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Sheryl Sandberg Says an MBA Doesn't Matter in Tech

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Re: Sheryl Sandberg Says an MBA Doesn't Matter in Tech

#111

Post by crpatino »

jevgeni wrote: post #108
anjc wrote: post #99

It confuses me endlessly that MBAs should be so misunderstood by so many people, it being suggested that they are only good for networking, that people with MBAs are cold and evil, and so on. They're simply a course which teach you the fundamentals of several areas which are relevant to business. It'd be like saying that a degree in CS would be superfluous for somebody who wants to program. If you love programming, t…

Exactly. Also, I remember reading somewhere that one of the Google founders (Brin, I think) was actually proud of not having an MBA. Not 100% about the validity of the story though. Thing is, if it's true, I can understand the sentiment of rebelling against the older business culture that people with MBAs represented at the time. Thing is, all the VCs that bankrolled early Silicon Valley did (and do ) have MBAs. So t…

The older business culture do not hold MBAs more often than not. They usually came from finance/accounting backgrounds. The better ones had some operations experience before going to university for a bachelors degree. That or were former engineers who had learned finance on their own.

The contempt I have often seen towards MBA holders has more to do with them being young people with little or no experience in operations, but with huge amounts of encyclopedic knowledge on "business stuff" (strategy, management theory, etc). They are good to have as tacticians if you can pair them up with some greybeard who can provide context, but left to their own devices they tend to abstract away too much details of the businesss.

Or maybe that is what you refer by "old" and what I am talking about is "ancient history".

Re: Sheryl Sandberg Says an MBA Doesn't Matter in Tech

#113

Post by curun1r »

icebraining wrote: post #97
curun1r wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't found this to be universal. If anything, I think it can warp your thinking in a way that can be beneficial in certain circumstances, but is really scary in others. By way of example: I have a parent who teaches at a top-5 business school. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Japan on a trip where my parent acted as a faculty chaperone and was able to attend some of the meetings with Japanese…

But did the course make the students think that way, or are students who think that way more likely to enrol for an MBA?

That's a fair point. Those skills are probably completely unnecessary for building small, sustainable businesses. But whether they self-select or are produced, I can see it leading to broad, cynical generalizations about MBAs which are, for the most part, true.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg Says an MBA Doesn't Matter in Tech

#114

Post by anjc »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #105
anjc wrote: post #99

It confuses me endlessly that MBAs should be so misunderstood by so many people, it being suggested that they are only good for networking, that people with MBAs are cold and evil, and so on. They're simply a course which teach you the fundamentals of several areas which are relevant to business. It'd be like saying that a degree in CS would be superfluous for somebody who wants to program. If you love programming, t…

The usual criticism is that MBAs believe the degree endows them with far more strategic intelligence than they really have. It's like officer school. The worst graduates come out absolutely convinced they can run an entire army, when in fact they're still almost completely clueless. Aside from the networking - which is not trivial - the benefits of an MBA for talented individuals seem to be exposure to the idea that…

I can't agree on your interpretation of an MBA point of view, but I will say that it does seem to be the most prevalent interpretation. Thinking solely about the bottom line could be the result of a twisted grounding in accounting, but no other course in an MBA relates to profit in any direct way. Almost every class typically/simply involves being grounded in decades of research in complicated areas.

It seems to me that your interpretation is more of a criticism of public shareholding and the duties of the board. Coincidentally, board members in public companies may be MBAs, and their consultants may be MBAs, but the Masters isn't why they're pursuing profit.

Lastly, I had whole courses on the happiness of employees (Organisational Behaviour, HR), but like Strategy and Marketing and every other class, they were extremely theoretical and totally unrelated to practicalities of business such as profit.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg Says an MBA Doesn't Matter in Tech

#115

Post by superuser2 »

anjc wrote: post #99

It confuses me endlessly that MBAs should be so misunderstood by so many people, it being suggested that they are only good for networking, that people with MBAs are cold and evil, and so on. They're simply a course which teach you the fundamentals of several areas which are relevant to business. It'd be like saying that a degree in CS would be superfluous for somebody who wants to program. If you love programming, t…

My complaint (and I suspect many others') is with the idea that someone who has studied the discipline of "business" is qualified to run any business, regardless of what it does. That they know better than, and should have authority over, the people who are actually domain experts in what the business does.

When we complain about empty-suit MBAs running a software company, that's assuming the suits are just MBAs, not engineers who also got MBAs. They have no skill in or respect for the craft of programming, they probably don't even understand what it consists of, and yet they are in charge and the programmers are not.

Working for a technical or formerly technical manager, rather than an MBA who studied Information Systems 10 years ago and reads InfoWorld, as if that qualifies him to be CIO/CTO, is in large part what draws people to Silicon Valley and away from corporate IT departments.

Re: Sheryl Sandberg Says an MBA Doesn't Matter in Tech

#117

Post by ghaff »

pvnick wrote: post #70
c0achmcguirk wrote: post #34

I'm a developer at a financial services company. I was content to be a developer and let the "business" folks define our stories and I'd just code them. I never understood the application I was building on a deep level--it was always superficial. A friend convinced me to take a few MBA classes at a local university. The first class was accounting. It opened my eyes to understanding what our product and business owner…

I would be interested to hear from you, and anybody else with similar experience, what were some of the most valuable courses you took. That is, for someone with no interest in pursuing an MBA but with the opportunity to take a course or two, what are the must-haves?

Core marketing, accounting, finance, and microeconomics. In more or less that order. Others include behavioral economics/decision theory--or at least read Ariely or Thaler's book. Other possibilities include organizational behavior, negotiation, pricing, business strategy. One general comment is that, if you're just looking at a few courses, you'll probably get more out of in-person courses that have case studies and/or group discussions, role playing, etc. and just read a book to cover more lecture-oriented material (like microeconomics usually is).

Re: Sheryl Sandberg Says an MBA Doesn't Matter in Tech

#118

Post by anjc »

superuser2 wrote: post #115
anjc wrote: post #99

It confuses me endlessly that MBAs should be so misunderstood by so many people, it being suggested that they are only good for networking, that people with MBAs are cold and evil, and so on. They're simply a course which teach you the fundamentals of several areas which are relevant to business. It'd be like saying that a degree in CS would be superfluous for somebody who wants to program. If you love programming, t…

My complaint (and I suspect many others') is with the idea that someone who has studied the discipline of "business" is qualified to run any business, regardless of what it does. That they know better than, and should have authority over, the people who are actually domain experts in what the business does. When we complain about empty-suit MBAs running a software company, that's assuming the suits are just MBAs, not…

I think you sum it up in your first sentence: an MBA involves the study of the discipline of business. It's distinct from the practice of actually running a business, and the courses/classes are almost always highly theoretical and research based. I have a masters in business and I can assure you that no company will let me manage shit, because the course didn't confer 'experience' unto me.

I'm sure that all competent managers of programmers respect the craft. I've met several managers who didn't respect programmers though, but my perception of them was that they weren't competent ;)

Re: Sheryl Sandberg Says an MBA Doesn't Matter in Tech

#119

Post by serge2k »

eitally wrote: post #90

I've never worked with MBAs before, in all my tech career, which included stints as a programmer and then a long period as a manager/director where I was in a much more business-oriented role. I always had a preconception that "MBA" essentially meant "management consultant", those high-priced guys who were paid to support bad news the CEO didn't want to seem came from himself. Restructuring advisement is certainly a…

Why would you jump to the conclusion that their skills have anything at all to do with their MBAs?

Re: Sheryl Sandberg Says an MBA Doesn't Matter in Tech

#120

Post by puranjay »

rayiner wrote: post #57

I'm always skeptical about stuff like this. Sandberg's springboard into her career was two-fold: working at McKinsey after HBS, and working under Larry Summers, who was her thesis advisor at Harvard UG. She went to Google as a VP after her stint in government. There is a huge "getting your foot in the door" advantage to that credential. I can totally believe she didn't use much of what she learned at HBS in what she…

I think it's wise to rephrase her statement: "An MBA is not useful in the tech field if you already have a degree from a top university"

For the rest, if you want a foot in the door at Facebook and don't have Harvard or Stanford on your resume, a MBA from Booth or MIT Sloan will definitely help

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