Steve Jobs, already legendary for avoiding paying engineers for their contributions, organized an industry-wide cartel to hold down wages, and he never had an MBA.
It's a bad leadership thing, not an MBA thing.
It's a bad leadership thing, not an MBA thing.
The handful of Apple engineers I know are incredibly happy and devoted to their work at Apple and being paid 50% more to work for Google would feel like a step backward to them.
That, in combination with their business results is, to me, evidence of excellent leadership at Apple.
I think your point misses a crucial distinction.
The issue isn't whether or not "holding down the costs of your key inputs" is good or bad, all other things being equal. Rather, the issue was that Jobs formed an illegal cartel to accomplish that goal.
It’s bad, because good leaders are supposed to take sacrifices for those they are protecting. Our system doesn’t necessarily promote good leaders though.