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Elon Musk Talks About the Importance of Physics, Criticizes the MBA

Posted by Soulskill on from the free-body-diagrams-trump-earnings-projections dept.

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."

8 of 343 comments (clear)

  1. couldnt agree more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Totally agree with this, Its should be same in IT companies as well

    1. Re:couldnt agree more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Agree 100%. An MBA is not bad. The problem with people who have MBAs is the bar is relatively low to get into an MBA program compared to say getting into a graduate Physics program. However, there are idiots in Physics just as there are idiots with MBAs, you just don't hear about the idiots with Physics degrees because they don't get very far, whereas with MBAs I think companies still don't quite understand how to gauge and apply them.

      I have an MBA. I manage people too. There were a LOT of idiots in my MBA program too, and I work with several idiots with MBAs. But my MBA also taught me some useful skills. Marketing is an art and a science; things like knowing how your customers buy things, positioning your product correctly, where/how/when to communicate to your customers through advertising that your product is available and can solve their problem is not intuitive. Operations planning and Supply Chain Management are critical to every company, and yet there are many ways to do things, and often the ways that people think are the right ways are actually the most expensive ways.

      I work in operations and supply chain. In my company, I have obsoleted two jobs and am working on my third, and all of them were my own. In every case we had different people in those positions, and in every case I was able to improve it so it required fewer, less educated people or was entirely automated; once complete they put me in another area. All the people around those processes had their busy-work reduced and they could focus on money-making decisions, which improves profitability. Not a single person was laid off, we just got more out of everyone. That's the value of an MBA.

    2. Re:couldnt agree more by HeckRuler · · Score: 4, Insightful

      *FREAKS THE FUCK OUT* OHJESUSCHRISTWHATTHEFUckman are you trying to give me a heart attack?

      Awwww crap, I had 7 threads from 3 tickets, the spec, the SRD, and the SDD weaving in my head into something something that was going to go into production code. Can't remember what it was now... Whelp, that's about 2 hours lost and 2 hours I'll have to spend diving into this clusfterfuck again.

      So what did you want?

  2. Re:Phases of Evolution by ElSergio · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, except this start up boss has founded 3 successful multi-billion dollar companies in 3 separate industries. I'm willing to bet he probably has a good idea on how to run things. (How to not have your cars catch on fire is another issue :P )

  3. Re:Common Ground by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    " the challenges Elon has faced in Tesla are a clear demonstration of what MBAs (and Lawyers and Lobbyists) are good for - success in the real world."

    While this is true, I suspect that what he sees (and dislikes) about the fact is that MBAs (and especially lawyers and lobbyists) are necessary tools in much the same way that soldiers are: they fight with the other guy's MBAs, lawyers, and lobbyists, laying waste to much real value in the process; because the alternative of having the other guy's MBAs, lawyers, and lobbyists march in unopposed is even worse.

    Engineers, scientists, and the like, by contrast, get sent out to prod the obnoxiously complex and notoriously noncompliant laws of nature into enough semblance of obedience that they can be put to good use.

    Obviously, there is value to having a good lawyer, or a good army, at your back; because there are others out there who have the same, and don't have your best interests at heart; but there is a certain tragedy in watching men, time, and money, get thrown into the meatgrinder in order to keep two adversaries off one another's backs; while there is a certain triumph in seeing the application of human effort bring new areas of nature within the scope of human understanding and utility.

  4. Re:Common Ground by ericloewe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can tell you one thing:

    If a businessperson ever doubts an engineer, they are most certainly not highly successful.

  5. Re:Common Ground by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Engineers make things. Businesspeople hoard money. Of course they both think they are right... but one of them is.

  6. This warms my heart by DaMattster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.