols.
  - marcamillion 14y ago
    C = Some People C ⊆ A
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

larrys 14y ago

"why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company." PG's outlook (if you are correct) is based on his background perhaps - this from his wikipedia page: "Graham has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Cornell University.... He then attended Harvard University, earning Master of Science (1988) and Doctor of Philosophy (1990) degrees in Applied Sciences with a specialization in computer science.... He has also studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence." From this I can deduce that PG wasn't "business minded" in high school although maybe he did run some business on the side etc to make money (I don't know). But he wasn't interested enough in it to attend a business school as an undergraduate. If that had been the case instead of going to Cornell he might have chosen Wharton for undergraduate business. In Wharton UG (I graduated) most of the people - the majority of people that I met - knew that they wanted to be in business just like some people know growing up they want to be doctors. Only difference is those people can do something before college obviously nobody is going to practice medicine prior to training. So I would suspect that PG's view of the world was based upon his ability to program and put together viaweb and without that programming skill (especially back then) viaweb probably wouldn't have happened. (Morris on the other hand, while a programmer, is a bit devious (worm) so that definitely is a quality that is helpful in business.

sillysaurus 14y ago
If you don't know what you're talking about, then why are you talking about it? "Morris is devious for his worm, which is a quality helpful in business." You don't have any idea what Robert is like.
- larrys 14y ago
  If I am wrong and I don't know what I'm talking about, then instead of saying "If you don't know what you're talking about, then why are you talking about it?" why don't you provide backup for your statement "you don't have any idea what Robert is like" which refutes the fact that I think someone who did what Morris did is "devious"? I would make the same statement about Steve Jobs with regards to the blue boxes. With respect to Morris, this statement (wikipedia) to me indicates he is "devious": "According to its creator, the Morris worm was not written to cause damage, but to gauge the size of the Internet. However, the worm was released from MIT to disguise the fact that the worm originally came from Cornell."

pg 14y ago

You're attacking a straw man here. We've funded lots of companies started by people who weren't programmers. In the YC FAQ, we recommend that such people find cofounders who are, if they can. But we don't insist even on that. http://paulgraham.com/identity.html http://paulgraham.com/identity.html

mkbrody 14y ago
Eventually Mike Scharf realized he needed some true technical expertise in house. Once we nail this component sky is the limit!
marcamillion 14y ago
I never meant to attack you personally - it was more the sentiment that is often espoused in many comments & stories that appear on HN. You can even see some in this thread! Some of that sentiment appear in your essays (and perhaps comments) - which people may take out of context.

kolbe 14y ago

This is such macho-induced cliche drivel that I feel like you're caricaturing one of these 'MBAs'. First you try to belittle geeks for having been friendless, then call them ignorant. Then you break out the whole 'number one' nonsense, and even utilize a pound sign. And my favorite part is when you turn to the tautology of the 'unshakeable will to figure it out and get it done'. Ha. Yeah, people who do can do X are the ones who can get X done. Hard to argue with that. And this group of 'MBAs', while they posses no uses that can actually be communicated or quantified, they have tons of je ne sais quoi to get it done with. And they'll fucking pwn the shit out of business with their endless supply of je ne sais quoi. And nerds? Ha, MBAs have more je ne sais quoi leaking out of them after slaying two 10s. The point of dismissing these so-called 'MBAs' is not that a masters in business is some inherent flaw, but it's in calling that degree (or the concept of doing nothing, but 'being' awesome) an asset. It's in the type of person who does nothing, but wants to take from everyone else's pool of human capital and ride in their wake while pretending that the 'decisions' they make on the golf course while other employees are off actually working mean anything.

marcamillion 14y ago
Again...sweeping generalizations...which you have proved just now.
- kolbe 14y ago
  When you come here and completely fulfill all of the other presumptions what are we supposed to think? You think saying nerds were friendless, then spouting off meaningless one-liners about it is a way to entice people into moving beyond generalizations?
  - marcamillion 14y ago
    If a nerd can't talk about generalizations about nerds...who can?

dannyr 14y ago

"This is also why I bristle when many in the Valley - PG included - keep disparaging non-technical people when they want to start a tech company." "I wish we all, on HN (at the very least), would stop painting with a broad brush and bashing large swathes of people." Pretty conflicting statements. Asking HN not to disparage people while disparaging people in Silicon valley himself. If a non-technical founder wants to build a photo-sharing app, how would she/he even build a minimum viable product without learning how to code or getting a technical partner? It depends on the business. Some ideas like MyClean don't need much technical skills to start. It's pretty disappointing that this is the top comment on this thread.

rtpg 14y ago
I don't understand how a photo-shapring app would require more technical knowledge than MyClean. The point is still valid though. People sit here acting as if moan-technical people can't understand what is fundamental a people problem (is there a market for this)? A lot of startups might spend all the time in the world making the most elegant software in the world, but if nobody wants to use it it's game over. Bad execution doesn't matter if the problem is important enough to them(think of all the people running around still doing things in buggy DOS software from 1996). But if I don't want to use your social network for cats, it's a lot harder to get people to care about your website than it is to hire motivated people to make your site better. Craigslist is a great example of using (relatively) low-tech means to get things done. It used to be a mailing list. Shady download websites with 10000 popups and buggy captchas and timers also show that it's about the demand. Of course if someone else is competing in the same domain as you, the best differentiator (after previous mind-share) is a good UX (lot easier to make with good software).
hef19898 14y ago
And if a technical guy wants to built a photo sharing app which also modifies the photos somehow without any idea of photography? It's hard for a single person to built a successfull product or company, simply due to a lack of skills. That's why you need partner, co-founders, employees and contractors. What makes a good founder IMHO is the ability to see what kind of skills are currently missing. The next trick is to get these skills somehow.

Aloisius 14y ago

For a group of people (programmers) that presumably have been ostracized, shunned, and picked on in their formative years, why do so many in the valley do this to 'MBAs'. It is hard to classify any group as being monolithic, but it has been my experience that an MBA really prepares you to be a good middle manager or consultant. Indeed, this is what MBA programs were originally designed to do and it still shows. It also makes sense that middle managers would be the last people you'd want to hire at a startup (literally, middle managers are the last to get hired). Of course, there are exceptions. A lot of exceptions in this case. If you have the startup bug, MBA or not, you'll start a company, but let's not pretend like this train of thought is completely unwarranted.

colemorrison 14y ago

It's simple really: Because people make the mistake of constant blanket statements: Technical people say: "MBAs always suck." Non-Technicals say: "Techies are incessant and snarky geeks." One blanket statement results in the retort of another statement, and then group polarization takes effect. So by making this rant, you're just setting a precedent for Techies to be flamed at MBAs even more.