My first real start-up job was at the end of 1999 and start of 2000. The company was founded by a few Ivy League MBAs and they hired a bunch more. I found them intimidating a bit and they made sure the relationship stayed that way.
We had a lot of meetings with a lot of SATish words thrown back and forth. We had meetings about how to have meetings and on and on...
Fast forward the Internet bubble burst, we were ruining out of cash fast and had to downsize. One-by-one the MBAs left and we got more creative, more nimble. I went from a snobed -out engineer (it had a non-leadership connotation at that place) to running engineering and then the product team. We sold the company (not a huge exit but everyone got something) and stayed a year until got fed-up with the labyrinth of our parent company (ran with bunch of sales and MBAs).
Here's what I learned from my experience. Many MBAs make good consultants. They can analyze and write a report for you. They're mostly not creative nor can creat anything (or they'd be doing that instead of spending $100,000 in school ). Because they can't creat anything, they have to show their value. Which means a lot of analysis, meetings and meetings about meetings. Resulting in slowdown, reduced innovation and increase in politics.
We had a lot of meetings with a lot of SATish words thrown back and forth. We had meetings about how to have meetings and on and on...
Fast forward the Internet bubble burst, we were ruining out of cash fast and had to downsize. One-by-one the MBAs left and we got more creative, more nimble. I went from a snobed -out engineer (it had a non-leadership connotation at that place) to running engineering and then the product team. We sold the company (not a huge exit but everyone got something) and stayed a year until got fed-up with the labyrinth of our parent company (ran with bunch of sales and MBAs).
Here's what I learned from my experience. Many MBAs make good consultants. They can analyze and write a report for you. They're mostly not creative nor can creat anything (or they'd be doing that instead of spending $100,000 in school ). Because they can't creat anything, they have to show their value. Which means a lot of analysis, meetings and meetings about meetings. Resulting in slowdown, reduced innovation and increase in politics.