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Bulldoze the business school

theguardian.com

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Re: Bulldoze the business school

#101

Post by seanahrens »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #70
seanahrens wrote: post #21

My finance professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley preached that maximizing profit was our ultimate service to the world---so much so--that he taught that if we were running a company and had an option to maximize profits by producing a product that would seriously harm the health of people (eg. give them a medical condition), we should undoubtedly DO IT. Because we would have maximized profit for sha…

>Luckily I had enough time left in undergrad after this lecture to switch to studying computer science at the College of Engineering Uh, so you did a double major with Business Administration in Haas and EECS in the CoE? I'm going to call BS here.

I graduated with a major in Business at Haas and a minor in Computer Science from the College of Engineering. And I tacked on an extra semester to get it done.

Yeah you're right to think doing double major w/ EECS would have been quite a tall order. Probably logistically impossible.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#102

Post by seanahrens »

dba7dba wrote: post #78
seanahrens wrote: post #21

My finance professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley preached that maximizing profit was our ultimate service to the world---so much so--that he taught that if we were running a company and had an option to maximize profits by producing a product that would seriously harm the health of people (eg. give them a medical condition), we should undoubtedly DO IT. Because we would have maximized profit for sha…

I was a student at the great institution called UC Berkeley and I remember well the teenagers walking around in suits/ties and skirts/blouse. These were undergrad Business school students and I remember well the air of superiority they showed. They seemed so proud.

I was in classes with these kids. Many of them were smug AF and wanted to start tech companies, but didn't know a thing about software engineering. I just felt they wanted to manage/direct the people and make the money.

Since I had been coding since a young age, building web apps in my spare time, when I was in classes with these people I started to actually realize I had this superpower they valued.

But truth was I didn't want to work with any of them. I didn't see the value in someone whose studies were about learning how to harness my value.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#103

Post by seanahrens »

dba7dba wrote: post #78
seanahrens wrote: post #21

My finance professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley preached that maximizing profit was our ultimate service to the world---so much so--that he taught that if we were running a company and had an option to maximize profits by producing a product that would seriously harm the health of people (eg. give them a medical condition), we should undoubtedly DO IT. Because we would have maximized profit for sha…

I was a student at the great institution called UC Berkeley and I remember well the teenagers walking around in suits/ties and skirts/blouse. These were undergrad Business school students and I remember well the air of superiority they showed. They seemed so proud.

Actually, I remember in my business classes we were taught to project confidence independent of if we had the knowledge/experience to back it up. As if confidence were an attribute in itself (unrelated to actually having the skills and experience to do a job).

I think this teaching bred that pride of which you speak.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#104

Post by flyingcircus3 »

dhimes wrote: post #27
flyingcircus3 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is largely the duality between a school of engineering, and a school of technology as well. Purdue University has both. Engineering is this 150 year tradition that literally made Indiana the crossroads of America. Top 5 in most of it's disciplines year after year. But that consistency has brought the hordes. Thus, freshman engineering is this gauntlet to run. Profressors are busy with reasearch, TAs are just rec…

Is there someplace I can learn more about this? Any writeups or articles you know of?

This is all anecdotal. I've found though from simply asking around, that most Engineering schools, as well as other fields, have weed out classes. They aren't technically labelled as such, but there is no better description, given their passing rates. They are curved grading, so by simple distribution of scores, large numbers of people will fail. There are so many students per teacher, the scarcity of resources demands a competition.

I suppose on the larger scale though, as universities compete for students, and their money, it makes sense economically to let in anyone with the base level of aptitude, because there are plenty of other programs you can switch to from engineering. But the easiest time to lock in your customer base is when they are making the decision to buy for the very first time. Almost like a car salesman. Just keep them on the lot long enough to convince them to buy something, in lieu of the thing they wanted when they first showed up.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#105

Post by hinkley »

Fomite wrote: post #96
factsaresacred wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was in 2017 and I assume they had at least heard of the subprime crisis Brings to mind this from Peter Thiel (exclude the length): Q. You’ve written that you doubt the efficacy of MBA programs to prepare future business leaders. What would an effective MBA program look like? A. The question is, what substance of business are you focused on? The conceit of the MBA is that you don’t need to have any substance at…

"The conceit of the MBA is that you don’t need to have any substance at all. It’s just this management science, and you can apply that equally well in a software company or an oil drilling company or a fashion company or a rocket company." Ironically, this has become, in some ways, the conceit of Silicon Valley. That the techniques and patterns there can apply equally well for social media and fashion, and oil drilli…

I marked myself as passively looking on LinkedIn recently and it’s been depressing.

Now I get that only a certain type of recruiter is out there contacting people but it’s a little unsettling how little information people are providing about the companies. Am I interested? Are you being serious? How would I even know?

If there’s something wrong with me for wanting to know more than two bits of information about a company before I start a conversation, then I don’t wanna be right.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#106

Post by arbitrary_name »

gaius wrote: post #65
baybal2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No respectable business school should admit people without substantial existing work experience into any graduate course. Unfortunately, it looks that more than a half of big name universities are happy to admit people without such, or even no undergraduate studies background.

No respectable business school should admit people without substantial existing work experience into any graduate course. All the top US MBA programmes are stuffed with people with 2-3 years investment banking or management consulting as their sole experience. The concept of a management consultant is possibly even more ridiculous to begin with

I'm a management consultant. My work is not ridiculous. What is ridiculous is the level of damage caused by the utter apathy and incompetence that exists in many organisations.

Just because someone is technichally skilled and highly intelligent, does not necessarily make them a capable leader, or a good manager, or even a productive employee. I have met managers, engineers and architects and other technical folks costing their employers millions due to their inability to communicate with others, process basic information and gain the trust of their colleagues. Non technical as well.

I have worked with dozens of organisations, engaging deeply with the people embedded there, and i have developed a decent understanding of how to identify 'people' issues and develop creative solutions, in a relatively short period of time.

Apologies if i sound defensive, but i see your sentiment on here a lot. And it is dead wrong.

For what it's worth, i do not have an mba or specific industry experience. Just good interpersonal skills and a willingness to listen, empathise, and improve the way things are done.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#107

Post by ahartmetz »

coryrc wrote: post #97
cjalmeida wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think management is only common sense, then paying 500 bucks an hour for MBA grads is ridiculously. Using that logic, either the CEO is stupid, or the company employees are utterly incompetent and lacks common sense. Or, more likely, a) there's some science/skills behind management that can be learned at school even by non experienced people; b) those young MBA people worked 60/70 hours per week for 3/4 years…

Or, c) principal-agent problem in action

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but what I heard is that the most common task of management consulting is to sell an already made decision to the rest of the company. The consultant appears neutral and is expected to have good presentation and sales skills. The analysis technique and inputs can be chosen to yield the desired result. The more expensive the consultant the better for credibility. So it's obviously a great way to make money.

The principal-agent problem is thus between the company and the person hiring the management consultant(s).

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#108

Post by theyinwhy »

jaredklewis wrote: post #99
theyinwhy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... the downvotes say so. I am wondering about the same. Peter Thiel does not seem to be someone the world should listen to. His politics are anti-human I would say. And yes, by being as influentual as he is I think we can and should talk about his politics here. I am still trying to figure out how two such different world-views like thiel and musk were able to work together.

Just because someone has bad ideas (or ideas you disagree with) in one area, why would that mean all their ideas are bad? To take an extreme example, Bobby Fischer is easily in the running for best chess player of all time. He was also an anti-semite. Does that somehow make his chess less good? Should we ignore that he was an anti-Semite? No! But should we cut all his games from chess books because of it? Indeed, if…

Why promote a chess player who is anti semite if you could promote another one who is not?

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#109

Post by Bombthecat »

walshemj wrote: post #7
mbesto wrote: post #6

Drucker, the person most attributed with founding modern management, himself stated that you cannot teach management: Prof Drucker expounds: "Teaching 23-year-olds in an MBA programme strikes me as largely a waste of time. They lack the background of experience. You can teach them skills - accounting and what have you - but you can't teach them management." His view is that management is neither an art nor a science…

The original idea of bschools where they where for mid career mangers where considered high flyers. Now it seems the higher level degree status is used to game visa applications. Maybe a MBA should only be issued if you can prove 10 or 15 years real world work experience which would return the MBA to its roots as a course for experienced people

The executive MBA is kinda like that.

Re: Bulldoze the business school

#110

Post by gaius »

purplezooey wrote: post #67
factsaresacred wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was in 2017 and I assume they had at least heard of the subprime crisis Brings to mind this from Peter Thiel (exclude the length): Q. You’ve written that you doubt the efficacy of MBA programs to prepare future business leaders. What would an effective MBA program look like? A. The question is, what substance of business are you focused on? The conceit of the MBA is that you don’t need to have any substance at…

And we should listen to Peter Thiel because....

You need to learn to separate the message from the messenger. If you didn’t know who said it, does it make sense in and of itself? What if instead of Thiel the quote was attributed to Obama or Taylor Swift? Who actually says lots of insightful things, she is very smart.

I agree with Thiel here: management is not a generic skill that can equally be applied in any field without any domain knowledge. Obviously very few things are! But few claim to be either, and MBAs do.

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