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1. Harvard MBAs aren't the "best and the brightest". Top-20 graduate programs in CS, math, and physics, are far more selective. Possibly a quarter of the CS stu

1. Harvard MBAs aren't the "best and the brightest". Top-20 graduate programs in CS, math, and physics, are far more selective. Possibly a quarter of the CS students at Stanford are legitimately smarter than I am; in top MBA schools, there might be one or two per year who ties me. 2. The good MBAs from Harvard still go to hedge funds and private equity firms, because those pay $500k+ right out of school. (No startup comes close.) The mid-grade MBAs go to venture capital and large banks and corporate senior management. The ones who end up in venture-funded startups as VP/Finance are the leftovers. Bossing nerds around is not what these people want to be doing. They want to work on the billion-dollar deals and at the currency arbitrage desks. Trust me. While there are good MBAs out there, the ones who end up managing startups are the ones who ended up falling to their third or fourth choice. And to fall that far from a prestigious MBA (like Harvard or Columbia) means the person really fucking failed. 3. What this means is that, when MBAs invade VC-istan (as they do during bubble times, like now) is that the best of the colonized tribe (technologists) must answer to the worst of the colonizing tribe (MBA-land business types)-- the ones sent out into the hinterlands because they weren't good enough to make it in the mother country. The dynamics that emerge from this are, from a distance, hilarious.

michaelt 13y ago
Harvard MBAs aren't the "best and the brightest" [...] in top MBA schools, there might be one or two per year who ties me. While I was in engineering graduate school sneering at people who entered the finance industry and made triple what I did, I had a revelation: If people dumber than you are getting paid more for less work, who's really the dumb one?
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > If people dumber than you are getting paid more for less work, who's really the dumb one? If your only concern is making money, you are. But then, that's a big if. EDIT: And, of course, the above also presumes that the making more money doesn't have to do with family connections or other factors that have nothing to do with intelligence.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  Technology's more of a calling than a choice. I just really love the work. I don't begrudge the private equity people making $1 million per year at 25. Good for them. As long as they stay out of my way and let me do my job, it's not my issue what they are paid. Technology is our territory, though. Not theirs. If they want to come in, they best respect the natives.

michaelt 13y ago

Harvard MBAs aren't the "best and the brightest" [...] in top MBA schools, there might be one or two per year who ties me. While I was in engineering graduate school sneering at people who entered the finance industry and made triple what I did, I had a revelation: If people dumber than you are getting paid more for less work, who's really the dumb one?

dragonwriter 13y ago
> If people dumber than you are getting paid more for less work, who's really the dumb one? If your only concern is making money, you are. But then, that's a big if. EDIT: And, of course, the above also presumes that the making more money doesn't have to do with family connections or other factors that have nothing to do with intelligence.
michaelochurch 13y ago
Technology's more of a calling than a choice. I just really love the work. I don't begrudge the private equity people making $1 million per year at 25. Good for them. As long as they stay out of my way and let me do my job, it's not my issue what they are paid. Technology is our territory, though. Not theirs. If they want to come in, they best respect the natives.