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Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

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Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#41

Post by kriro »

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…

By definition, profit benefits society. Customers voluntarily buy products which companies sell voluntarily (at least in the typical case there are corner cases of course). Both parties profit which is evident by the exchange taking place.

Society is made up of individuals, if individuals profit so does society.

Companies exist because there's opportunities for profit. So I'd argue they do indeed exist to improve society. On a larger scale one might say they improve society by allocating factors of production to the places where they are most useful.

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#42

Post by nt591 »

There's a weird attack on MBAs for not being good at creating value in tech. But the biggest, most successful new tech companies over the last few years are hardly valuable in the grand scheme of things. Social networks are just new advertising platforms. Sure, there are companies like SpaceX, but I'd imagine the vast majority of people here on HN are not building anything so significant.

So why the outrage? Live and let live.

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#43

Post by brianbreslin »

qwtel wrote: post #31
3beard wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that only ~1% of startups develop breakthrough products, because only ~1% of startups break through.

Not sure if you are just trolling, but I'm pretty convinced that ~100% of startups are developing 'breakthrough' products. For various reasons only ~1% turn out to be very successful at it. From an after-the-fact standpoint it's easy to point at the losers and say all kinds of nasty things about them. But since you can't reliably pick the winners of tomorrow, nor can the losers reliably pick themselves (they are usua…

5 minutes of browsing on producthunt should change your opinion that 100% of startups are developing breakthrough products.

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#44

Post by curiousDog »

Animats wrote: post #5

Away from tech, back into finance. It's not like they're going into manufacturing or something useful. "Finance was able to reclaim its No. 1 position at Stanford because of some extraordinary pay packages it dangled in front of the newly minted MBAs. Graduates who accepted jobs in private equity—12% of the entire class—pulled down median base starting salaries of $170,000, 36% higher than the $125,000 median base fo…

That is a very naive view. Guess where the money for the IPO parties is coming from?

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#45

Post by jjoonathan »

kriro wrote: post #41
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…

By definition, profit benefits society. Customers voluntarily buy products which companies sell voluntarily (at least in the typical case there are corner cases of course). Both parties profit which is evident by the exchange taking place. Society is made up of individuals, if individuals profit so does society. Companies exist because there's opportunities for profit. So I'd argue they do indeed exist to improve soc…

> By definition, profit benefits society.

No.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v4zI8gKuFug/T-vpFAjdXeI/AAAAAAAAB-...

More formally, Nash equilibria != global optima. It is not uncommon for companies to spend money destroying value for their customer -- and to profit from doing so! See: keurig DRM, speed grading in the semiconductor industry, Goldman Sachs cornering the Aluminum market, Enron shutting off power to create the infamous rolling blackouts. There are recordings of Enron traders literally giggling as they call plant managers to order them offline at times of peak load.

Profit is about leverage, but value creation is only one of many ways to obtain leverage, and it's often not a very reliable or effective way (just ask Bengali sweatshop workers). Other methods for obtaining leverage are generally "evil" and most certainly do NOT benefit society, but they are very effective, especially in industries where best-practices have long since solidified and the only way to gain a competitive advantage is a sprinkling of "black magic". The most obvious dark patterns are illegal, but the lethargic whack-a-mole from our legislative and judicial branches is nowhere near sufficient to stem the tide.

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#46

Post by rayiner »

dmpk2k wrote: post #35
7Figures2Commas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's not like those useless folks on Wall Street have ever helped manufacturers or tech companies. Oh wait[1][2]. [1] http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/progress/titan/ [2] http://fortune.com/2014/10/08/wellington-management-gets-int...

That's a false dichotomy. Obviously finance can help. Vitamin A in small amounts is healthy too. I think most people realise this. A more interesting question is whether finance the past 15 years has become a net loss for society, not whether it sometimes does useful things.

Highly unlikely. There is fat that can be trimmed, but the modern economy would collapse without the finance industry.

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#47

Post by danenania »

rayiner wrote: post #46
dmpk2k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a false dichotomy. Obviously finance can help. Vitamin A in small amounts is healthy too. I think most people realise this. A more interesting question is whether finance the past 15 years has become a net loss for society, not whether it sometimes does useful things.

Highly unlikely. There is fat that can be trimmed, but the modern economy would collapse without the finance industry.

Given that it does bring the economy to the brink of collapse every 10 years or so (and requires massive bailouts), I'd say there's more wrong with the finance industry than a little extra fat.

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#48

Post by bengali3 »

pptr1 wrote: post #29
joshu wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I haven't seen any stats to say that it's lopsided or not, but i'd wager because education alone doesn't define an individual or the company?

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#49

Post by bengali3 »

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.

curious, but do you differentiate between if they're also the technical founder or not?

Asked another way: Are you identifying this as a lack of tech expertise, or as a 'poisoning' of the mind irregardless of the experiences?

Thanks!

Re: Stanford MBAs Shift Away from Tech

#50

Post by rayiner »

danenania wrote: post #47
rayiner wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highly unlikely. There is fat that can be trimmed, but the modern economy would collapse without the finance industry.

Given that it does bring the economy to the brink of collapse every 10 years or so (and requires massive bailouts), I'd say there's more wrong with the finance industry than a little extra fat.

A 3-4% dip in GDP and a doubling of unemployment is nothing compared to what would happen without a finance industry. It's one of the bedrocks of civilization. If you want a historical perspective, research how England's finance industry was closely linked to its rise as a world power.
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