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MBAs go contrarian on Google

paul.kedrosky.com

19 pointsfar33d16 comments

This reminds me of an old Slate article about a study that compared the % of Harvard MBAs who were working on Wall St with performance of the stock market and found an inverse correlation. The greater the % of Harvard MBAs working on Wall St the worse market performance. The analysis went further and suggested that any time more than 30% of the graduating Harvard Business School class went to work on Wall St, it was time to Sell Sell Sell!

I was working at Microsoft at the time, and the place seemed overrun with a bunch of recently hired Ivy League MBAs (particularly Harvard grads).

The slate piece:http://www.slate.com/id/2109982/

I noticed near the peak of the Bubble that a lot of MBA students wanted to go work for startups. In fact they were dropping out of B school to do it. This struck me as odd at the time because they'd effectively announced by going to B school at all that they were not startup type people. And it did turn out to be a pretty good predictor of a coming crash.

I like to think of Google as entering its third stage. Stage 1: "Do No Evil." Stage 2: "Spend Previously Earned Goodwill on Evil." Stage 3: "Do Less Evil Than Microsoft."

Sounds about right. I don't think it's done anything hugely evil yet; it just has niggling little evilisms that everybody notices because of the motto. It hasn't smooshed anybody by doing anything other than making a better product, I don't think.

Unfortunately any large company that wants to grow will have to do things that some people, somewhere might consider evil. I suspect in this forum, no one would think anything of Google driving a hard bargain with the local government in Lenoir, North Carolina regarding a new datacenter. That's just business and Google's playing fair. Not everyone agrees with that, though.

But I agree a lot of the extra scrutiny comes from the chance to point a finger and scream "hypocrisy!"

I know it's trendy to hate on MBAs, but the top schools do crank out some pretty bright talent.

I hear Google has some of these guys answering support email!

Why does the fact the MBA grads want to work at Google take away from the company? There are a lot of very talented MBA graduates who are very good at specific things.

It's not like Google is letting MBA grads run engineering.

To every company, there are seasons. This stat just reminds me that autumn, or should I say September, comes to every sufficiently large company in time. I would be sad to see it come to Google, but some day it will. This is one of those things that points out how strong the forces of nature are.

There's an interesting comment from an MBA in the initial link, explaining how 3 years ago he was offered a position from Google and he turned it down.

The first 3 reasons he lists:

1. Chaotic operating environment -- too many experiments without expectations to justify or measurements to validate them...

2. ...which was technically impossible because everyone rolled up into one massive P&L

3. Too many battlefield-promoted 'directors' who hadn't actually managed before... none of whom i'd think of as viable mentors

...Actually seem to be Google's strong points. http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/good-agile-bad-agile_27.html

"There are a lot of very talented MBA graduates who are very good at specific things."

If the best person for a job is an MBA, the job hasn't been defined very well. A typical MBA is smart enough to get an MBA, but boring enough to think that "Business" counts as an area of study -- it's about as specific as getting a masters in "Stuff".

An MBA is not a degree in "stuff." It's a degree in business administration, which is a well-defined field of study.

What graduate degree is more relevant for a Director of Finance or M&A financial analyst than an MBA? Like any large company, Google has lots of business needs which are most appropriately handled by businesspeople. Just like engineers -- we can learn on the job, but we can also get professional credentials from a university.

And I can't believe I'm having to defend MBAs. I'm a grad student in engineering and I'm somewhat unimpressed with the direction of the MBA program here. But it's a legitimate learning experience if you're trying to be a business administrator at a medium to large company -- like Google.

With all that money you would think Google would pay for their talent to earn their MBA and stay with the company to add increased value in the future... At least thats the attitude where I currently work

So is it time to proclaim Google dead? :)

No; the article says MBAs want to work at Google, not that Google wants to hire them.

There are 10 MBAs from Stanford alone [out of a graduating class of ~300] going to work at Google.

Google definitely wants to hire MBAs.

Talk about a leading indicator.

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