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MBAs as CEOs

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Re: MBAs as CEOs

#161

Post by aaronchall »

bobby_the_whale wrote: post #148
aaronchall wrote: post #129

> So why do they persist in promoting this education for management, which, according to mounting evidence, produces so much mismanagement? > The answer is unfortunately obvious: with so many of their graduates getting to the “top”, why change? But there is another answer that is also becoming obvious: because at this top, too many of their graduates are corrupting the economy. The MBA is a graduate degree that is th…

Just out of interest, but what do you think someone qualified to run technology at a hedge fund should do on a daily basis?

I reckon they should be actually working at a hedge fund. They need a strong understanding of the business and theory of finance, as well as the systems and technologies the fund uses. If they're running technology there - on a daily basis, I expect they would be tracking dashboards and thinking about and planning on how to reduce risk and improve operations.

I may not be there yet, so on a daily basis, I continue to improve my skillsets in management and technology, teaching technology, both theory and practice. I'm building my leadership abilities through teaching, organizing, lecturing, tutoring, speaking up where appropriate at work, and moderating on Stack Overflow where I'm focusing on using soft power (talking to people instead of pushing buttons).

If you have thoughts on that, I'd like to hear them.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#162

Post by dilemma »

basseq wrote: post #73
Chaebixi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If MBAs often come with a particular ideology and attitude that you want to avoid, then it makes sense to not bother trying to find the good ones. A successful miner wants to focus on the rich ore.

By the way, this is the attitude that causes diversity issues. "The rich ore is Stanford CS grads who worked at Google and Facebook, so why should I recruit anywhere else?"

No, it's not. Not wanting to recruit MBAs doesn't cause a lack of diversity in hires. It's possible that a preference for hiring MBAs, does, though.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#163

Post by mdorazio »

caminante wrote: post #126
mdorazio wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not referring to other aspects of the program, either. > "you'll get better ... coaching from professors, peers, and alumni access than self-teaching." Not all of the academic knowledge is in the textbook. If I want to learn anything, I know the best way to learn is to get great coaching and a great curriculum. The unbundled (self-teaching) route is harder to navigate successfully, though, everyone thinks they're…

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. If you want to learn anything, the best way by far is to learn by actually doing it. The perfect example is languages - you learn far faster and more thoroughly by immersing yourself in the language and using it every day than you do by learning in an academic setting, great coaching or not.

Many business topics are the same way - you will learn much more by actually applying the knowledge to real-world problems than by working through textbooks and case studies. When hiring people, I and my peers vastly prefer demonstrated hands-on experience to any equivalent amount of academic knowledge.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#164

Post by erikpukinskis »

jjn2009 wrote: post #150
erikpukinskis wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us think Capitalism will not be the dominant organizing principle for resource management forever. Like many other -isms we expect it to have a beginning (growth) phase, a middle (status quo) phase, and an end (decline) phase. Some subset of those believe we are in the late stages of it already, thus discussion of "Late Capitalism". That doesn't necessarily mean total death—Monarchism and Totalitarianism stil…

>Some of us think Capitalism will not be the dominant organizing principle for resource management forever. markets aren't going away, unless you threaten humans to stop such actions with violence.

"not the dominant organizing principle" is very different from "will go away".

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#165

Post by jjn2009 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #164
jjn2009 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some of us think Capitalism will not be the dominant organizing principle for resource management forever. markets aren't going away, unless you threaten humans to stop such actions with violence.

"not the dominant organizing principle" is very different from "will go away".

I don't really understand how you can make the claim that people in the near future (relative to the time capitalism has been around) people are going to just give up en masse everything they own so some other entity can manage it "for their own good". This is why making claims that capitalism is winding down via terminology such as "late capitalism" is extremely hopeful at best.

How do you define dominant organizing principle? If all profit was taxed >50% would you have won that battle?

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#166

Post by imron »

contingencies wrote: post #158

I am an experienced entrepreneur in that I have both run and been a part of a few (mostly successful!) small businesses, one in which I was second-tier management on the tech side (hiring, personal and team execution, partnerships/integrations) sold for USD$48.5M. Another at which I was first employee I just sold my shares in at a still higher valuation. Currently I am running another, which I believe without a doubt…

Several years back I did a semester of the MBA program at Tsinghua University as part of a (now discontinued) Australian government scholarship program.

One of my main takeaways from that experience was finding out that disciplines such as marketing and sales had far more rigor than I previously realised. Coming from a technical background it was easy to be dismissive of these fields.

From that perspective, I think your point 2 is likely to be where you get the most value.

I'd also add a point 5. the alumni network and all the networking advantages that provides. At a top-tier program, your classmates will likely go on to be movers and shakers in their industries, though it might take quite some time to manifest.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#167

Post by contingencies »

imron wrote: post #166
contingencies wrote: post #158

I am an experienced entrepreneur in that I have both run and been a part of a few (mostly successful!) small businesses, one in which I was second-tier management on the tech side (hiring, personal and team execution, partnerships/integrations) sold for USD$48.5M. Another at which I was first employee I just sold my shares in at a still higher valuation. Currently I am running another, which I believe without a doubt…

Several years back I did a semester of the MBA program at Tsinghua University as part of a (now discontinued) Australian government scholarship program. One of my main takeaways from that experience was finding out that disciplines such as marketing and sales had far more rigor than I previously realised. Coming from a technical background it was easy to be dismissive of these fields. From that perspective, I think y…

Sounds interesting... I had no idea Qinghua offered MBA courses to exchange students. Re: rigor in other fields, I've already learned that lesson, but I suspect you are right on both points.
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