Ask Slashdot: As a Programmer/Geek, Should I Learn Business?

An anonymous reader writes "During my career I've always been focused on learning new technologies and trending programming languages. I've made good money at it, but I'm not sure what the next step is. I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. I'm not sure how to find a good way to transition from programmer to somebody with more responsibility. Should I learn business? It it more important to focus on personal networking? Do I step into the quagmire of marketing? I'm not sure what goals I should set, because I don't know what goals are realistic. Running my own business seems like something I'd like to do, but I'm unsure how to get from here to there. I'd appreciate advice from any fellow geeks who are making (or have made) that change."

Comments

short answer

[OutOnARock]

yes

Re:short answer

[gander666]

Slightly longer answer:

The things that probably baffle you about the leadership where you are at, the decisions that seem to make no sense, and the troglodytes that seem to have power will make more sense to you after learning a bit about business.

As someone with a physics degree, who does marketing and product management, I self taught myself a lot of what is needed to function in these spheres. It isn't hard, but it will seem alien. It doesn't require more than a modicum of common sense (once you learn to not sneer at it) and the ability to do basic arithmetic. I occasionally break out a PDE to model a pricing structure, and am met with amazement (particularly when it turns out to accurately model the true system response). But I am a geek like that.

Re:Tech Management?

[Lennie]

Most businesses are doing it wrong.

Instead of moving smart people from being productive to management-type functions and get payed more, they should pay the more productive people more.

As Gabe Newell from Valve puts it: Management is a skill, not a career path.

Re:As a geek who went to business school ...

[ranton]

what is it that corrupts them and causes the disastrous short term thinking epidemic in companies these days?

As the parent mentioned, they are immediately given incentives that reward short term thinking. If they don't grasp for short term solutions, they don't reach a VP position by the time they are 40. It is an endemic condition found throughout our entire economic system.

Re:As a geek who went to business school ...

[sydneyfong]

How do you explain the hordes of McKinsey/Accenture/pwc/BCG/Bain "consultants" who walk into a business and proclaim to the execs that they have all the answers?

Some people believe in magic(k). So you find overqualified (on paper) people to pretend to be magicians and sell them snake oil and pixie dust.

"MBAs can manage anything" mindset is a killer in technical job roles

I'd wager that in many non-technical, "commoditized" industries, this is actually true. If your job is to trade oranges, you're not going to set up a multimillion dollar R&D facility to make better oranges. Instead, you just try to source the cheapest oranges, and market it as if they were premium products and pocket the difference. Everyone knows what an orange looks like, and how to deal with them, so you just fire the expensive employees and hire a bunch of unskilled workers at minimum wage. Any on-the-job skill required would be picked up in a week by those workers -- there's nothing complicated about oranges.

That's how the vast majority of businesses are done. When the CEO of the oranges trading company jumps to a textile company making commodity (non-designer) clothes, it's pretty much the same thing. Sell off the factory, buy cheap stuff from China, put your brand on it and market it like crazy. Then they wonder why people look at them funny when they move to a tech company and their first act is to sell off the billion dollar R&D facility and fire all the employees working there. Just get a team in India to do that programming stuff, right?

That being said, while you can laugh at the ignorance of most of the MBAs, technically oriented people (eg. slashdotters) are often just as clueless when it comes to the business side. That's why it's really hard to find a right CEO or exec for a tech company -- they have to know both worlds really well.