11–20 of 167 posts
Company I worked for had an explicit policy to never hire MBAs. We had people from all walks of life but no MBAs. The reason is owners have worked in a large company under clueless MBAs who were neither good managers nor good engineers, and just repeated the latest corporate-speak buzzwords over and over, while drawing sizable salaries.
I think it's more useful to think of MBAs as ordination into something like the Jesuits of American Corporatism. Late Capitalism in the US has evolved in such an obviously unequal and environmentally dangerous way that the only recourse we have is to a kind of "mystical" rhetoric. In this kind of system, being some kind of guru is just as important, if not more, than one's actual business acumen. Hence all the TED ta…
I come from a conservative religious background and I'm genuinely creeped out by the mythologies that surround companies. I think there are a ton of parallels between today's business leaders and megachurch pastors. There's similarities in the way they build brands, the way followers reverently speak of them, assume they do no wrong, are willing to defend them, and the cognitive dissonance used to justify what they are doing.
I assume they must be following a shared playbook, but I don't know who borrowed from what.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has an MBA. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has an MBA. AWS CEO Andrew Jassy has an MBA, etc. It is easy to undervalue marketing, sales, financial and other non-technical skills. There are definitely terrible MBAs, but also amazing ones.
So 70% failed, 30% succeeded. Wasn't the average that 90% of businesses (perhaps more specifically startups) fail within the first 3 years? So if anything, wouldn't this show that Harvard MBA grads do better than the average CEO?
> o Joseph Lampel and I studied the post-1990 records of all 19. How did they do? In a word, badly. A majority, 10, seemed clearly to have failed, meaning that their company went bankrupt, they were forced out of the CEO chair, a major merger backfired, and so on. The performance of another 4 we found to be questionable. So 70% failed, 30% succeeded. Wasn't the average that 90% of businesses (perhaps more specificall…
> o Joseph Lampel and I studied the post-1990 records of all 19. How did they do? In a word, badly. A majority, 10, seemed clearly to have failed, meaning that their company went bankrupt, they were forced out of the CEO chair, a major merger backfired, and so on. The performance of another 4 we found to be questionable. So 70% failed, 30% succeeded. Wasn't the average that 90% of businesses (perhaps more specificall…
Company I worked for had an explicit policy to never hire MBAs. We had people from all walks of life but no MBAs. The reason is owners have worked in a large company under clueless MBAs who were neither good managers nor good engineers, and just repeated the latest corporate-speak buzzwords over and over, while drawing sizable salaries.
This seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. "I worked with some bad MBAs, so anyone who holds that degree must be bad."
Maybe. It did end up working out very well for them. Whether it was because they never hired MBAs or other reasons, they'll always credit that policy as being a part of their success.
Is there a causation factor here? Meaning: are MBA CEOs hired by companies who are in "trouble", or Boards who want to "achieve growth via acquisitions" instead of more organic ways? In other words, does this reflect companies who are more likely to hire MBA-types as their CEOs rather than the individuals themselves?
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has an MBA. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has an MBA. AWS CEO Andrew Jassy has an MBA, etc. It is easy to undervalue marketing, sales, financial and other non-technical skills. There are definitely terrible MBAs, but also amazing ones.
But they have that in addition to an engineering degree.
The reality is that people aren't one-dimensional. If you have overly simple rules: no MBAs, must have University degree, must have Ivy league, Uber people are unethical etc, you make worse decisions.
Company I worked for had an explicit policy to never hire MBAs. We had people from all walks of life but no MBAs. The reason is owners have worked in a large company under clueless MBAs who were neither good managers nor good engineers, and just repeated the latest corporate-speak buzzwords over and over, while drawing sizable salaries.
This seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. "I worked with some bad MBAs, so anyone who holds that degree must be bad."
Consider that qualifications are themselves means of efficient filtering / signalling competence. What it's saying is, the qualifications doesn't add distinction to a candidate without.