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Elon Musk Talks About the Importance of Physics, Criticizes the MBA
New submitter ElSergio writes "In a two-part interview with the American Physical Society, Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, talks about how important it is to be able to think in terms of first principles, a tool learned as a physics student. Later in the interview, he recommends against obtaining an MBA, claiming, 'It teaches people all sorts of wrong things' and 'They don't teach people to think in MBA schools.' In fact. if you are in business and want to work for SpaceX, you will have a better chance getting hired if you do not have one. According to Musk, 'I hire people in spite of an MBA'. He goes on to point out that if you look at the senior managers in his companies, you will not find very many MBAs there."
Totally agree with this, Its should be same in IT companies as well
Most non-STEM education beyond associate-level courses is bullshit.
Finally, something Musk and I actually agree on.
MBA == waste of time and money.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Years ago I read a book called The 12 Hour MBA Program. I have never met an MBA who knew something important about business that wasn't in that book.
Many startup bosses have said the same things before. When their businesses grow, they will quietly hire MBAs for needed expertise on complex accounting, legal issues, and human resources. Physicists like to think they are smarter than everyone else, but they often make big fools of themselves on non-physics topics that require social intelligence.
I tend to dislike the celebrity business owners, but the more I hear Musk talk the more I like him.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
As a one-time worker bee who is now a part of senior management (with an MPA and not an MBA, although they are pretty similar) I understand what he is saying but I disagree that people should have a better chance of being hired because they have the three letters next to their name.
I hire for open reqs based on the PERSON and their SKILLSET, not the degree they may or may not hold. You know, the way it should be. What Musk is promoting through another one of his ridiculous soundbites is that we should pay more attention to degrees (good or bad) than the skills someone brings along with them.
Musk can be absolutely brilliant and incredibly and insanely stupid all at the same time.
I have many degrees that put letters after my name, including an MBA. I still remember how one of my professors railed on the MBA because all it did was enshrine "spreadsheet thinking," ruined creative thinking, make people more susceptible to buzz-word thinking, make dumb people feel smart, make them better at smart CYAs for dumb decisions and about 5 other criticisms that currently escape me. He even called them the "Middle-manager's Business Accreditation" because people at the top cannot behave that way, or they ruin companies, so most MBAs won't make it there for long; and the people at the top love MBAs at the middle level because the top brass are not limited by the MBA's decisions and know how to control them.
Maybe not in his mind, but definitely in mine. The 'thought-path' that ends up in a certification is not something I want to encourage. Perhaps if it were more like an RPG, and a certain amount of 'XP' resulted in a new certification rank.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
I think the most important thing from this interview is that Musk played D&D and is a self professed nerd.
As usual, those who bash MBA most loudly are the ones that hire them:
Example SpaceX employees w/ MBAs including his CIO
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=599586
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=607870
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=10662209
And of course, his investors, which probably all have MBAs
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=15592967
There is no such thing as a bad education, only bad students.
I have an MBA, it was totally awesome to get, I did it while working full time, learned a lot, apply the knowledge often.
The bashers are just looking for media attention, esp when they hire so many of them.
Musk is the exception and is riding along on the anti MBA trend in Silicon Valley. Look at Google's job adverts. A good number of them require an MBA because they seek that broad general knowledge and ability to see the whole playing field.
Suck it up folks, especially IT. You don't want a sysadmin trying to manage product development or deployment.
According to Musk, 'I hire people in spite of an MBA'.
What's that, he doesn't like mindless groupthink, and the inability to understand the difference between a rule of thumb and actual thought, judgement and understanding of reality? No wonder the guy is a failure.
Far too many of the self-righteous pricks already.
A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
Physicists like to think they are smarter than everyone else, but they often make big fools of themselves on non-physics topics that require social intelligence.
A quick search of Amazon and eBay turns up quite a few "quick MBA" selections. Titles like:
The One-Day MBA
MBA in a Day: What You Would Learn at Top-Tier Business Schools
The Mobile MBA: 112 Skills to Take You Further, Faster 2012 -Man
The 10-Day MBA
Complete MBA For Dummies
I couldn't find anything remotely similar for a degree in physics.
What else you got?
There is no useful or actionable data here. He mentions rockets without going into any hard info on how he's made his cheaper to launch. He also fails to acknowledge the value of his team. Here is your new Steve jobs.
MBAs on paper are supposed to teach you a lot of useful things. In practice most students walk away with one thing in their mind: how to cut costs to a minimum even if it drives the business to the ground so long as they collect their bonus before it does so.
You can read all about it from Henry Mintzberg who is a Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at the Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University, and has spent the last two decades trying to fix the present MBA mess.
His book "Managers not MBAs" is a must read for anyone thinking about hiring an MBA.
Successful business leader XXX announces that his college program (or lack thereof) is better than any other....
And a shit load of bad ones.
This good ones, were excellent technically then took what they learned in MBA in terms of business functions and applied them in a way the made everyone more effective and productive. The bad ones tended to be poor performers in their chosen fields who ran to an MBA as a way to avoid working on technical details that they couldn't comprehend.
The worst were smart, but evil. They took an MBA as a fast path to management, where they gulled their peers with enough technical know how to achieve their dreams of power and influence. The more power they got, the less tolerant they became of other "smart guys." They were viewed as threats that might expose potential technical short comings in the MBA's plans.
uses bias to judge people news at 11
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Keep MBA people away from your company. They will leverage, shift paradigms, acquire, sell off, and ultimately destroy any company they run. Buzz-word this and buzz-word that. They know better than anyone else and you are stupid for doubting them. Well, yeah, thanks for ruining my company, I guess I must have been wrong.
I do not put much value in an MBA either despite the fact I am currently pursuing one. My circumstance is that my employer partnershiped with a university to offer 1/2 off tuition and I get an additional $3k reimbursement from my employer each year. End result is I will pay about $6k out of my pocket... too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Most of the material has been common sense, in my opinion. The organizational leadership classes have been interesting. Right now I'm in a class that focuses on ethics and sustainability. Nothing to this point has been about cutting costs for temporary increase in profit. There is plenty of talk about efficiency, though.. but that is a necessity for a business to survive.
I plan to use my MBA to make a point in future job interviews - I am willing to take that step to continue learning. Regardless of the overall usefulness of the degree, it does take dedication to juggle my current job, school, and helping raise my 9 month old son.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
then he would learn how deceptive comparing apples to oranges when trying to make an argument can be.
Where I work, the rule of thumb is that the higher your degree you have, the more entitled you feel to contribute less. The mindset among the MBAs and PhDs is that they already put in their time to get their degree and now they know everything, so they don't have perform menial tasks such as testing their code. Nevermind the fact that most of what they produce is fundamentally broken and needs to be re-engineered by someone with a measley BS degree. I know that there are plenty of MBAs and PhDs that don't act this way, but the point is that people with these degrees do not necessarily contribute higher quality or even quantity.
In addition to that, a number of people have asked me why I haven't gone for my MBA. My response is that it doesn't make sense to put myself into debt for the minor increase in salary. In addition to that, some of my coworkers are going for an MBA and based on the description of their projects, I would be bored. Most of their assignments seem to barely surpass the scope and difficulty of undergrad assignments. If I wanted to make more money, I would be much better off teaching myself very specific technologies and gaining as much experience as I can. That real-world experience counts much more than any degree since you can hit the ground running on all projects that use those technologies. So I have to mostly agree with Elon on this. I don't think that having a graduate degree should count against you, but when I interview someone, I certainly don't give the person any additional credibility since I have seen a fair share of hacks with grad and post-grad degrees.
While he walks through the dining room of the restaurant he realizes: "this is the profit center!" ...
Now he turns to the kitchen and realizes: "this is the cost center!"
Guess which part gets closed first and who gers fired
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Hot air; Musk has an unlimited supply.
Here's the MBA worldview:
1) If it doesn't exist on a spreadsheet, it doesn't exist.
2) You don't have to know the details of the business to run it.
3) Productivity is what we say it is.
4) Everything is measured in money. The physical world barely matters.
MBAs seem to share this worldview with those ever accurate, johny-on-the-spot folks commonly known as "economists." They know everything too.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Was that professor of yours one of your professors in your MBA program, or a professor you had while earning a different degree? Also, if you don't mind me asking, it's not definitively clear to me whether you're agreeing with that professor or not. (I think you are.) Can you state unequivocally?
Finally, if you don't mind, I'm intrigued by this quote from the article:
I don't get it. Do MBA students have this kind of smoke blown up their asses by their professors or the departments? Did you experience anything like this as an MBA student? What are some of the kinds of things that MBA students are told? Thanks.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
I have an MBA so get it right up ye!
Mostly gratuitous criticism... MBAs are only a tiny aspect of the (largely US driven) tendency to turn anything into data and mine it endlessly. Think baseball...
"Of necessity, physics had to develop a framework of thinking that would allow understanding counter-intuitive elements of reality. Something like quantum physics is not very intuitive, and in order to make progress, physics essentially evolved a framework of thinking that was very effective for coming to correct answers that are not obvious. And in order to do this, it requires quite a lot of mental exertion. One cannot conduct one's everyday life reasoning from first principles; it would just require too much mental energy. So I think you have to operate most of your life with reasoning by analogy or essentially copying other people with minor variations. But if you are trying to break new ground and be really innovative, that's where you have to apply first-principle thinking and try to identify the most fundamental truths in any particular arena and you reason up from there. This requires quite a bit of mental exertion and I can give you some examples of how this helps one in the rocket business."
"I had an existential crisis when I was 12 or 13, and [was] trying to figure out what does it all mean, why are we here, is it all meaningless, that sort of thing. I came to the conclusion that the best thing we can do is try to improve the scope and scale of consciousness and gain greater enlightenment which will in turn allow us to ask better and better questions, because obviously the universe is the answer, so what is the question? All questions, I suppose.""
"A lot of people in physics are concerned about expenditures on manned space flight because they are not sure what's the point. Generally I would agree: if we were just going to bounce around in low Earth orbit, it's questionable whether it's worth the expense. However, if one considers the objective to become a space-faring civilization and a multi-planet species, I think that physicists should support that because it increases the probable lifespan of humanity dramatically, and dramatically increases the scope and scale of civilization, which in turn is what will lead to greater enlightenment in physics and other arenas. "
Slashdot fortune: "Forty two."
The problem may self correct after a few more years.
Managers, in theory, the best of them have the worst job for self respect: the best manager IS NEVER NOTICED *except* when they're not there and you notice what you miss. But it's not good for the prestige of the job. It's not particularly sexy. And since those aiming for the top will have to go through management to get there, this will not be allowed to be the case.
But you're correct: the manager is meant to ensure that the problems never get to the workers. Need a new PC? Manager sorts it out. Ass exec requirement (a la PHB)? Manager deflects or removes it.
But a lot will want to "DO SOMETHING" and then you get like you say: someone who only sees what can be measured because that's the only tool they've been taught.
Analyst programmers are the IT equivalent.
Your analyst should determine WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. And it must be possible to say "Nothing. You cannot change this well enough to make up for the disruption, never mind the risk that the change makes it worse.". It MUST be possible to say "There is no programming solution. Your punched card indexing is sufficient to your needs."
But an analyst programmer has, already built in to the title, the assertion that a program is needed, that change is wanted and that change will be by computer.
So IT problems are created because the mindset is wrong.
..from a guy who thinks mining asteroids makes sense. Yeah...
Nearly every successful company hires a business person to run things as it grows larger, so they must be good for something.
Of course. Steve Jobs brought on John Sculley at AAPL in 1983 and look how well that turned out
Imagine how horrible the result would have been if Jobs had actually tried to run it himself.
Which came first: the bad company culture or the MBA who perpetuated it?
It's pretty much a given that /. will agree with Musk's sentiment on this topic, given our engineering/technology/science-leaning tendencies. After all, it seems like it's an inevitable stage in most company's life cycles: startup -> success -> bring in business types -> slide into mediocrity -> become one of the has-beens. You might still be a very successful has-been, but you won't be the thought-leader in your field.
But, really, should we be so quick to agree? Rather than being guilty of falling prey to the very groupthink that we accuse MBAs of falling for, let me play Devil's Advocate for a bit and suggest that we focus on the chicken instead of the egg for a bit.
As companies get more successful, they tend to get larger than their founders can personally handle (we're all aware of how difficult a problem scaling can be), meaning that there's a legitimate need to impose some type of structure over the system. MBAs are very aware of what sorts of structures have been used before and what has worked in different situations, so they are called in to impose those structures over the organization. For the companies that don't bring them in at that point, they'll either have a difficult period as their leadership adjusts things through trial and error, or else they'll simply go under before they ever have a chance to slide into mediocrity.
I've seen smart MBA types who can come into a company, recognize what makes it special, and will work hard to preserve it while making the changes that are necessary for allowing the company to scale better. I've seen others in middle management who, rather than displaying sociopathic tendencies or squandering their team, challenge their team of engineers to break new ground while working cooperatively with other teams in an effort to build up the company as a whole. Sure, they may be the exception, rather than the rule, but the point is that they can bring a unique perspective to the team that many engineering types can't, which helps to shake things up.
But as companies get larger and larger, it gets easier and easier to hide negligence or disappear into the bureaucracy, and when that happens, the company starts to incentivize the sort of behavior we've all come to expect of MBAs. When Team A realizes that they can cut corners and leave the problem in Team B's hands, eventually, someone will start taking advantage of that. MBAs are trained to look for those sorts of things, so it's only natural that they will when they're put in that situation, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that they have a monopoly on that behavior. Put a manager with an engineering background in the same spot and there's a good chance they'll do the same eventually. It's an issue with the company and the way it's managed. The middle manager's abuse of the system is just a symptom.
Alternatively, put an MBA at the top and they may try to kill the golden goose (e.g. R&D, a good brand name, etc.) for a quicker payout, but who put the guy with ideas that are clearly contrary to the company's stated beliefs at the top in the first place? He might end up being the thing that everyone points at later on when they talk about when the company "died", but the fact is, it was likely rotting well before that because he wouldn't have been able to get appointed otherwise (unless he pulled the wool over everyone's eyes).
Do MBAs perpetuate bad company culture? Absolutely, but so do plenty of others from STEM fields and the like. We may argue that MBAs actively sour a culture (pun not intended) whereas the STEM folks merely respond in kind, but I think that's being a bit naive on our part. As companies grow, they have to fight to maintain their culture of excellence, and that's true regardless of whether MBAs are involved. A bad MBA can cause rot to grow around them in the company, but that's true of any employee, really. What makes MBAs stand out more, however,
and makes me think that there is still hope. MBAs destroy innovation, motivation, and productivity in the name of short term profits. MBAs represent modern scorched earth business tactics. Profit in the short term and destroy a thriving business in the long term. I run my own consulting business and an MBA is my weedout criteria - have MBA, will not travel.
Only by giving their sound to another team member.
You missed by far the most important one:
If you can't easily calculate a dollar value of something, it must be 0.
This rule alone is why all MBAs refuse to see any downside exists to strategies that inevitably create more rework, or piss off key customers enough to impact future sales.
Meetup is the world's largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 9,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities.For more info , please visit http://www.meetup.com/
None of this is even remotely true in any MBA ... Where the hell are you getting your information?
http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/
"Mylyn's task-focused interface reduces information overload and makes multitasking easy. Mylyn makes tasks a first class part of the IDE, integrates rich and offline editing for ALM tools, and monitors your programming activity to create a "task context" that focuses your workspace and automatically links all relevant artifacts to the task-at-hand. This puts the information you need at your fingertips and improves productivity by reducing information overload, facilitating multitasking and easing the sharing of expertise."
Frankly, still have not got the hang of it myself, so I turned it off..
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
After my physics degree I thought it would be a good idea to learn something about business so I got an MBA.
While at business school I couldn't believe the crap they teach there. Especially the believe in the efficient market hypothesis is a joke.
But it wasn't all a waste of money. Having to get everything done as part of a diverse team, while being swamped with work, did prepare me well for consulting, and according to my wife markedly improved my social skills :-)
You wrote: "Not a single person was laid off..."
But the unstated part is "...in your company".
If demand grows slower than supply (like due to limited money supply in the real economy, a law of diminishing returns of more consumer goods, increasing burden from negative externalities, structural unemployment, etc.) then other companies that are less productive may go out of business due to your improvements, taking jobs (and also ultimately customers) with them. We're about to see that rapidly accelerate with increasing use of robotics, AI, and other advanced automation.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/10/08/1530233/digital-revolution-will-kill-jobs-inflame-social-unrest-says-gartner?sdsrc=popbyskid
Here is a list I put together of about 50 things one can do about that:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html
A "basic income" (monthly social security payments for all from birth) is the simplest and probably most effective one of those for a democratic capitalistic society:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/11/17/american_basic_income_an_end_to_poverty.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/switzerlands-proposal-to-pay-people-for-being-alive.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/opinion/krugman-sympathy-for-the-luddites.html
The opposite position though:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/10/04/1222228/the-luddites-are-almost-always-wrong-why-tech-doesnt-kill-jobs
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Consider the phrase "applied science".
If I make any suggestions here about what I think has led you to make such a major mistake they will be seen as a personal attack.
I have a PhD in physics and I'm currently an RA working on dark matter research. My background is in nuclear and particle physics. I probably have another few years of this RA position and then I most likely will not find an academic position (>30% chance by the numbers).
Founding paypal is not physics and does not require first principles or a physics mindset.
I think if I were to do it all again I would do like Musk, drop out and try and find a cash cow.
Society has rewarded my dedication to science with almost nothing. I am still paying off student debt, I have less than 50k net worth and my prospects for work in my field are dim/abyssmal.
I could potentially go work for Musk, in the same way nobility retained a few scientists for prestige and their pet projects.
In one word . . . . . . . . beancounters
But then who's going to move you to open floor layouts to "improve collaboration"?
I don't understand why open-floor layouts get a bad rap. I work in one now, and it's great. I never want to see the inside of another cube.
Perhaps you need to speak to an MBA, seriously. Typically one of the first classes that a person takes in business school is some sort of organization behavior class. This class typically deals with psychology and human behavior at the individual, small team and large organization levels. In this class you will learn that different people are sometimes more efficient in different environments, that there is no such thing as the best work environment. That what is best changes from person to person.
Some people will perform better in an open floor plan and others will perform better in individual offices. That a manager who forces a person to work in the environment their personality is not wired for is sabotaging that person. That no one solution fits all people.
Really, does he believe that business is administered so flawlessly that people's earnest efforts to learn how to do it better are worthless ?
It is disrespectful of him to trash people who act sincerely to improve their skills in managing business. Even if there are plenty of cynical MBAs out there, I have met plenty of cynical engineers too; it does not make the study of engineering any less worthy a pursuit.
Nullius in verba
Elon is not the only genius who thinks an MBA is bogus and he's 100% correct; but we have to give FZ his due as he was way ahead of the curve on this thinking.
Actually both are wrong respect to recent MBAs, at least modern MBAs, can't speak for previous decades. However I used to share Elon's perspective, then I went to business school and learned how wrong I was.
M: ... An MBA is a bad idea.
L: Why?
M: It teaches people all sorts of wrong things. L: What do you mean? M: They don't teach people to think in MBA schools. And the top MBA schools are the worst. Because they actually teach people that you must be special, and it causes people to close down their feedback loop and not rigorously examine when they are wrong.
I went to a state university ranked top 50 in the U.S. We were taught quite differently than Elon assumes. For example we were taught that to find out what is going on you actually need to go speak to the workers on the factory floor, or the engineers in their cubicles, the people doing the actual work. That these people offer the best information on how things really are. I don't recall being taught that we were "special".
Note Elon's use of "top MBA schools are the worst". I wonder if he really means certain old Ivy League schools, which in that case being "special" is not MBA specific.
"... When all decisions are based on an MBA's concept of numerical reality, you're in deep shit, because the only thing that can be judged as real is that which can be proved by a column of figures. And when all aesthetic decisions are turned over to these kinds of people, who use these criteria to make steering decisions for a company with no regard for people and no regard for what the product really is, and the only thing that matters is maximizing your profit, you have a problem. Because you can't have quality then; you cannot have excellence. Quality's expensive. I think most of these people that come from business schools have the desire to make sure everything is cheesy. That's what happens when you do things that way." - FZ
Accounting represents only a few classes in business school. Classes in product development and strategy in fact do emphasize excellence as a means of differentiating your product. The aesthetics of your product, the usability of your product, the overall user experience. Focusing only on costs is in fact offered as an example of how to ruin a product.
People who think business schools and MBAs are all about accounting have not been to business school, at least in recent decades.
A modern MBA program is NOT about accounting. Its NOT about becoming an expert in any particular field, its quite different from other graduate degrees in this respect. An MBA program is an OVERVIEW of the entire organization. Leadership, law, economics, strategy, product development, operations, information technology, accounting, marketing, etc. An MBA teaches you enough about the various parts of an organization so that you can see things from their perspective. So that you can better represent your actual area of expertise and experience when communicating with others coming from different areas, to better communicate, to be more persuasive, to better understand what they are asking you for, etc. 1/3 of my MBA class came from scientific and engineering backgrounds. They didn't stop being scientists and engineers, they just became scientists and engineers with some more tools in the toolbox.
I am an MBA and I agree with him comments to a degree. A lot of my classmates did not think. As a graduate myself I question how anyone thinks they can run a company entirely with numbers and figures - it just doesn't work. There is a personal aspect to things since humans are not machines (at least not yet ;). I am of the belief that it is my job to manage people, and by that I mean shield them from the crap above so that they can do their job. Then again I am humble enough to know when I am over my head and ask the people that actually know their shit or have to deal with it on the daily basis.
And this is the sort of perspective I was taught to have in my MBA program. Focusing too much on the numbers is a bad idea. Not understanding or accommodating human behavior is a common cause in product or business failure. That treating your employees and business partners well is often important for success. That the people doing the actual work on the line often have the best information. Or to use a military analogy if you want to know what is going on in a unit you ask a sergeant not a captain.
Here is my perspective. MBAs are like Computer Science students. They are taught to do the right thing, its just that some take shortcuts once they enter the real world and create crap.
Worked for 10 years in IT support for a top-10 MBA school (thus posting anonymously). Can attest, in spite of my school's technical cred, that the MBA is mostly worthless. Two years (four semesters) is not enough time to truly learn anything. But the biggest problem is the idea that both students and employers buy into: that those four little semesters make one skilled to make executive decisions in any business, regardless of what it is.
You don't seem to really understand what an MBA is. A modern MBA program is NOT about becoming an expert in any particular field, its quite different from other graduate degrees in this respect. An MBA program is an OVERVIEW of the entire organization. Leadership, law, economics, strategy, product development, operations, information technology, accounting, marketing, etc. An MBA teaches you enough about the various parts of an organization so that you can see things from their perspective. So that you can better represent your actual area of expertise and experience when communicating with others coming from different areas, to better communicate, to be more persuasive, to better understand what they are asking you for, etc. 1/3 of my MBA class came from scientific and engineering backgrounds. They didn't stop being scientists and engineers, they just became scientists and engineers with some more tools in the toolbox.
The MBA does not qualify you to make executive decisions. However to make executive decisions you need to be able to see things from different perspectives, not simply the single perspective that your expertise and experience is based upon. That is the advantage of an MBA.
Furthermore, we were explicitly taught that a manager/executive must understand the product. This idea that a professional manager can manage any company regardless of product is a false meme. **If** ever widely believed that would have been long ago.
This boils down to accounting and finance, which is the only thing common to all businesses (except for contracts, but that's law - go back to school). Like a hammer to a nail, the MBA learns to address everything from the point of view of costs and profits
Seriously, that is so mistaken. We were taught exactly the opposite. That focusing exclusively on the numbers often dooms a company. At least at the school I went to, public university - ranked in top 50, and at the schools where other students I've interacted with were going.
But MBA schools pump out way too many graduates every year, including those who just coast through classes and expect that their degree will catapult them to a high salary.
Such ticket punchers exist in most degree programs. Its no different in computer science, even at the graduate level.
Plus there is another common problem. People are often taught how to do the right thing in school, both MBA and Computer Science, however when they get into the real world they do things differently. I think you are letting these people who take the shortcuts and do the wrong things mislead you as to what they were actually taught.
The answer is most definitely the bad culture. Boom times due to external factors coincided with a series of fads and the shining examples of the time had inherited success instead of built it.
To simplify, a lot the MBA culture was inspired far more by Edsel Ford than Henry. A lot of it is pretending that the pinnacle of business practise is what the complacent US car industry was doing while the Japanese were building up to take over the market with something other than repackaged 1960s shit.
The premise is really that any "chosen one" can run a successful business in a static situation no matter what fads they follow. There may be some truth in that but why bother even getting an MBA in such a situation? Both when times get tough or when opportunities arise you want somebody with enough domain knowlege of what the organisation actually does to be able to even know who to ask about the details. Without that you may as well have a playboy prince tossing money around at random instead of someone with a cut down business degree. There's nothing magic about half an accountant that makes them fit to rule anything.
Sure.. none of the stuff in B-school is difficult for an engineer. What you learn, though, is the unique jargon and forms of presentation. Most engineers don't know what a T-account is: every MBA does. Sure, you can learn it in 5 minutes, but there's dozens and dozens of little things that are common knowledge in the MBA world that don't exist in the E world. (and vice versa, of course).
And I would posit that it is a lot tougher for a B-school grad to learn engineering jargon than for an E-school grad to learn business jargon. So, if you want to have a communication between B and E, and you're an E, one of the more effective ways to get there is to slog through B-school.
Some may claim that they can learn the jargon by just reading books. No, you cannot. You have to "do business" and spend some serious time speaking business. If you just read the books, just like a non-technical manager reading electronics trade rags and Scientific American, and then coming in using jargon in a subtly wrong manner, you, as an engineer will use the words in the wrong way, indicating that you are a poseur, and not "qualified"
Now, since you're NOT looking to get hired at a top consulting firm as a newly minted MBA, you can go to ANY B-school. You're an engineer, you like engineering, you're unlikely to change that dramatically. You just want to speak the language. So there's nothing to be gained by going to Wharton, Kellogg, or Thunderbird. Go where it's convenient and inexpensive: there lies the best ROI.
Being jobless, and consequently moneyless, in todays world basically makes person isolated from society - one becomes like Robinson on deserted island, only surrounded by hostile creatures threatening his life, health, freedom and personal possessions. One has to work directly on own life support, instead of working for exchange - which doesn't take place, because none would hire him. However, when joblessness becomes common, there is possibility of division of society and economy - those who work for satisfying their own needs can among themselves reinvent specialization, exchange, market and even money, and form separate society, akin to remote native communities. If they can do without non-free products of society (using only trash and rejects from it) they are completely removed from great economy, shrinking both labor and goods' markets. "Invisible hand" with technological advances is systematically pushing more and more people out of economy and it can continue until production of goods is no longer profitable for the lack of demand. However, invisible hand can never reintroduce those rejected people back in, because it doesn't work that way, it only runs one way - to the bottom. So, in the end, high technology will just grind to a halt leaving behind its demise a new primitive society of slum dwellers.
An MBA is an MBA, but it's the psychopaths that are the culprit.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
Have you considered the possibility that MBA teaching programs are like Computer Science students? Some teach the right things. And, some just take shortcuts, and once their students enter the real world, they arrange for businesses to create crap.
Have you considered the possibility that MBA teaching programs are like Computer Science students? Some teach the right things. And, some just take shortcuts, and once their students enter the real world, they arrange for businesses to create crap.
The problem with that theory is that I've experienced multiple CS and MBA programs teaching the right things, other CS and MBA students/grads I know had similar experiences. I don't know of any school promoting the crap that goes on in the real world. What I and others have witnessed is someone who was taught how to design and write maintainable and reliable code in school slap together some crap in order to move a 3x5 task card from the in-progress column to the implemented column. Sometimes doing so because their manager evaluates developers based on how fast those 3x5 task cards move, which is precisely the sort of thing you are taught *not* to do in business school. Dilbert is as popular with business school professors and students as it is with their computer science counterparts.
I've experienced multiple instances of the crap that goes on in the real world, and they're too similar for this not to be a systematic problem. If what these schools teaching isn't promoting this crap, it isn't giving people adequate tools and motivation to determine and eliminate the sources of it either.
Building stuff (engineers) and Selling stuff (MBA) need mutually exclusive skills.
Casteism
no... we just think that we know more about things like science, technology, engineering and software development than slimy MBA types. And in 35 years of work I've hardly ever seen that actually proved wrong.
I've experienced multiple instances of the crap that goes on in the real world, and they're too similar for this not to be a systematic problem. If what these schools teaching isn't promoting this crap, it isn't giving people adequate tools and motivation to determine and eliminate the sources of it either.
Schools can give you tools but they can't make you use them once you graduate. Nor can schools give you motivation.
Let me try to summarize things in a completely different way. The popular perception of business school is about as accurate as the popular perception of software development. I'm guilty too, for years I had the typical engineer's attitude towards anything business and marketing related, and I had these thoughts reinforced by events at some jobs. However once I went to business school one of the things that made it so much fun was learning how wrong I was.
I believe that you personally are glad you went to business school. I believe that it's possible to learn useful things from one. It will take better behavior from the business school graduate laden corporate entities around me before I'll believe they're a net plus for society.