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Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

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Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#21

Post by davidw »

dqdo wrote: post #15
easytiger wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MBA courses are now being promoted in Europe and many people see it as a cancer

MBA stands for "more bad advice". The current MBA curriculum is mainly based on knowledge that we know in the 1980s. Most of the advance science and management processes that we have developed since then are not in the curriculum. So basically the MBA students are unfortunately learning outdated knowledge - half of which is wrong.

Do you have a citation for that? I'm genuinely curious.

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#22

Post by desdiv »

gaze wrote: post #7
joshu wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as an angel investor, mba founders is a big warning sign. so there's that.

So this is a real thing? It's not just me turned off by the strangely premeditated handshakes?

Many people share that sentiment. Elon Musk sees an MBA as a detriment when hiring: http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201311/profiles.cfm

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#23

Post by amirmc »

capkutay wrote: post #16
GuiA wrote: post #2

Stanford MBAs in tech are fucking weird. I worked with a few, and had one for a CEO for 2 years. The gist of it is that they all sucked at tech but thought they didn't (trying to manage engineering teams in ridiculous micromanagy self important ways), were all very self centered, and all came from very wealthy families, being able to raise a few hundred thousands from "friends and family" (!?) and spending 4 day week…

"they all sucked at tech but thought they didn't" Gah...these are the worst people! The worst is one they spew out all their personal assumptions as though its the divine word that all must obey and follow. People who really know tech share the same trait; they listen and learn. Every engineer knows that learning new things is part of overcoming challenges. When someone acts like they know it all, that's usually a go…

I've known engineers who fit your MBA description and MBAs who fit your engineer description. It's about people in the end.

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#24

Post by dqdo »

davidw wrote: post #21
dqdo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MBA stands for "more bad advice". The current MBA curriculum is mainly based on knowledge that we know in the 1980s. Most of the advance science and management processes that we have developed since then are not in the curriculum. So basically the MBA students are unfortunately learning outdated knowledge - half of which is wrong.

Do you have a citation for that? I'm genuinely curious.

I heard that term at a conference given by Sidney Dekker. Professor Dekker is a world famous expert in risk and accident management.

The links from his talk and books are below. He said "MBA stands for more bad advice" at 14:00. It is worth a watch even if you are not interested in engineering risk management.

http://vimeo.com/102167635 http://sidneydekker.com/books/

From my own personal experience as a researcher in project management. Many of the advances in project management are not currently being taught in school. This is due to the fact that it takes so long for the idea to migrate to the core curriculum. Most undergraduate education (even some aspects of CS) has not really changed for decades. Generally undergraduate education is behind current research by about 20 years and this will vary from field to field. The masters might get you closer to the 10 year range. The PhD is the only time where you are at the current state of knowledge. Although this is not quite true since recent journal articles are usually 2 years old (the review process is so long).

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#25

Post by blumkvist »

aburan28 wrote: post #20
Meekro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies don't exist to improve society, but to provide something of value to their customers in exchange for money. If society benefits along the way, that's a happy coincidence. A plumber will fix your leaky sink, and that benefits you personally -- whether it benefits society or not is really beside the point. Similarly, investment firms and hedge funds will benefit their clients by investing their money and (hop…

Well some companies exist not to provide something of value to customers but rather provide increased earnings per share, better P/E ratios, etc to stockholders.

Stockholders ARE their customers.

Relevant: http://hbr.org/2014/03/choosing-the-right-customer/ar/1

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#26

Post by georgemcbay »

Meekro wrote: post #18
yen223 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Help me out here, because I have a very tough time imagining a world where society is worse off because financial companies didn't exist. Is it really the case that if Goldman Sachs didn't exist, Titan International somehow can't exist either?

Companies don't exist to improve society, but to provide something of value to their customers in exchange for money. If society benefits along the way, that's a happy coincidence. A plumber will fix your leaky sink, and that benefits you personally -- whether it benefits society or not is really beside the point. Similarly, investment firms and hedge funds will benefit their clients by investing their money and (hop…

"investment firms and hedge funds will benefit their clients by investing their money and (hopefully) getting them a good return"

Ideally, but in the really-real world they often fuck their clients because conflict of interest rules rarely exist or when they do aren't enforced.

Goldman Sachs (already mentioned in the thread) being a prime example of this, eg the Abacus deal, the whole "muppet" culture, etc.

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#28

Post by davidw »

dqdo wrote: post #24
davidw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a citation for that? I'm genuinely curious.

I heard that term at a conference given by Sidney Dekker. Professor Dekker is a world famous expert in risk and accident management. The links from his talk and books are below. He said "MBA stands for more bad advice" at 14:00. It is worth a watch even if you are not interested in engineering risk management. http://vimeo.com/102167635 http://sidneydekker.com/books/ From my own personal experience as a researcher in…

I'm more interested in the 'good practices' than the snarky one-liner. I don't have an MBA nor intend to get one, but it seems like a legitimate thing to pursue for some people in some circumstances.

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#29

Post by pptr1 »

joshu wrote: post #3
GuiA wrote: post #2

Stanford MBAs in tech are fucking weird. I worked with a few, and had one for a CEO for 2 years. The gist of it is that they all sucked at tech but thought they didn't (trying to manage engineering teams in ridiculous micromanagy self important ways), were all very self centered, and all came from very wealthy families, being able to raise a few hundred thousands from "friends and family" (!?) and spending 4 day week…

as an angel investor, mba founders is a big warning sign. so there's that.

On that note, why does YC let so many MBA founders in?

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#30

Post by jedc »

amirmc wrote: post #23
capkutay wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they all sucked at tech but thought they didn't" Gah...these are the worst people! The worst is one they spew out all their personal assumptions as though its the divine word that all must obey and follow. People who really know tech share the same trait; they listen and learn. Every engineer knows that learning new things is part of overcoming challenges. When someone acts like they know it all, that's usually a go…

I've known engineers who fit your MBA description and MBAs who fit your engineer description. It's about people in the end.

Obligatory link to Hunter Walk's great post on exactly this point: http://hunterwalk.com/2011/12/24/its-fine-to-get-an-mba-but-...
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