Is Now the Time to Hire MBAs?
bhorowitz.com
bhorowitz.com
I have an MBA and degrees in Computer Science and have worked as a programmer so I know both sides, and this is what it boils down to: how much an MBA can help you really depends upon what kind of business you are in, and of course, the value of the potential hire.
If you are running an internet startup there is probably not a whole lot an MBA can do for you that you can't do yourself.
However if you are running a more conventional business that requires sourcing, operations, marketing, statistical analysis, etc., an MBA can absolutely be the difference between success and failure. There is a reason Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple- he is an operations expert, and Apple is largely a business built on outstanding operations and sourcing. Companies like Wal-Mart aren't as widely discussed as the Facebook's of the world, but the reality is that the Wal-Mart's do a whole lot more to improve our daily lives, and are far more difficult to run. Then again, Sheryl Sandburg and Mark Pincus are both Harvard MBA's, so maybe there is some value there as well.
So I would advise people to never bucket a group of people on something as vague as "he has an MBA, he brings no value." I think a lot of the comments Peter Thiel makes about education are cavalier and show a general bubble mentality that shows that he doesn't seem to realize that there is an entire economy outside the valley that makes our lives better without the recognition or star power. I get it, he's extremely smart and has made a boatload of cash through savvy investments. That alone does not make him authority on every subject though, so it irks me a bit when people quote him as if his word is law without much examination.
Completely agree. (Full disclosure, I have an MBA)
I really like the way Hunter Walk put it in his essay here: http://www.hunterwalk.com/2011/12/its-fine-to-get-mba-but-do...
"It's fine to get an MBA, but don't be an MBA"
This was theoretically a startup, and this was the cream of the HBS crop, but they made every mistake a startup absolutely should not make: Spending money extravagantly (and this was post-dotcom blowup); not going live until the website was perfect "because you only have one chance to make a first impression"; feature bloat; no follow-through on anything (that was for their less glamorous underlings).
There, that feels better, I've stopped twitching now.
Not exactly. By 1993, MBAs were already starting to turn AOL into the "how much can we milk you before you'll walk away?" behemoth it became. They'd tried to weasel out of our promise of a "lifetime 20% discount" for charter members, they'd rounded up in some directions and down in others, and they'd literally removed the "Sign Off" button from the toolbar because we billed by the hour, and --
Well, I'll let the MBA tell you.
"We needed to drop one icon because of space/look and feel and it made sense to us out of all the other functionality to drop exit. In addition, some folks were uncomfortable with how visible the ability to get out of the service was--all in keeping with our philosophy to keep them online for that one additional minute :)"
> Try deleting your Facebook account sometime if you'd like
> a real good mindfucking
Point is that the OP was suggesting that AOL MBA's fucked up the company by making the sign out process overly complicated to maximize revenue. That's not unique to MBA's or AOL, but for some reason that's the perception I suppose because AOL isn't as cool as Facebook.
MBA's were thinking "How can we maximize short-term revenue?" Modal popup ads!
I guess a group of engineers could do the same
That's called Design by Committee. See also: Windows Vista
You can pick up kids that have 3/4 of the qualities on Horowitz's list for a lower price tag by recruiting candidates out of top tier consulting firms, banks, etc. E.g. the kids that would have gotten into a top MBA program if they actually wanted.
The degree itself just makes MBA candidates more expensive.
And yet MBAs from places other than top schools need not apply.
Early startup life? Not their forte. Improvising, moving quickly, taking high risks with no data?
Ben's argument that large tech companies of the time were run by MBAs doesn't prove anything. They are large companies!
Why is early startup life not my forte? Would you say that engineers shouldn't go to bars because they are socially awkward?
I think it should be attribute to Guy Kawasaki. [1] I heard him saying those lines in a talk a few years ago.
[1]http://www.forbes.com/2004/03/17/cx_gk_0317artofthestart.htm...
i dropped out of that course the next day. i felt mba classes are just too easy and would dull me. it might be better these days, but i doubt it beats the math stats courses i took.
couple years later i talked with a friend who took mba because he was not confident. he said the mba math is joke and does not compare to ee courses he took.
i wonder if the mba uses simple tools to solve hard problems. if that's the case, it's like a bodybuilder try mining with spoon. a lanky guy with pick will produce more.
But these days, scientists and engineers are looking at mother nature for examples: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-08/13-year-old...
While there's rebuttal about why the solution above won't work: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/why-13-year-ol...
It's still gives us some perspective and thought of how nature restructures things in a certain way. We could possibly build on that.
Ant traffic is handled by several simple rules. Maybe there's something we can learn from them too? We're already considering the removal of traffic lights - initially thought to help manage traffic flow. Do we necessarily need to manage them? Maybe.. maybe not.
Is that because MBAs are uniquely good at monetization, or because we lack a better certification for someone's monetization ability and creativity?
Sure you cannot teach someone to be an entrepreneur, however there are many important disciplines you can gain from studying a business degree. Most executives hold an MBA - although this may be simply to speak-the-speak with others at that level.
Sheryl K. Sandberg (COO of Facebook) holds a MBA. Zuckerberg went to a world renown business school (albeit he dropped out).
Maybe you only need an MBA hire when you have gone public/IPO?
He enrolled at Harvard in September 2002. He dropped out in 2004. He studied psychology and computer science. Harvard Business School is ranked 5th top MBA Uni by The Economist.
I would bet that 90% of non B school students at elite unis look down on the business school
Every one did envy them there funding though back in 81 or so I remember talking to my opposite number at the business school and her saying "oh that new HP color computer we have another 40 to unpack and set up" :-)
The truth is, Zuck is a Harvard drop-out hacker entrepreneur like Bill Gates, nothing more, nothing less. Mere vicinity doesn't add anything to his education.
I think I also learned more in the Masters in Entrepreneurship in Applied Technologies than in the MBA. The teachers in that program were far more versed having worked or started several startups each.
I like to say that I'm an MBA who is dubious about MBAs. I needed one (a humanities undergrad--ahem!--) to demonstrate my math skills on a resume. Without it I never got calls back for jobs, even though I had turned around two different divisions of a company by the time I was 28. Yes, that wasn't in tech and yes, it was a different time, but still....
Meanwhile I was raised by a tinkerer, and I respect builders and makers. The science says diversity makes for better companies. once you are starting to scale, having built a product people want, people like me with a decade of experience add a lot of value and keep you from making costly mistakes. A lot of us are out here in startups, making it work, every day, and while there are lots of jerk MBAs, it's no more fair to lump me in with them, than it is to lump you in with the guy who sits in his mom's basement and watches old episodes of star trek 4 hours every day.