Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies

#31

Post by wtvanhest » Wed, Feb 01, 2012, 3:59 AM UTC

Synthetase wrote: post #27

wtvanhest wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say, "I compiled the statistics behind the white paper" I'm assuming you were involved in the paper when I ask this, so please excuse me if you were not: Did you look at whether the companies had any employees or not? Or try to split the data out by whether they were lifestyle businesses or not?

I wrote the SQL calls. We did not examine company size as we did not have that data on hand. We filtered the data based on known companies to the best of our abilities but that is an area we could devote additional effort. That being said, an HBS study appears to confirm our conclusions. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020336350457718...

It looks like it is the same data set. You could have used facebook to detect the number of people who list each company as their employer to build a more accurate picture.

It just doesn't say much if they are lifestyle businesses. Most businesses that are lifestyle businesses without technical degrees are owned by a variety of non MBAs.

MBAs have far too much opportunity cost to start a car washing business or some other small $50K/year business when even people in marginal MBA programs can easily make $85K first year working less than 40 hours a week.

Re: Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies

#32

Post by fellars » Wed, Feb 01, 2012, 4:00 AM UTC

I think the key word is "build". As someone with both a Master in CS and MBA and have previously been a CEO where I was hired to run the company (not a founder), and now starting my own business, I can attest that its the engineering side of me that pushes me to be a founder and build something from the ground up.

Although, I will say that some MBA schools are promoting entrepreneurship as a viable path more now than before. My alma mater (BYU) now has an Entrepreneurship major I believe.

Re: Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies

#33

Post by Synthetase » Wed, Feb 01, 2012, 4:00 AM UTC

gleb wrote: post #29

Synthetase wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I compiled the statistics for the white paper. As I noted below, the sets are largely disjoint. Those with both engineering degrees and MBAs are in the low tens.

It's not about being disjoint, you need to known total numbers to make a useful conclusion. It's not really that the title is wrong, it's just misleading. In the same way as the following is misleading: Gentiles far more likely than Jews to win Nobel prize If the numbers from that PDF are right your conclusion is actually 3x stronger - i.e. a Masters of Engineering is an order of magnitude more likely to lead to a CE…

I don't have the number in the database off the top of my head but I can say with certainty that the number of business graduates exceeds engineering graduates.

I'd be uncomfortable mixing our numbers with national numbers since our data is skewed toward smaller start-ups. Our data and analysis wasn't perfect but it does reflect the fundamental truth that engineers are more likely to lead companies.

I do think we could have clearer in that regard and that is my oversight.

Re: Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies

#34

Post by fragsworth » Wed, Feb 01, 2012, 4:07 AM UTC

beachgeek wrote: post #12

jacques_chester wrote: post #11

I think most MBAs are looking to work for a large company, climb the ladder and so on. The training focuses on that -- it's not called a Masters in Business Administration for the heck of it.

That or go work for Wall Street. I think another issue could just be that Engineers aren't paid as much as MBAs. Which means we need to take that risk if we want to make the bucks. Also its generally easier for us to take the risk. If you're an engineer making 120K its easier to take a paycut to 100k if you form a startup. If you're an MBA dude making 500K it just doesn't make sense to give up the Rolls etc and take…

120k salaries are typical for engineers though. MBA salaries are probably more varied.

Re: Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies

#35

Post by johnx123-up » Wed, Feb 01, 2012, 5:00 AM UTC

I like quoting pg here:

  So if you want to invest two years in something that will help you succeed
  in business, the evidence suggests you'd do better to learn how to hack
  than get an MBA.

-- http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html

Re: Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies

#36

Post by travem » Wed, Feb 01, 2012, 5:20 AM UTC

fellars wrote: post #32

I think the key word is "build". As someone with both a Master in CS and MBA and have previously been a CEO where I was hired to run the company (not a founder), and now starting my own business, I can attest that its the engineering side of me that pushes me to be a founder and build something from the ground up. Although, I will say that some MBA schools are promoting entrepreneurship as a viable path more now than…

Entrepreneurship is still a minor in the MBA program but can be majored in by undergraduates. The Business Plan Competition and Business Model Competition are pretty cool from an entrepreneurial perspective as well.

Re: Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies

#37

Post by RandallBrown » Wed, Feb 01, 2012, 5:21 AM UTC

This isn't too surprising to me. An MBA doesn't teach you how to build anything, an Engineering degree does. The things that are important early on in most startups are the engineering things, not the business things.

Re: Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies

#38

Post by jforman » Wed, Feb 01, 2012, 5:42 AM UTC

Synthetase wrote: post #33

gleb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about being disjoint, you need to known total numbers to make a useful conclusion. It's not really that the title is wrong, it's just misleading. In the same way as the following is misleading: Gentiles far more likely than Jews to win Nobel prize If the numbers from that PDF are right your conclusion is actually 3x stronger - i.e. a Masters of Engineering is an order of magnitude more likely to lead to a CE…

I don't have the number in the database off the top of my head but I can say with certainty that the number of business graduates exceeds engineering graduates. I'd be uncomfortable mixing our numbers with national numbers since our data is skewed toward smaller start-ups. Our data and analysis wasn't perfect but it does reflect the fundamental truth that engineers are more likely to lead companies. I do think we cou…

The conclusion ended up the same, but in the future you should consider normalizing against the size of the population you're drawing from.

In this case, rather than "business undergrad CEOs vs. eng undergrad CEOs" you should have "business undergrad CEOs per 1000 business undergrads vs. eng undergrad CEOs per 1000 eng undergrads".

Or the more wonky form of P(CEO | biz undergrad) vs. P(CEO | eng undergrad) ("probability of being a CEO given a business/eng undergrad degree...").

Re: Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies

#39

Post by beachgeek » Wed, Feb 01, 2012, 6:00 AM UTC

fragsworth wrote: post #34

beachgeek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That or go work for Wall Street. I think another issue could just be that Engineers aren't paid as much as MBAs. Which means we need to take that risk if we want to make the bucks. Also its generally easier for us to take the risk. If you're an engineer making 120K its easier to take a paycut to 100k if you form a startup. If you're an MBA dude making 500K it just doesn't make sense to give up the Rolls etc and take…

120k salaries are typical for engineers though. MBA salaries are probably more varied.

Yes and no. Some engineers make ~200K to 300K, just for hacking code or selling it. Yes its true :-)

Some MBAs make ~140K out of school. EG McKinsey is known to make you work your tail off for very little $ comparatively speaking. But thats a golden stamp: 4 years out of McKinsey and you could be a SVP at some dumbass BigCo in Silicon Valley making ~500K. Why the hell would you want to give it up and join/form a startup?

Re: Study Finds Engineers Far More Likely than MBAs to Build and Run Companies

#40

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 01, 2012, 6:08 AM UTC

wisty wrote: post #30

jacques_chester wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Large companies need at least some specialist management types.

Right, you really need people who can say "OK, no more bullshit on these status reports, just say what happened so we can tell how things are going". Also, good quantitative skills, and a good understanding of scaling and system behavior are important.

[deleted]