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Forget Wall Street. M.B.A.s Want to Work for Amazon

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Re: Forget Wall Street. M.B.A.s Want to Work for Amazon

#51

Post by bagacrap »

sage76 wrote: post #42
ryandrake wrote: post #25

Sigh, looks like this one's going to be the weekly HN MBA Hate Thread™. In defense of the degree: Has it ever occurred to you guys that maybe some (many?) of these people were hackers prior to getting their MBA, and are very competent? Quite a few of my classmates had engineering (including software) backgrounds, and even the ones who had engineering degrees but didn't actually code were still clued in. Why this blan…

> by the way, outside the valley, most companies consider it a plus Maybe that's why they will never come up with the next Apple/Google/SpaceX/etc. Every single MBA I have met, without exception, has been extremely good at talking and making presentations. Ask them to do real work, and they will find a million excuses. Another thing I have noticed, is the kind of people attracted to doing an MBA. They have seen all o…

What qualifies as "real work"? A competent decision maker/consensus reacher is, ime, more valuable than an extra engineer in any software project of a non trivial size. Not every product decision can be made based on logical merits. I don't care what someone's background is if they help maintain organizational coherency.

Re: Forget Wall Street. M.B.A.s Want to Work for Amazon

#52

Post by xenihn »

ch4s3 wrote: post #46
vasilipupkin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at average earnings of an MBA 10 years out vs average earnings of a CS grad 10 years out and tell me which one is more useful for maximizing one's career options.

I think if you compare across all MBA programs in the US and all CS programs, and account for debt, you'll find that the average CS program has a better return. This is because even shitty MBAs cost a fortune and don't necessarily teach a lot of useful skills, whereas even a shitty CS degree teaches you to program enough to be employable. Now if you compare a Harvard or Wharton MBA to say a Stanford or MIT CS degree,…

>whereas even a shitty CS degree teaches you to program enough to be employable

I met someone with a CS degree from Stanford who couldn't do a basic HTTP request in their main programming language (with access to Google / documentation), nor implement and reverse a linked list. These seem like really basic things that anyone with a CS degree should be able to do...

I think you should rephrase your statement to "even a shitty CS degree will convince companies that you are employable".

Re: Forget Wall Street. M.B.A.s Want to Work for Amazon

#53

Post by mugsie »

uptownfunk wrote: post #14
jrs95 wrote: post #2

Well if that's the case, it shouldn't be too much longer before programmers don't ;)

Some of us MBA's have also written (and write) code and can also think from a dev mindset. Why all the hate for MBAs on here?

From my perspective:

Some companies hire these MBAs straight out of college, and put them into fast track programs. This is not a bad thing in itself, but it means you can end up with a (S)VP or C level who has never actually worked in the area the company is in.

This leads into "great" ideas being generated (e.g. every new hire has to be signed off by the VP of the division, all purchasing needs 2 levels of sign off etc), that may sound great, but to people actually living with the ideas, it causes massive issues.

Without fail, everytime I have seen a policy like these that makes me groan out loud, when we find out who came up with it, they have an MBA.

Re: Forget Wall Street. M.B.A.s Want to Work for Amazon

#54

Post by bagacrap »

latencyloser wrote: post #45
bousaid wrote: post #8

While I was at Microsoft this summer I learned that the PM position has become highly sought after by MBAs from schools like Duke etc.

Probably because the salary is comparable to dev, but with potentially a fraction of the work. I still don't fully understand the PM role here at MSFT. At previous companies I was at, the nearest equivalent of a PM was involved closely with engineering to organize projects, discuss features, etc. Here, they're just in meetings all day and emailing each other rhetorical questions. Having attended many of those meeting…

I don't know what you count as "work" but the PMs I know are all way too plugged-in to email, work longer hours, and stress out more than engineers. I think it's harder for them to prove their value via concrete deliverables and so they compensate by excessive enthusiasm.

Re: Forget Wall Street. M.B.A.s Want to Work for Amazon

#55

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

ryandrake wrote: post #25

Sigh, looks like this one's going to be the weekly HN MBA Hate Thread™. In defense of the degree: Has it ever occurred to you guys that maybe some (many?) of these people were hackers prior to getting their MBA, and are very competent? Quite a few of my classmates had engineering (including software) backgrounds, and even the ones who had engineering degrees but didn't actually code were still clued in. Why this blan…

I think a lot of the disdain for MBAs comes from the fact that while most positions have had stagnant or declining wages for the last few decades, upper level management has seen gains that far surpass inflation even though their job is fundamentally no different than in the 70's. Management's job is important, sure, but is it significantly more important than the grunts who provide the actual value to the company?

Re: Forget Wall Street. M.B.A.s Want to Work for Amazon

#56

Post by crush-n-spread »

bagacrap wrote: post #51
sage76 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by the way, outside the valley, most companies consider it a plus Maybe that's why they will never come up with the next Apple/Google/SpaceX/etc. Every single MBA I have met, without exception, has been extremely good at talking and making presentations. Ask them to do real work, and they will find a million excuses. Another thing I have noticed, is the kind of people attracted to doing an MBA. They have seen all o…

What qualifies as "real work"? A competent decision maker/consensus reacher is, ime, more valuable than an extra engineer in any software project of a non trivial size. Not every product decision can be made based on logical merits. I don't care what someone's background is if they help maintain organizational coherency.

Organizational coherency?

Re: Forget Wall Street. M.B.A.s Want to Work for Amazon

#57

Post by deskamess »

uptownfunk wrote: post #28
School-Cotton wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because out of all the PMs I've worked with, over 90% were awful. I'm sure you are an exception but the general rule holds

Interesting to hear, what makes them awful? FYI There are some of us who welcome feedback, so would like to hear your thoughts to be mindful.

I cannot speak for the original poster, but I found that many who came in were not interested or did not understand technology. They came in with 'reputation' (worked for IBM in project management, etc) and were probably hired for it. There was little on the job understanding and no effort to understand the how's and why's of the product. What was important to them was that 'project schedule lines' could be filled in regularly. They had no context, and were rarely interested in why something was missed, but were eager to fill in the next column which was 'Expected Completion Date'. When feature requests came in from a client it was pushed down without consult to the overall project; they basically did not like saying 'no' to a client.

The company was a tech company but the people with influence were ignorant of general SW development practices. If a project manager did not cut it, they were replaced with another one just like the previous one. Tech had little input on the next choice - after all, it was the project managers dept. I suspect there are good PM's with a tech bent, but they are hard to come by.

I hope you can make a difference by hiring and encouraging others PM's who do want to improve and understand the technical environment they are in, and not just live on the 'project schedule line'. Spend a day with support, spend a day with QA, talk to an engineer and find out why one task on your schedule is dependent on the other. It will make for a better cohesive team with common goals (and ideally less departmentalism).

Re: Forget Wall Street. M.B.A.s Want to Work for Amazon

#58

Post by droidist2 »

bagacrap wrote: post #54
latencyloser wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because the salary is comparable to dev, but with potentially a fraction of the work. I still don't fully understand the PM role here at MSFT. At previous companies I was at, the nearest equivalent of a PM was involved closely with engineering to organize projects, discuss features, etc. Here, they're just in meetings all day and emailing each other rhetorical questions. Having attended many of those meeting…

I don't know what you count as "work" but the PMs I know are all way too plugged-in to email, work longer hours, and stress out more than engineers. I think it's harder for them to prove their value via concrete deliverables and so they compensate by excessive enthusiasm.

I think it would help if we understood what kinds of things they're accomplishing through email, meetings, etc.

Re: Forget Wall Street. M.B.A.s Want to Work for Amazon

#59

Post by latencyloser »

bagacrap wrote: post #54
latencyloser wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because the salary is comparable to dev, but with potentially a fraction of the work. I still don't fully understand the PM role here at MSFT. At previous companies I was at, the nearest equivalent of a PM was involved closely with engineering to organize projects, discuss features, etc. Here, they're just in meetings all day and emailing each other rhetorical questions. Having attended many of those meeting…

I don't know what you count as "work" but the PMs I know are all way too plugged-in to email, work longer hours, and stress out more than engineers. I think it's harder for them to prove their value via concrete deliverables and so they compensate by excessive enthusiasm.

I think the 'way too plugged-in to email' is what bugs me. I'm the recipient of _hundreds_ of PM emails a day. As an engineer it's easy to see this as lots of talking and little doing. But you're right, it's probably a result of not being able to have more tangible results.
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