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Comment by jazzyk | Hacker News Reader

MBA in itself is not a problem, but it should be required that MBA applicants have a 4-year degree NOT in business (preferably STEM).

Most CEOs and high-level executives in Japan and Germany (and many other countries) typically have:

- an educational background in the area they manage (say, mechanical engineering for car production)

- long careers/experience in that area

- passion for it (CEOs who race cars, etc)

Unlike executive in the US, who:

- have a 4-year business degree followed with an MBA

- jump from industry to industry (Carly Fiorina, etc),

- have no passion for the stuff they produce (they are typically finance or marketing guys)

The end result is that US companies turn into marketing/branding shells who outsource everything except for branding/sales or some kind of financial engineering schemes (GE)

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There’s two sides to this.

Most of my career has been in government, and the finance cadre that ends up running most agencies are similar to MBAs as they have financial and budgeting expertise and minimal area expertise.

They produce a certain type of leadership style. That said, the folks who have expertise in the program side usually have awful financial expertise. You end up with an imbalance where finance dominates.

In short, the problems with MBAs would mostly go away if engineers had 15 credits in accounting.

There was a 30 Rock episode that poked fun at exactly what you're saying. American business practices are steering more and more towards "consuming and repackaging" rather than producing. Which, I don't think the internet has really helped all that much... well... I think the whole influencer trend is more to blame, not the internet. For better or worse an influencer can make or break a product almost literally overnight. There were some wireless earbuds a year or two ago, where one guy on youtube said they don't work and were trash. Next day everyone... and I'm trying to remember here so a few facts might be wrong... cancelled their pre-orders or immediately returned them without even opening. Something like that. Well, it was maybe a week that company closed down. Then, some other people on youtube used them and said "They work fine and there's nothing wrong with them."

Whether the dump on the company was justified or not. I literally don't know, I hate all wireless earbuds to begin with, I'm no expert. That, by itself, is a terrifying prospect. One slight misstep can be blown to crazy proportions. So, why not just "fuck it, just repackage something else we know works and move on. I want no emotional attachment to any of this, in case it blows up in my face." Before someone hits back, yes, the system can still do good, like the LockpickLawyer on youtube, showcasing shit, overpriced bike locks.

That stems from the doctrine that leadership skills are industry independent. Unfortunately in reality every industry has a couple of big strategic issues that can't/aren't measured with a dollar value and the standard MBA business outlook ignores them in favour of measurable things.

The downside of this is sometimes management attempts to optimise out the company's comparative advantages. Sometimes on purposes.

MBAs don't need 4-year degrees in the industry they want to manage, they need 4 years of experience on the workshop floor.

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