1) Watching non-programmers trying to run software companies is like watching someone who doesn't know how to surf trying to surf. ... The standard cry of the MBA who believes that management is a generic function. ... The cult of the MBA likes to believe that you can run organizations that do things that you don't understand.
And the very next sentence:
2) Over the years, Microsoft got big, Bill got overextended, and some shady ethical decisions made it necessary to devote way too much management attention to fighting the US government. Steve took over the CEO role on the theory that this would allow Bill to spend more time doing what he does best, running the software development organization, but that didn't seem to fix endemic problems caused by those 11 layers of management, a culture of perpetual, permanent meetings, a stubborn insistance on creating every possible product no matter what, ... and a couple of decades of sloppy, rapid hiring has ensured that the brainpower of the median Microsoft employee has gone way down ...
Perhaps the latter is a consequence of former, i.e., of having excellent professional programmers and not excellent professional managers running a large company?
Everyone naturally overestimates the value of their skills, the same way everyone in every department in every organization naturally thinks theirs is the most important and the others mostly get in their way. It's a very human thing to do, to be locked into our own narrow perspectives and not grasp there are others: 'Those other guys don't even understand what I'm talking about!'
I'd much rather have my company run by a great non-technical manager than a great programmer but poor manager. Ideally the manager would have great technical skills, but think how many people have those, think how many have great management skills, and consider the odds of finding someone who has both and is interested and availble to run your company (and not, for example, their own).