Scott Adams: I credit MBA program for my success with Dilbert | Hacker News Reader

Scott Adams: I credit MBA program for my success with Dilbert

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48 pointscwan32 comments

I understand OP's sentiment. I place very high value on my MBA from the University of Pittsburgh, but for reasons one wouldn't expect.

I remember almost nothing from the course material itself. You can get that from almost any book. The time value of money, how to read financial statements, the 4 P's of marketing (or was it the 4 B's?), different management theories, etc., etc., etc.

What I remember vividly are the interactions with other people, professors and other students, some of whom already had many years of experience. I'm not sure how else I could have had this experience. Some of my most vivid memories:

"A degree in business is a degree in nothing." - management professor

"What is the correct answer to the question 'How much money did you make?' It's always, 'Who wants to know'?" - managerial accounting professor

A professor of Organizational Behavior told us that a survey of Yale MBA's 25 years after graduation said that Organizational Behavior was their most important course. I couldn't believe it. Years later, I believe it.

A case study had our team pick the next CEO from 4 managers. We were wrong. The actual result: They went outside, for reasons well explained.

Our group made a recommendation to a local business to restructure, letting a key person go. We got an "F" on the project, with the opportunity to go back and redo it without letting anyone go. We got the message.

A marketing professor was picking on stupid products, like Heinz gravy, when a student in the back offered, "I was the product manager for gravy at Heinz. It made us $60 million last quarter. If you'd like to use it for a case study some day, I'd be glad to help you with it."

I don't remember many specifics from class, but I know that I "think differently" because of that experience. Along with a technical background, this has been a great combination.

This particular story is a great synopsis of business school. You are encountering people who may not know what they're talking about, opening yourself up to new data and new thinking, and being polite and constructive about it. Note who is playing each role in this case, too.

And for the cynics in this thread: you only get to complain about MBA's if you can do their job better than they can. I'm not saying you can't, I'm just trying to be fair.

And for the cynics in this thread: you only get to complain about MBA's if you can do their job better than they can. I'm not saying you can't, I'm just trying to be fair.

I don't think that's fair. Someone definitely has the right to complain if I write a shoddy program, even if they can't program to save their life.

That is fair; I suppose I'm trying to draw a line separating general complaining, vs. criticism with an appreciation for the challenges. One is annoying and a waste of time, another has the potential for constructive change.

My initial thought was that MBA produces pointy-haired managers -> source of Dilbert cartoon ideas -> MBA gets credit for Dilbert cartoons success.

Oh, the irony. That he went to business school is one thing, but I would have expected a different set of benefits, like knowing ones subject (professional managers). And the examples he did give, like listening to his audience, do not seem particularly obtuse. Strange fellow, Mr. Adams.

As a student at Berkeley, I'm honestly shocked to see that we're ranked higher than Harvard as having the best business school in America. And it's great to learn that at least someone found tremendous value from their business education! (but a perspective we've seen way too little of)

I always thought that Dilbert is a source of consolation for beaten down engineers.

Now I understand that in reality Dilbert is meant as MBA HOWTO on managing engineers :)

Maybe, for the first few years, but really, when you think about it - isn't Dilbert just a loser? He never improves his lot, he either has no desire to, or no ability to. If no desire to, he is a loser. If no ability to, he is under the mistaken impression he is far smarter and more capable then he is, which means he is also a deluded loser.

(and yes, I know its a cartoon !).

But it does bug me a bit - instead of people feeling sorry for themselves (as the cartoon seems to help people who are coping with grey corporate existence) why not encourage people to change their environment (either bit by bit, or just improving yourself, starting something, finding something, anything).

Dilbert is a loser, feel sorry for him but don't relate to him or else become him.

Geez, his readers are downright hostile.

Question: why so much hostility towards MBAs (especially from top schools) in non-MBA-heavy industries, but so much love for them in MBA-heavy industries? One would assume that industry has found them useful, as they continue to hire them.

Bonus question: if you have a startup and someone applies for a job as a product manager and they have the right background, experience, passion, etc, would the fact that they got an MBA from Harvard or Stanford make you more or less likely to hire them?

I think it's because MBAs often make decisions that are unpopular -- this business unit isn't function profitably, we can shut it down and sell it's assets to focus on other priorities. Also, they do make a lot of money so people might not like that either.

I worked at Haas all through my undergrad and spent a lot of time in their labs as part of my job. Based on my scientific sampling method of eavesdropping on everyone within audible range, approximately 80% of the Haas MBA experience is devoted to figuring out who's driving to Tahoe. Another 10% is spent discussing professional sporting events (men) or men (women). And on rare occasions they got down to business and cranked out a PowerPoint or two. I remember feeling bewildered that these people were going to be making 10x as much as me in 2 years.

This was long before I ever heard the term PHB, watched Office Space, or otherwise knew that I was supposed to hate MBAs. My point being: I came by my scorn organically.

From what I've heard, getting an MBA is more about networking (the social kind) than classroom knowledge.

Consequently, going to a bar, driving to Tahoe, or just watercooler conversation is probably a good way to make contacts.

True. Nevertheless it amazes me that you would pay $150,000 for that.

People are prepared to pay so much because their classmates pay so much. High barriers to entry mean that you can network with people serious about it.

It's very rare that I genuinely laugh out loud at a comment here but I did for you. Thank me later. Loved it. Insightful too.

MBAs are strongly associated with the theory that managers can "manage" competently with no domain knowledge whatsoever. This is unpopular conceptually with people who do have domain knowledge, and those folks can point to scads of examples of situations where a newly minted MBA decided he understood something important and fucked everything up.

I think your "industry has found them useful" argument is undermined by the realization that MBAs tend to hire other MBAs, rather like a virus spreading.

That's relatively recent thing. In the early days of the MBA, in the 1950s, the point of them was to teach real actual engineers the skills they would need to move up the organization (e.g. if you were a civil engineer who knew all about concrete, the MBA would teach you about the commercial aspects of dam construction so you could manage the whole project).

The modern MBA is a rite of entry into a club and not much more.

Yeah, I've heard this comment quite a few times on here before, but the MBA was created around the turn of the century, not in the 1950s, and it was created because more companies wanted a scientific approach to management, not to teach "real actual engineers" management skills.

Engineers live in ideal world. MBAs live in real world.

What does that even mean?

Less likely to hire.

And the popularity of MBAs is because (a) that's where the pool of leaders tends to go for education (I said tends, people), but (b) it's also a self-reinforcing psuedo-class system. Look for correlations in the military and older class structures such as aristocracy & feudalism.

BTW, I've made this decision several times before, I'm not just guessing what I'd do.

Care to explain that logic? It seems a bit unreasonable to me.

For the less likely to hire, because I desire being a part of breaking down class barriers.

For my belief that it's a pseudo-class structure, it's just based on the invisible lines drawn between management and workers in the corporations that I've worked.

In my previous jobs, there were visible lines drawn between management and workers, with different colors representing each.

On a serious note, my first job I ever had was at a startup, as the ~25th employee. There was a culture of promotion, and people who started at the bottom eventually worked their way to the top. The most recent job I left before starting my own company, however, was a relatively large corporation (though I was in a very small division). There was relatively little promotion through the ranks, and a lot more direct hiring into management positions.

Has anyone else observed such an inverse correlation between company size and the likelihood of promotion?

Less.

Edit: Things that help people jump ship, but don't help your company are a negative.

> Bonus question: if you have a startup and someone applies for a job as a product manager

Does a startup need a product manager?

> would the fact that they got an MBA from Harvard or Stanford make you more or less likely to hire them?

It sounds like you care whether we view an MBA as a plus or a minus. Why do you care?

I recently looked up Berkeley (Haas), Stanford (GSB) and Harvard (HBS) and was really surprised by the statistics.

I think the most shocking of all was enrollment. My gut said that Harvard would be the most selective but when comparing metrics like pre-enrollment salary & GMAT, Haas and Stanford were more selective. I wouldn't expect such a big difference in enrollment percentage and class size but there is.

Haas '10: 6.3% Applicants: 3779 Enrolled: 240

GSB: 6.7% Applicants: ~5400 Enrolled: 360

HBS '10: 10.3% Applicants: 8661 Enrolled: 900

But on the face of it, I don't see any problem with asking students if they made (cough, cognitive dissonance, cough) wise decisions...

I joke about getting an MBA so I could become a cartoonist, but business school was literally the competitive advantage that made Dilbert a success.

Now the question is: apply to an MBA program or continue preparing for my startup?

Preparing in what way?

(Saving up seed capital? Cutting down expenditures? Courting co-founders? Market research? Product development?)

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