Engineer with an MBA here. My two cents: Back when I was writing code, my worldview was that if engineers ran every company, then the world would simply be a better, more rational place. Because engineering is hard and everything else is easy/squishy/learnable.
During my b-school classes, it dawned on me that things are much more complicated than I had thought. Marketing and sales are very hard, very quantitative, and can make or break a company. Corporate planning from a cost / revenue perspective is super critical. Steering a large organization and navigating personalities and power structures in such a company is difficult and squishy.
Certainly, some MBAs are full of sh but I've also run into plenty of engineers who are full of sh. I think it's hard to stereotype. When I first started business school I thought everyone would be the stereotypical investment banking jerk. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised that most people were fun, very sharp, pleasant, intellectually curious, and they really respected folks with a technical background. Exposure to them broadened my own worldview in a number of different ways. Sure, you don't need an MBA to run a company. But you also don't need a CS degree from MIT to be an awesome engineer.
During my b-school classes, it dawned on me that things are much more complicated than I had thought. Marketing and sales are very hard, very quantitative, and can make or break a company. Corporate planning from a cost / revenue perspective is super critical. Steering a large organization and navigating personalities and power structures in such a company is difficult and squishy.
Certainly, some MBAs are full of sh but I've also run into plenty of engineers who are full of sh. I think it's hard to stereotype. When I first started business school I thought everyone would be the stereotypical investment banking jerk. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised that most people were fun, very sharp, pleasant, intellectually curious, and they really respected folks with a technical background. Exposure to them broadened my own worldview in a number of different ways. Sure, you don't need an MBA to run a company. But you also don't need a CS degree from MIT to be an awesome engineer.