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Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

Great distinction.

The anti-MBA movement is really trying to redefine what an MBA means. Bad business decisions are "M.B.A.-ization". Good business decisions are... something else. Therefore, MBAs are bad.

There are plenty of bad MBAs running around, but it's no different than how we also have plenty of bad software developers out there despite having C.S. degrees. In both cases, the worst offenders are over-represented in the talent pool because they're more frequently pushed out of companies, while the best talent is locked up with high compensation.

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Quoting Joel Spolsky: "The cult of MBA makes you think you can manage the businesses that do things you don't understand"

The problem is in thinking of MBA cult itself. If I was an MBA without software engineering experience I would also not understand intricacies but would think I can manage it anyway.

This isn't limited to MBA's. There's plenty of (non-cs) engineers out there that are in high ranking positions, making decisions over areas of the business that they know absolutely nothing about.

It's not an MBA cult problem, but it is a management-academia problem. Universities provide classes about management and business without focussing on the actual business part of businesses. If you want to succeed, domain knowledge will almost always be the most important thing, and business and management schools basically brush this to the side as an afterthought.

No, it's a thinking error. People achieve competency in one area and then conclude that it applies to all areas as well.

"I have a masters in biology, I know whats wrong with this country's finances". The soft narcisism of credentialism.

A recent major example of this may not be in the software area. The Boeing 737MAX was started and largely developed under Boeing's first non-engineer MBA oriented CEO. Of course to fix it the engineer CEO left holding the bag with the MAX has been replaced again with a non-engineer leader.

A counter example would be to ask the question if AMD could have navigated it's resurgence if it had not been led by deeply technical CEO, Lisa Su

Really clear quote.

Can you try to tally the list of actually innovative companies (let's say in tech or bio) headed by MBAs vs. non-MBAs? The only notable MBA ceo of a massive tech company from history was Steve Ballmer and let's at least agree there's no consensus if he was any good for Microsoft. Tim Cook is arguably good, but that's just 1/5 if we are looking at top 5 tech. Even the "business" CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, is not an MBA.

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