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Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

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Re: Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

#231

Post by goatinaboat »

eightysixfour wrote: post #74
inglor_cz wrote: post #2

He is onto something there. Bean counting is useful and companies cannot survive without good cashflow, but it should not become Mission A of the company, or engineering (and other) talent will look elsewhere. If one company's de facto mission statement is "We want to grow our market by 8.2 per cent and give our bosses higher Christmas bonuses" and another one comes and says "Guys, we want to fly to fscking Mars!", c…

The book "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy" discusses this. There seems to be a group of people that think that "grow by 8.2 percent" is a strategy. It is not, it is a goal. Companies with a good strategy will eat the lunch of a company who doesn't know what a strategy is.

The book "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy" discusses this. There seems to be a group of people that think that "grow by 8.2 percent" is a strategy. It is not,

Michael Porter has been cautioning about mistaking a business model for a strategy for nearly 40 years, his ideas are taught in every business school, and the lesson still needs to be relearnt by every fresh set of senior managers.

Re: Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

#232

Post by hedberg10 »

mdtusz wrote: post #230
higerordermap wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting Joel Spolsky: "The cult of MBA makes you think you can manage the businesses that do things you don't understand" The problem is in thinking of MBA cult itself. If I was an MBA without software engineering experience I would also not understand intricacies but would think I can manage it anyway.

This isn't limited to MBA's. There's plenty of (non-cs) engineers out there that are in high ranking positions, making decisions over areas of the business that they know absolutely nothing about. It's not an MBA cult problem, but it is a management-academia problem. Universities provide classes about management and business without focussing on the actual business part of businesses. If you want to succeed, domain k…

No, it's a thinking error. People achieve competency in one area and then conclude that it applies to all areas as well.

"I have a masters in biology, I know whats wrong with this country's finances". The soft narcisism of credentialism.

Re: Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

#233

Post by [deleted] »

lock-free wrote: post #129
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #81

> “I think there might be too many M.B.A.s running companies,” the Tesla Inc. chief executive said. “There should be more focus on the product or service itself, less time on board meetings, less time on financials.” > Many business-school leaders shot back, saying that Mr. Musk’s comments don’t match the reality of what is taught in M.B.A. programs and that more students than ever who are pursuing the graduate degre…

It's less than tone deaf, it's plain ignorant. As much as I find Musk's unabashed ego distasteful, he has actually built companies and hired thousands of people. Musk is a doer - and you know the old saying about "those who can't do, teach." So if we're appealing to authority, I'll take Musk's over "business-school leaders." Side note: I've rarely met a top b-school grad who could say they valued much taught during t…

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

#234

Post by southeastern »

boh wrote: post #151

This is kind of a straw-man argument. The reason MBA-zation is a thing is because companies are forced to permanently grow and cut costs to indulge investor expectations. If you hire non-MBAs they will be tasked to do the same thing and you will have the same result. Change your capital structure, stay private, take as little money from investors as possible and you'll no longer need MBAs to make every single quarter…

Exactly. This is the way business is done on account of investor demands

Re: Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

#235

Post by nickik »

jedberg wrote: post #17
justinzollars wrote: post #7

The most significant thing he said in this interview was probably on the regulatory burden that California businesses have to deal with. He compared regulatory creep to a frog boiling slowly in water. He also indicated his 2 companies Tesla and SpaceX are the last - automotive and aerospace companies in California, a state that was once a leader.

> He also indicated his 2 companies Tesla and SpaceX are the last - automotive and aerospace companies in California, a state that was once a leader. Except it isn't true. Other companies still make rockets in SoCal. For example Areojet Rocketdyne is still headquartered in El Segundo (next to LAX). They made the main engine for the Space Shuttle and are currently still making it for the upcoming SLS.

Areojet Rocketdyne also gets 100s of million per engine because they live of massive SLS pork. They will produce a very small number of engines. Comparing that to what SpaceX is doing is a bit ridiculous.

Re: Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

#236

Post by ramraj07 »

cogman10 wrote: post #42
johntb86 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for stable firms they can be death. "Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric" makes the case that the MBA mindset (exemplified by Jeff Immelt) of focusing on finances and acquisitions while ignoring the actual products has been leading to the downfall of GE.

MBAs seem to just be bad for tech companies. It's like they want to turn every business into an automotive business completely missing the point that car design is practically unchanged in the last 50 years. You can see just how terrible these companies are at adopting change by their pathetic attempts at getting EVs up and running. Tech requires constant change and innovation to be successful. Companies who primaril…

Just to play devil's advocate, Tim Cook is an MBA.

Re: Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

#237

Post by nickik »

Someone1234 wrote: post #35

Musk isn't purely a self-made success story. He was born into emerald mines, got a first class education, and used that inherited wealth to start companies, sell, and then buy stakes in growing companies other people founded (inc. Tesla, incidentally). So is the lesson here to be born rich rather than try to get an education? Or just that when you are born rich education is optional? It is notable that the other foun…

So much nonsense, that gets constantly repeated. Its sad how this nonsense gets repeated even by people on HN.

His father was made money from being an engineer. With that money he bought a small stake in a mine, making it out that they were some billionair mine owners is total nonsesne. However Elon had very bad relationship with his father and his father did not want him to go to Canada/US and refused to pay for his education there.

So if you want to call everybody that is not born into abject poverty 'not self made' that is of course simply a expression of your (appallingly bad) politics, but its not how the rest of the world uses that phrase.

PayPal was merger between two companies doing the same thing.

Tesla was not a 'growing company', Tesla was 2 guys who had a business plan written on a piece of paper and nothing else, they were certainty not growing. Elon and JB both wanted to found a company and somebody told them that these two were also working on the same thing. So Elon agree to get together with them rather then start a separate company.

Elon financed Tesla basically by himself, without him Tesla would have never existed and it would certainty not be nearly what it is now. There is a reason that all 5, were officially named founders, and not just the 2 guys who came up with the name Tesla.

SpaceX, Boring Company, Neurolink and Zip2 were all created by Musk.

Re: Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

#238

Post by justinclift »

analog31 wrote: post #201
wpietri wrote: post #45

One book I found really interesting on this theme is "Confronting Managerialism: How the Business Elite and Their Schools Threw Our Lives Out of Balance": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A76WZ96/ Core to their point is that managers have basically become a caste. They define managerialism as "what occurs when a special group, called management, ensconces itself systemically in an organization and deprives owners and emp…

Something interesting has struck me about this thread. In almost every HN thread about higher education, there is a very strong if not prevailing view, that advanced degrees are primarily a form of empty credentialing or signaling. Yet a search for those terms in this thread yields almost no hits. I wonder if what's missing here is a deeper dive into what MBA's actually learn in business school, if anything. Sure, th…

> A sort of learned sociopathy if you will.

Maybe a good description for Ivy League MBA degrees? :)

Re: Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

#239

Post by adriancr »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #209
V_Terranova_Jr wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are not interchangeable parts. If you have high-output staff in a high cost-of-living area, the strategy that recognizes this does what it can to "keep the band together" and keep them doing good for the company, not just saying, "Oh, they're an Engineer 3, why am I paying for a Boston Engineer 3 when I can hire a Engineer 3 for less?" That kind of false equivalence thinking is part of what inspires anti-MBA r…

I think that is a short term issue. Yes you need to spin up the high-output staff in the low cost-of-living area before you fire the high-output staff in the high cost-of-living area, and yes you need to do knowledge transfer, the devil is in the details. This has happened to me before, the location I worked in shut down and the jobs were moved to a lower cost location. Many years later, they seem to be doing fine. I…

The thing about treating people like interchangeable parts and optimizing for low wages is you also get low skilled people / compromise. (low CoL but why stop there, why not look for cheaper people)

Low skilled people will slow things down, will destroy any quality and advantages you have in your code and then leave as they get better (or stay if they're really crappy)

It's worse if they stay as they have a tendency to multiply and get promoted to middle management and crap even more on things...

This will only be noticed via the occasional question "why does it take so long when competitors already did this" after a few years.

Also, by not keeping talent you lose their knowledge. All for what?, I doubt their wages factor too much in any product.

Alternative is to keep good people and pay them well, nurture a culture of excellency and kick out occasional bad hires.

That way you get great products and usually good costs as you tend to need fewer people to get things done (even if they cost more)

Note: I've seen both types of companies and some in between.

Re: Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America

#240

Post by pii »

nbardy wrote: post #46
mhaberl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is in a very specific situation, he is the founder and the CEO and has a lot of money to burn. He wants to do big things and he can do them. A lot of companies have stock holders who expect some return every year without risking too much. As a society we sure would be better off if had more Elon Musk type company leaders, but for that too happen we would need more exceptional people like him (not going to happen)…

Our society has plenty of Elon Musks. Their being snuffed out by a academic system designed to churn out people can repeat "the correct answer". Heterodox thinking is a liability not an asset in Academia now. Along with the fact that most people don't even have the option to take risk with the massive increase of cost of housing. Our society has been designed to squeeze out cash flow and it's smothering our creatives…

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