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MBAs as CEOs

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Re: MBAs as CEOs

#111

Post by [deleted] »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #101
crdb wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> readymade set of sacraments and oaths one can apply to any business to achieve magical effects On the contrary, MBAs are designed not to be a "management formula" but teach by experience in two ways: first, exposure to thousands of real life case studies (often, in the better programs, with the CEO who lived it participating in the class discussion), and a class formed of carefully balanced profiles to have a mix o…

there is no better way to speed-teach a generalist exposure I'd say there is no way to speed-teach a generalist exposure - so MBA's are off on the wrong foot to start with.

[deleted]

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#112

Post by Nicholas_C »

marze wrote: post #57

What can you say? They suck. On the other hand, it might make a nice long term investment strategy, and alternative to the S&P 500 index fund. Buy stock in 200 non-MBA led firms and hold for 15 years.

Would be an interesting study to calculate the performance of companies share price and compare based on the leadership's educational background.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#113

Post by Blackstone4 »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #52

An MBA doesn't make a CEO. CEOs are born, but their rise can be accelerated with an MBA. Successful CEOs have a particular perspective and mindset that allow them to understand both the underlying value of their company, and, the business strategies that enable the value to be realized. The MBA program cannot instill this perspective and mindset. But it can fill in the gaps of knowledge that is used to realize value.…

> CEOs are born

I feel that this statement is too strong. Maybe something along the lines of "CEOs are formed"... Some people also believe entrepreneurs are born entrepreneurs .... is that what you meant?

I always come back to the fact that the brain is a muscle and we can change our thinking and improve our abilities

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#114

Post by mdorazio »

thegoldenchild wrote: post #41
mdorazio wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the "valuable" set of classes, what % would you have only been able to attend/learn from in an MBA program? I was accepted to several top MBA programs and decided not to go for a variety of reasons, including that virtually all of the classwork was things I had already learned or could easily learn via online coursework or community college without spending a quarter of a million dollars.

There's nothing stopping you from learning everything on your own. BUT you miss out on the MBA network. When you're forced to spend 2 years with a cohort of 75-100 people, you develop a close-knit bond when you spend most of your time eating, drinking, studying (and sometimes sleeping) with these people. If I want a job at a company that one of my MBA classmates works at, an interview is literally one phone call away…

I said nothing about the network, which is indeed likely valuable (though I argue you get a much better ROI by working with/networking with people who are already successful instead of with people who might one day be successful). The parent comment was specifically about the value of classes, which I strongly disagree with.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#115

Post by stvswn »

consp wrote: post #48
ziszis wrote: post #4

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has an MBA. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has an MBA. AWS CEO Andrew Jassy has an MBA, etc. It is easy to undervalue marketing, sales, financial and other non-technical skills. There are definitely terrible MBAs, but also amazing ones.

I don't know about them, but since they rose up in the companies you usually get an MBA from that company. So the cause/effect relationship is off. I assume they were proper managers (like actual management, not shitty middle management) before getting the MBA. This is what usually happens to some of the engineering guys I went to university with who stay at companies and do not specialize in anything engineering but…

Everytime we do this on HN, the same argument shows up -- "MBAs are the worst." "Well what about these popular CEOs?" "Well they're not really MBAs, c'mon."

Sundar Pichai went to Wharton for his MBA before joining Google. He is also ex-McKinsey. So, by HN standards, he's the absolute worst, right?

Google's leadership ranks are filled with MBAs, including tons of VPs that aren't household names but are nonetheless very influential here.

MBA programs are one of the primary ways we recruit product managers (it's how I became a Google PM, full disclosure). Sales, strategy, ops are also full of MBAs.

The next phase of this monthly argument on HN will be, then: "Well, that's what's wrong with Google then, it's all crap after they started hiring MBAs!" which is also nonsense, because lots of the senior people w/ MBAs were hired a decade ago or more.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#116

Post by iends »

thegoldenchild wrote: post #25

I'm aware that HN is a pro-engineering, anti-MBA group of folks, but hopefully my perspective helps add a bit of color from the other side. I got a BS and MS in Computer Science and ended up working as a software engineer for a number of years. After a while, I was left wanting more, so I enrolled in an MBA program. IMO, 50-60% of classes in business school are fluff leadership rah-rah self-development bullshit. But…

Can you talk more about your experiences? Did you go to a top program? A full time program? Do you think it's worth it if you already have an MS and are currently a first line manager and team lead?

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#117

Post by mdorazio »

caminante wrote: post #69
mdorazio wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the "valuable" set of classes, what % would you have only been able to attend/learn from in an MBA program? I was accepted to several top MBA programs and decided not to go for a variety of reasons, including that virtually all of the classwork was things I had already learned or could easily learn via online coursework or community college without spending a quarter of a million dollars.

You might want to re-explore your opportunity cost. At any top educational program, you'll get better competition and coaching from professors, peers, and alumni access than self-teaching. At most MBA programs, you can take accelerated courses or skip re-learning skills.

Better with respect to what? I'm referring specifically to the classes and associated academic knowledge, not to other aspects of the program.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#118

Post by mdorazio »

sjg007 wrote: post #40
mdorazio wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the "valuable" set of classes, what % would you have only been able to attend/learn from in an MBA program? I was accepted to several top MBA programs and decided not to go for a variety of reasons, including that virtually all of the classwork was things I had already learned or could easily learn via online coursework or community college without spending a quarter of a million dollars.

You go for the network either regional or national. You can read the 30m MBA for the other stuff.

Agreed, I was trying to understand what part of the classwork the parent comment found compelling enough to spend the time and money on for an MBA program.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#119

Post by cmahler7 »

saosebastiao wrote: post #94
simonsarris wrote: post #3

I know its popular to hate on Peter Thiel here but I think he's been right about this cohort for a long time, and that its not really surprising. Emphasis mine: > I think one challenge a lot of the business schools have is they end up attracting students who are very extroverted and have very low conviction, and they put them in this hot house environment for a few years — at the end of which, a large number of peopl…

I hate on Peter Thiel all the time, but he's absolutely right here. MBA schools teach a form of strategic analysis that is almost purely driven by fatally flawed ex post facto reasoning. Hell, the case study model pioneered at Harvard is a case study in ex post facto reasoning. Just read their most popular business books...always looking to the past and trying to find mystical reasons why one company did well and ano…

hate the artist, not the art. You don't have to like Thiel's political beliefs to admit he's smart as hell.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#120

Post by ryandrake »

bmpafa wrote: post #53
simonsarris wrote: post #3

I know its popular to hate on Peter Thiel here but I think he's been right about this cohort for a long time, and that its not really surprising. Emphasis mine: > I think one challenge a lot of the business schools have is they end up attracting students who are very extroverted and have very low conviction, and they put them in this hot house environment for a few years — at the end of which, a large number of peopl…

I have an MBA from one of the top 3 programs, and I see a lot of evidence to support this, but I disagree that it's a lack of conviction. I came from a diff't background than most of my classmates, but the sense I got was that, for a lot of them, life was a series of clearly defined competitions & steps. I took to calling it the Gilded Pipeline, but in general, it was ivy undergrad -> banking/consulting -> private eq…

Same observation here [top 10, but as we like to say everyone in the top-15 are within the margin of error of each other :)].

The "Gilded Pipeline" post-MBA pretty much has to be "back to banking or consulting". Otherwise the MBA has a negative ROI. Ask me how I know. You can soul search all you want, but end of the day you're dropping $100K+ on your degree and foregoing 2 years of career growth (opportunity cost). So you need to exit into the highest paying jobs THAT ALSO HAVE CAREER GROWTH and they are always banking and consulting.

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