

Ask HN: Am I the only one tired with their bullshit? - jakobflow

I am wondering if it is me, or if other people (genuinely interested in Entrepreneurship) are tired of (generally non-tech) people (usually business majors) who wrote articles about how to achieve success when they have themselves never achieved anything particular?<p>Am I the only tired with hearing the same &quot;motivational crap&quot; over and over, again and again.<p>Am I the only one sick of the vultures only attracted by the &quot;fast-money&quot; and who don&#x27;t give a damn about real change and who are 10,000 feets away from reality?<p>Sorry for the rantings, but I really need to know if I have anger management issues or if the hacker community is really becoming more and more poisoned by those people.
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dzink
I sat on both sides of the table for two years (coding my tech startup at
night, while attending MBA and CS and Law classes during the day to fill skill
gaps). The doer within me couldn't wait to go to hack sessions every weekend,
just so I could feel sense of substance and normalcy while building things
with other hackers. During weekdays I would watch one of my entrepreneurial
MBA classmates writing articles for Forbes so her Startup could be promoted in
the article footer. She beat everyone in the school's startup competition that
year, because of the high traction numbers she could report.

I saw 3-4 extremely passionate software engineer classmates in the MBA program
who pitched at every competition and never made sense to anyone but other
hackers (until they came to the valley). On the other end, the seller MBAs
were polished and hit their pitches right on the mark, winning cash with ideas
that promptly went nowhere. Making great lemonade and getting many customers
lined up to buy it are two different skills, and the investors look at the
latter when they evaluate you for funding. That is why pairing both sides in
teams helps.

It all made sense, when one of the finals for an MBA class required us to sell
5lbs of hot-chocolate mix (in any way shape or form) for 4 hours and compare
profits with other teams for a grade. Some teams went the conventional route -
one person making the drinks, another person screaming to the crowd with a
poster. Those made anywhere between -$50 and $200. The drinks required
heating, everyone on the same location, mixing tables, etc. Some interesting
teams made cupcakes they could distribute to offices and sell at much higher
margins. One of the teams organized a "hot chocolate" party (hot chocolate
pool, hot chocolate pong, you name it) - charged $10-20 per entrance and got
100 classmates to join. These are the skills you need to look for in an MBA.

If you're making killer BBQ, a good MBA can blow smoke out to get you
customers, make sure you're getting your beef cheaply, and you are not
harassed by the rookie janitors, because they have productive things to do
while you're tweaking the recipe. (the best way to avoid needing an MBA, is to
build an app that sells itself and doesn't need people to grow)

The symptoms you are seeing come from many MBAs of varied skills flowing into
the valley to try and blow smoke for something or to demonstrate their smoke-
blowing skills for you (and books like "Newsjacking" which teach brute-force
PR to the rookies, and sites like LinkedIn which struggles to keep people
coming back daily so it hired smoke-blowers to generate "career oriented"
content). To avoid it, I've just stopped sniffing the air while working day
and night on my mind-blowing BBQ recipe.

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hoof_marks
It's the problem with the MBA guys. Ideally they should be hand's on in the
skill/industry they are serving to be able to see where the other guy is
coming from. If i don't know a thing about making tea obviously i won't
understand if my butler comes and tells me the milk got sour bec the pot was
unclean!! BTW-- I am not a manager!!

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vaib
You do not have anger management issues. I see people around talking about
stuff they really have no idea about!

It also drives me insane when MBA types think that we need them to start up
anything! Or they are the 'only' ones who can talk! I have something for them
- I bloody know how to talk and I know how to sell my stuff. I am building
skill and someday I will sell stuff that needs to be in the market and I would
not need them nor would I hire them. In fact, my firm will be probably a firm
without managers !

~~~
jason_tko
Interesting - when you have 20 people working for you, and you need someone to
manage your clients and their projects and timelines, and also figure out what
your your staff should be working on, and also balance staff requests for
holiday leave and sick leave, what do you plan on calling that person?

~~~
wpietri
"Manager" is a power relationship. There are other ways to organize teams.

For example, at my last startup we had a shared vacation calendar and we'd
just negotiate time off. We'd manage projects and timelines by discussion.
We'd figure out who was working on what through short conversations every
morning.

A major tomato processor has no power relationships; nobody can tell anybody
else what to do:

[http://morningstarco.com/index.cgi?Page=Self-
Management](http://morningstarco.com/index.cgi?Page=Self-Management)

They're now putting together an institute to teach people their approach:

[http://www.self-managementinstitute.org/](http://www.self-
managementinstitute.org/)

~~~
PM_Tech
False.

Management refers to the coordination of people, not the exercise of power. It
is to coordinate the people towards a goal in conjunction with available
resources in an efficient manner.

Example - A Project Manager has no power over the workstream leads other than
to assign them tasks, resources and milestones in line with the vision of the
Project Board.

Self-Management is nonsense. One or two use cases does not make it applicable
to the entire corporate world. How does one discipline a colleague for taking
180 days off per year?

Who exercises executive authority over
mergers/acquisitions/hiring/firing/downsizing/scaling/purchasing?

You are arguing for the sake it, no need to reply. I am done with your drama.

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kromodor
I see your point, Sir. I have similar feelings about the fake motivational
success crap. Yes indeed - 99% of those are written by people on payroll who
are not actually an example of financial independence.

It is in the nature of humans to feel attracted to the future self-image they
try to follow. Perhaps feeling the emotions of this expected self-image is
what most people like. (Of course, the reality is different - having success
has its own domain of issues)

Those articles are simple, easy to grasp, easy on the mind and wishful
thinking. Everyone capable of reading can understand them. And project their
dreams around them.

In reality, reaching success is a messy, confusing, tough, unpredictable and
usually rather long journey. Not to mention the big luck factor that (almost)
none of those article mention.

Yet people like them. They don't want the harsh reality. They want the dreamy
shit to read between their jobs. No matter how it can delude their
expectations of the real world.

edit: but I admit, it can work. People take action based on this motivation
and sometimes this is the necessary step to actually do something.

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epugmire
If we create more value than the money we take home, we are on the right
track. If we take more money home than value we create, then we are
unintentional (or in some cases, intentional) thieves. It’s really that
simple.

I believe a successful business major can also have a knack for finding value
in something that others have not yet uncovered and delivering this value to
the masses. The creator does not always have the vision to find value in what
has been created.

I am a self-taught novice at programming who works in the front-
office/business side of finance at the moment. My mother was a programmer and
my father was on the team that designed the first IBM PC. I have nothing but
the greatest respect for those who are able to build things from scratch. I am
fascinated by it, so I try to teach myself in my spare time. Sometimes I get
stuck and it feels even more satisfying to unstuck myself.

I agree though, as far as technical skills go, programmers can often be unsung
heroes, but only to those who have never scratched their head endlessly at one
of the bugs you guys have to solve.

~~~
josephschmoe
Opportunity cost. I could hire a different MBA and potentially make a lot more
- and hiring additional MBAs doesn't give me linear returns (and sometimes
gives you negative returns regardless of skill level via the Mythical Man
Month problem).

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kasey_junk
Well it's hard to figure out what exactly you are upset about without more
specific examples. That said, I'd really think about what you consider to be
success factors in real businesses.

Tech. solutions are very, very rarely the important part of successful
business ventures. If you can't understand the importance of things like
sales, cash flow, ROI, HR & marketing then you are naive in the best case.

Calm down and spend some time understanding a holistic approach to business
solutions.

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gregmorton
I'm with you. The "I'll teach you what I learnt failing" really makes me hit
the roof.

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fit2rule
Arrogant know-best has long been the rule of the day. People don't feel
comfortable in this talking-head universe unless they are an authority about
something, and this is such an infectious social mode that its unavoidable in
our industry.

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PM_Tech
You think technologists have the market cornered in Entrepreneurship?

Last time I checked the Dutch East India Company existed before you were
learning front end development.

No tech company in history would be able to go public without an army of
lawyers, finance and management graduates.

I suggest you educate yourself about the real world. Your post is typical of
"CS Engineers need no one else. Ever."

~~~
bicx
He's not talking about those people. He's talking about the types who talk a
lot but have no real skills, no track record, and add no value to the
ecosystem.

