61–70 of 84 posts
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?
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.
This has always confused me. After, all I have an MBA and I'm not like that (I think). Furthermore the majority of MBA's I know are not like this either, although some certainly are. And what of the people that were engineers before the got their MBA? Twenty nine percent of my MBA program (UCLA) was made up of people who got their degrees in Engineering, Math or CS. Did this entire cohort lose their brains during the procress?
Why the disconnect? I have a new theory: selection bias.
Very few people I work with know that I have an MBA, because it doesn't come up or really matter. I don't have "socalnate1, MBA" as my e-mail signature or on my business cards. I rarely if ever mention my degree in conversation, even if I am using a tool I learned at B-school. My linkedin profile only mentiones it under education. My diploma hangs in my home, not at work. However, there are a number of people who REALLY want you to know that they have an MBA (weirdly, these people tend to come from 3rd tier schools). It's on their signature, they lead with it as a qualification or reason they should be listened to. I have no doubt that this group of people fit's the caraciature that is painted here.
So anyway, that's my theory. People who "make sure you know they have an MBA" are over represented in the collective Hacker News hivemind, and those competent folks who you didn't even know had an MBA are not.
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…
Maybe we'll meet in the future, but not all developers with MBA's are that bad...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have as well, a coworker of mine at my last job came from Amazon. He said he only stayed as long as he did so his resume wouldn't look bad for quitting after just a couple months. I can't help but think that this is related to the mediocre (imo) UX of a lot of their products. Both AWS and Alexa seem to take the approach of just jamming as many features in as possible without much regard to user experience. It seems…
Maybe... I work somewhere that works very hard to provide nice UX for people. It's a shitshow. But I'd still much rather have this job than work for Amazon. Basically the longer I work in this industry the more thoroughly convinced I become that nobody knows what the hell they are doing.
People think I'm foolish or some kind of a Luddite for wanting dumb, electro-mechanical appliances and vehicles. But once you are familiar with how the sausage is made...
That would explain some of the stupid things that are going on at Amazon right now - e.g. they are now witch-hunting new sellers to prove they aren't selling counterfeits by disabling their accounts right after they list their first items literally seconds after they do it and then demand all kinds of proof. I was shown an email where Amazon stated: "you might be selling counterfeits" without company selling a single…
Every time the topic of an MBA comes up here, I am confused at the vitriol it inspires. There seems to be a significant portion of the HN audience that is convinced that all MBA's (100%) are empty suits who add nothing but fancy powerpoints and bureaucratic layers. This has always confused me. After, all I have an MBA and I'm not like that (I think). Furthermore the majority of MBA's I know are not like this either,…
Maybe we speak from experience. We witness how the three letters magically can override any level of business experience or knowledge necessary to make an organization function. C-level management somehow believes having a headcount with that diploma will magically fix their business problems or get their company on the hockey stick. It never happens.
Kawasaki's Law of Pre-Money Valuation ("For each full-time engineer, add 500K. For each MBA, subtract 250K") wasn't written in a vacuum.
I’m watching tech companies be more and more infested with these business types. As in, it used to be you’d see technical product managers, but they’re largely MBA types now. Ditto for engineering upper/exec management. Ditto for sales engineering. Ditto for professional services. Ditto for customer support. They churn through technical H1Bs at a shocking rate, treat engineering like shit, and add almost no value bey…
> atrocious engineering practices but because they deliver on short notice - never mind what they’re delivering is garbage I am pretty sure this is true for most companies. Product and sales never care what the code looks like. They care about velocity. Remember your code can be a work of art, well tested, and the epitome of best practice; none of that means anything if you don't ship or if you're always pushing back…
is it just me that has a problem with the paywall or does everybody else on HN have a wsj subscription?
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…
In some respects they're right. If you are a team lead, you could probably do most of what an MBA does. If you have finished an undergrad CS degree you can definitely finish Business School. It's just that this point completely neglects the fact that if you could do all the management tasks AND develop at the same time, your company probably wouldn't be paying a MBA an exorbitant amount of money to do the management work. Yeah a lot of times it seems like management just moves from pointless meeting to pointless meeting especially as an engineer sitting in on them, but that flow of information between stakeholders is incredibly important. It's absolutely inefficient, but unfortunately there's often not a better way. Like 90% of management responsibilities are just coordinating and communicating.