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MBAs as CEOs

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Re: MBAs as CEOs

#41

Post by thegoldenchild »

mdorazio wrote: post #37
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…

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.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#42

Post by yuhong »

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.

John Sculley is a marketer not an engineer, but is probably one of the least bad ones.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#43

Post by thegoldenchild »

GlennS wrote: post #35
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…

Could you summarise some of the 40% that was useful? Might be interesting to hear.

Finance I, II, III. Accounting I, II, III. Corporate Strategy. Emerging Markets. Micro/Macro Economics. Business Acting. Marketing Strategy. Ops Research.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#44

Post by Retric »

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…

The most interesting thing about MBA's is it's approval focused not success focused. If you can convince a fortune 500 company to pick you as their CEO you have already won even if the company fails because you run it into the ground.

So, yes the language changes as you go up. But, so does what it means to fail.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#45

Post by thegoldenchild »

sacheendra wrote: post #38
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…

While MBAs might learn stuff like budgeting, recruiting, etc. Are they going to better at doing this than an accountant or a professional recruiter? Is this the additional value they add when the join a company?

No, but it's the same as a CS student taking one class on operating systems, machine learning, android development, etc. You won't be an expert after one or two courses, but you develop a foundation level of understanding. As a CEO, you'll be in meetings with accountants, marketers, engineers, recruiters, lawyers, etc. Knowing the common vocabulary helps you avoid wasting unnecessary time asking questions about the core concepts.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#46

Post by Retric »

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.

Sundar Pichai is the nominal CEO as Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#47

Post by phillc73 »

sacheendra wrote: post #38
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…

While MBAs might learn stuff like budgeting, recruiting, etc. Are they going to better at doing this than an accountant or a professional recruiter? Is this the additional value they add when the join a company?

They don't need to be better than a professional accountant. That's not where the value is.

I completed an MBT (Masters of Business and Technology) at UNSW, Australia.

The course programme was certainly slanted towards technical managers, perhaps aspiring CTOs (which I'm not). There were fairly basic courses, for someone with a technical product management background, but there was also some very useful business focused topics. The one module I really learned the most from was Fundamentals of Corporate Finance.

I do not aspire to know more than a professional accountant, but I can now understand what the professional accountant is telling me. I don't just know what the numbers in the budget mean, but also a pretty good idea of how they were derived. For example, I understand, in context, asset depreciation and what it means for my business.

I probably could have picked up these skills elsewhere too, but that module alone made the entire MBT degree programme worthwhile.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#48

Post by consp »

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 want to progress in management.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#49

Post by Retric »

basseq wrote: post #11
rdtsc wrote: post #5

Company I worked for had an explicit policy to never hire MBAs. We had people from all walks of life but no MBAs. The reason is owners have worked in a large company under clueless MBAs who were neither good managers nor good engineers, and just repeated the latest corporate-speak buzzwords over and over, while drawing sizable salaries.

This seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. "I worked with some bad MBAs, so anyone who holds that degree must be bad."

MBA's add other MBA's so having zero tends to be the better choice than looking for the 'good ones.' Remember, a primary focus of MBA programs is getting to positions of power, so they are great at self marketing.

Further, if the market says X is valuable and you think it's useless then you are better off saving money by avoiding the price premium.

Re: MBAs as CEOs

#50

Post by arjunnarayan »

based_log wrote: post #34
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.

Jeff Bezos is also an MBA, though I do concur with they guy who said all those people have MBAs in addition to engineering training.

False. Bezos was EECS at Princeton, and then went to work in finance for ~8 years before starting Amazon.com
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