
The Simple MBA Manifesto: Do We Really Need MBAs? - pramit
http://www.slideshare.net/pramitsingh/the-success-manual-do-we-need-mbas
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karl11
This might be the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Getting an MBA does not mean
someone will be boring, unmotivated and unethical. If a predominate number of
business leaders and executives have MBAs then certainly a majority of the
mistakes in business will be made by people with MBAs.

There are certainly many different reasons for getting an MBA. Some people go
just because you can demand a much high salary when you graduate. However,
many others go to develop their analytical skills, expand their knowledge
base, and meet highly capable individuals who have similar interests.
Furthermore, most people getting MBAs have been in the workforce for 5-7
years. They are not trying to start the next Apple. They have found a niche in
business they like and wish to accelerate their development.

If you have already started a successful business, then why would you get an
MBA? You wouldn't, but if you don't have a large network of capable friends,
what better way to meet one than by going back to school?

I love participating in this HN community, but think the amount of MBA bashing
that goes on here is just ignorant. People aren't successful because they have
an MBA, but getting an MBA certainly doesn't make them _less_ likely to
succeed. It's silly to generalize then marginalize a group of people because
they do not take the same approach as the hackers here to making money and
succeeding. Not everybody was meant to be a hacker, and while the members of
this community should probably not be looking at getting MBAs, its stupid to
have a disdain towards people who do.

~~~
pw0ncakes
The top MBA programs nurture extreme arrogance in a way that is really bad for
the country. They create a set of "high priests" that often believe themselves
superior to the rest of us. This is why, for example, entrepreneurs pay legal
fees in VC deals; because the "business people" are just so great that you
should pay them for existing.

We need people who are skilled in business, but what we don't need is an echo
chamber that encourages many of them to become arrogant, unethical, short-
sighted fucks.

~~~
karl11
I completely disagree. This is just another selection bias. The loudest, most
obnoxious MBAs are the ones you are most likely to hear about.

Saying that MBA programs nurture extreme arrogance, bad ethics and short
sightedness is like saying that CS programs nurture introversion, poor social
skills and an inability to communicate effectively.

There are tens of thousands of highly successful MBAs running or working in
small businesses you've never heard of, not generating any noise, and
contributing a great deal to society. To lump them all together as a bunch of
frat boy lunatics is ignorant.

Any hacker that has a terrible experience with an MBA is going to write a blog
post about how awful it was and how MBAs need to be cut out of the process.
The truth is, there are plenty that provide a lot of value and insight, but no
one writes about them because no one wants to read it.

~~~
pw0ncakes
_Saying that MBA programs nurture extreme arrogance, bad ethics and short
sightedness is like saying that CS programs nurture introversion, poor social
skills and an inability to communicate effectively._

I actually would say this, not about CS programs per se, but about academia.

 _There are tens of thousands of highly successful MBAs running or working in
small businesses you've never heard of, not generating any noise, and
contributing a great deal to society. To lump them all together as a bunch of
frat boy lunatics is ignorant._

The same goes about PhDs and ex-academics. A lot of them are socially normal,
but people tend to notice the aggregate tendencies and turn them into
stereotypes. As for MBAs, I don't think the stereotype is remotely true of
each individual, but it is true of a certain culture that exists in MBA
programs. To be fair, I doubt it has much to do with programs themselves; the
students track it in from investment banks and corporate boardrooms. So, even
though the programs are designed with great intentions, a certain set of
people get in and feed off each other. This is much like how prisons are
supposed to reform criminals, but some of them just use the exposure to others
to learn how to become better at crime.

------
elblanco
We're very fortunate to have a young and motivated MBA in my company. We're
full of engineers, scientists and tech nerds. Our CEO is an experienced
engineer with a decades long background in software. But for many of the basic
business processes, the grease in the cogs of the machine, our MBA keeps
things moving along very nicely.

In just a matter of a few months he reduced costs by 40% without reducing the
capability of the company in any way by cutting back on unnecessary expenses,
putting in place standards for expenditures and R&D, finding inefficiencies in
our contracts and partnerships and other such things.

Could we, a bunch of engineers done all that? In theory yes, but we hadn't
managed to do that in a couple years since we were so focused on tech and not
spending our time learning some of the more arcane businessy things -- like
renegotiating technology contracts to be more favorable. We're not yet
profitable and he probably single handedly managed to extend our life out
another year on the same funding, giving us a much better chance of reaching
the magical 5 year mark.

~~~
anamax
The results that your company got from hiring someone to take care of biz
issues does not imply that said employee's MBA is relevant.

> In theory yes, but we hadn't managed to do that in a couple years since we
> were so focused on tech and not spending our time learning some of the more
> arcane businessy things

Those aren't arcane things. They're SOP,

Let's look at it another way. Would you excuse a software house that didn't
use source control because they wanted to spend all their time on programming?

A tech biz is still a biz, at least if it wants to be successful.

~~~
elblanco
Yes, all true. But just like I can drive a car, I couldn't compete in F1. Just
because you understand that you have to do things like advertise, or negotiate
a licensing contract for third party components doesn't mean you understand
all of the ins and outs of how to do so.

~~~
anamax
> Yes, all true. But just like I can drive a car, I couldn't compete in F1.

You're missing the point. Let me quote something that you wrote previously.

>> In theory yes, but we hadn't managed to do that in a couple years since we
were so focused on tech and not spending our time learning some of the more
arcane businessy things

A successful F1 team isn't just a bunch of techs. Someone has to drive.
Someone has to make sure that the suppliers are paid, and so on.

As I wrote previously, a tech biz is still a biz. You can't all do tech.

I'm glad that you found someone to take care of this stuff for you, but if
you'd done so earlier, or done some biz things earlier, you'd have more
runway.

By overconcentrating on tech, you put the tech at risk....

And no, it's not that complicated. 90% is just thinking that it's worth doing.
It's not at all comparable to the difference between an ordinary driver and an
F1 driver.

~~~
elblanco
> By overconcentrating on tech, you put the tech at risk....

I would say this is certainly a fair characterization of where we were after
year 1. We missed quite a number of very important foundational opportunities
because we made the mistake of being hyper focused on the tech and not
pragmatic business decisions.

By year 2 we had many of the same problems until we had a management shakeup
halfway through the year and were finally able to approach the business side
of things.

We're in year 3 right now, and in the process of turning the corner. But wow,
we discuss almost daily where we could have been if we had adopted the right
attitude from the start. Certainly profitable, likely 2-3x the size.

------
alex1
It's not possible to teach someone the true entrepreneur spirit. Most MBAs go
on to become cookie cutter consultants... This quote by YC's very own PG comes
to mind:

“If you work your way down the Forbes 400 making an x next to the name of each
person with an MBA, you’ll learn something important about business school.
After Warren Buffett, you don’t hit another MBA till number 22, Phil Knight,
the CEO of Nike. There are only 5 MBAs in the top 50. What you notice in the
Forbes 400 are a lot of people with technical backgrounds. Bill Gates, Steve
Jobs, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Gordon Moore. The rulers of the
technology business tend to come from technology, not business. So if you want
to invest two years in something that will help you succeed in business, the
evidence suggests you’d do better to learn how to hack than get an MBA.” -
Paul Graham

~~~
ig1
The Forbes statistics are misleading, firstly they only represent a tiny
percentage of businesses and secondly most people in that list made their
money before MBAs were widespread. The Forbes 400 in 40 years time is likely
to be considerably different.

Thirdly Gates, Jobs, Ellison, Dell also all dropped out of school, it doesn't
mean dropping out of school makes you more likely to succeed at business. It's
a classic case of selection bias. You need to look at the whole population
otherwise there might be a million technology founder businesses that fail for
everyone that might succeed.

What you need to do in order to have a fair test is take the graduating
classes at an MBA course versus say a CS course, look at the number of
graduates who start businesses and then analyse how many of them succeed from
each each group.

~~~
alex1
I personally think there are more CS graduates that start businesses than
MBAs. From what I have seen, most MBAs become consultants or executives of
existing companies. I could be completely wrong here though as I am speaking
based on people I have met and not actual statistics.

I think the point that's trying to be made here is that you _don't_ need an
MBA to make it in business, which I think is a very valid point. You just need
the entrepreneurial spirit and drive, along with the technical expertise (if
you're in software), not the MBA.

~~~
ig1
About 10% of Oxford's Said Business School graduates start businesses, I'm
guessing that's quite a bit higher than most CS degrees.

LBS run an entrepreneurship summer school which concentrates on the
entrepreneurship parts of their MBA program. Over the last 9 years they've had
350 graduates, and produced 90 businesses. Of those 90, 80 are still
operational, which is a fairly good success rate.

Although I completely agree with you that you don't need an MBA to be
successful in business, much like you don't need a CS degree to be a good
developer. But if you're weak in those areas that the degree covers then
obviously there will be value in studying those areas.

------
mseebach
Pretty stupid.

Short version: MBAs aren't the end-all be-all solution for any kind of
business. Specifically, they probably aren't a good solution for technology
start-ups. So far so good.

But the presentation also suggests that MBAs are, as a field, responsible for
the Enron-crash, the sub-prime crash, and boring companies and unmotivated
employees. And that everything an MBA does (there must be some positive
things, after all) can be learned from a handful of business bestselling
paperbacks.

Being an extraordinary business leader can't be taught. Not in an MBA course,
not by reading books.

~~~
ryana
Yeah, I would agree that this presentation is overly focused on the finance
side of an MBA, since that's what all of the negative studies linked seem to
focus on.

Other things I found disingenuous:

3\. MBAs Cheat. 56% of all MBA students cheat at Exams. Source: study by the
Academy of Management Learning and Education of 5,300 students in the U.S. and
Canada

Business students are only rivaled in their cheating by engineers. Should we
make a presentation about not needing them either?

"The college level cheaters act more often in science and math classes.
Interestingly, the college students most likely to cheat are engineering and
business majors." [http://www.antonnews.com/columns/mcmillan/6872-cheating-
in-h...](http://www.antonnews.com/columns/mcmillan/6872-cheating-in-high-
schools-and-colleges.html)

"Their investigation revealed that 82 percent of engineering students reported
engaging in some form of cheating. Only business students, at 91 percent,
reported cheating more." <http://www.prism-magazine.org/mar09/feature_01.cfm>

5\. Can you name any successful, path-breaking, innovative company started by
an MBA?

While I'm not going to spend too much time looking up a whole host of
examples, but how about the company I worked with last summer? Flat World
Knowledge is an open-source college text book company, co-founded by an MBA.

6\. MBA Salaries Are Insane

This slide doesn't even mention MBAs. It refers to CEO salaries from 1991 when
an MBA wasn't even a common degree.

Sure, there are plenty of douchebag MBAs who would add nothing to a company
and are just out for themselves. But you will find these kinds of people from
any walk of life and prejudicing yourself towards any group of people is going
to do you more harm than good.

------
jasonlbaptiste
Here's my general thoughts on the subject and the slides:

\- Dropping out of school won't make you more successful. It just ensures you
won't definitively fail. You can't work 16 hours a day, build a company, and
be in school full time. You'll end up half-assing two things, instead of doing
one really really well. If you do decide to stay in school, stay curious and
build "projects" for fun.

\- MBAs can start innovative companies, but it's an auxiliary skill. It's a
nice to have skill after having other things like: a sense of technical
expertise, product expertise, having built a startup before, working at a
startup before, etc.

\- MBAs can make good day to day operations managers when the company is
growing. That's often the problem as to why a lot of startups lose their way
when they grow. So make sure the MBA here is also an auxiliary skill and the
skills listed above exist as well.

\- I enjoyed the slides until it turned into a commercial at the end.

\- Go learn how to build a great product, get some engineering skills, and
fail a lot. That's been my real education over the past 4 years. It's paid off
way more than my over priced useless degree in Computer Information Systems
ie- Computer Science via the business school. Spend tons of time here on HN.
It has been one the greatest sources of networking and knowledge for me over
the past 2 years.

\- If you go to a top tier MBA program like HBS, MIT, Stanford, etc. you do
have the opportunity to network / meet some smart connected people. Honest
truth, that's kind of bullshit. As a college "stopout", MIT Enterprise Forum
added me as their CTO in Florida. I now have access to their entire alumni
network without the degree. If you're in the Valley go volunteer and help out
with the Stanford/MIT VLab program. People make it seem like you can't network
with people from MIT or Harvard outside of the MBA program. Guess what? That's
horseshit. You can meet every single one of those people. They're actually
dying to meet smart people like us.

------
jister
For the geeks and alike, it's a matter of choice.

And, for those who are not technical, yes they surely need it if they want to
go up the ladder. This means aiming for a managerial level position -- better
pay.

------
samratjp
If that link went here <http://www.ypermutator.com/index.html> I probably
would've thought they were the same :p

------
known
I think we need MBA if we are _not_ rich & connected.

~~~
pw0ncakes
People over-state here the ease of getting funding as a first-time
entrepreneur. If you're an average 22-year-old, it's not happening.

------
dlevine
This is based on a lot of "facts" that probably aren't true.

