mcmoose75

For myself and others in my social circle (mid 30's Americans), we'll often comment on something in each others' Instagram Stories and have a casual chat. Usually these are quick conversations, and longer ones are on some other pure messaging platform.

Look, people spend money on it because people DO look at these things. I don't think a big splashy banner in my signature looks good, but if I get even a handful of extra people attending my webinar then it DOES pay for itself.

This isn't some sort of idealistic view of the "way the world should be", it's just people doing stuff to optimize for their marketing & sales funnel, whether or not it annoys you or is a "waste of bytes"

Look, a lot of people insist advertising "doesn't work on them", but the whole hundreds of billions of $ industry works because it DOES have a reliable ROI.

I'm just explaining the world how it is, not necessarily how it should be.

Typically spend that is tied to an anticipated incremental revenue is easier to approve ("this $20k investment will be worth it if we only get one $50k booking out of it"). That's also why salesperson variable comp tied to sales is easier to approve at higher figures- if a salesperson is driving multiple $M worth of sales, it's easy to justify a salary in the high 6 figures.

It's useful for customer-facing roles. From a sales context, it means that you can have a dynamic signature that includes a) up to date logos and branding and b) a dynamic list of upcoming marketing events like webinars, trade shows, recent blog articles, etc. put automatically in email signatures.

We don't use one (just have folks copy over the new signature to Outlook every couple weeks), but it means we have a highly manual process that is prone to error for non-technical users. It's definitely worth some money to get right.

Aha- that's a good anecdote.

Regardless of the perceived/ actual waiting time, however, it's MUCH better not to have to wait for a bag at all- going straight to curb or car rental and skipping that step is the only way to fly.

Overhead bin space is the big reason- give the somewhat (last 5 years-ish) changes to charging for the 1st checked bag, many who would have otherwise checked a bag are bringing on as carry-ons.

Many flights I've been on in past several years have had a real shortage of bin space, meaning getting on board early to make sure you're not the odd man out IS important (waiting for baggage carousel can take an extra 45 minutes)

Ya I'm with you, hence the scare quotes.

In any case, I'm not defending the MBA industrial complex, but it is an attractive, valuable, and stable system they've set up. I definitely got value from it, but fair it is not.

Silicon Valley/ VC-land has a seemingly more egalitarian system on the surface, but if you dig even an inch deep there's a lot of ugly stuff there too.

Right- the current state of affairs serves the top-tier MBA programs, their graduates, and management consulting/ banking/ PE firms very well for the time being.

Top-tier MBA progams' whole pitch is about how getting in to these elite institutions confers massive benefits to the rest of your career- they certainly have no incentive to change any of this. The employing firms get a veneer of shiny "elite" frosting over their staffs (and they're mostly selling the abilities of their staffs)- the current systems serves them very well too. Being egalitarian would have some feel-good optics (maybe), but isn't in the interest of any of these entities.

These old-school institutions aren't where you go if you want something that reflects Silicon Valley-esque "meritocracy", where credentials don't matter and only impact does. That's why this ethos is a big deal, and different than what came before (though it has its own set of issues).

A problem for who?

Certainly not for the MBA programs and their graduates.

I really don't know in that case.

This is something I wrote for a previous post on Hackernews re MBAs:

I went to one of the top-tier (top 3) MBA programs in the US. The way I've described that value of the top MBA programs is in 3 (roughly equally-weighted) categories:

1) The Education: Getting to discuss business concepts with a group of smart, successful folks for 6-9 hours a day is very helpful. Most of the content, I could get from books/ online articles at a fraction of the price, but spending the time in a focused way is actually helpful.

2) The Network: In terms of network, this isn't some vague amorphous thing at Stanford GSB, HBS, or Penn- it's knowing several hundred other folks who are going to be very successful in their careers. This can be useful in sales, fundraising, finding a next job, etc. and DOES have a tangible dollar value.

3) The Rubber Stamp: Having your resume say "Stanford GSB" or "Harvard Business School" does have value to future employers or customers- it de-risks you as you've been validated by a famous institution, and helps THEM to associate with these famous brands.

For the top 3 programs, even though they're VERY expensive (approx $250k in tuition + living expenses, plus at least another $250k in foregone income for most incoming students, for $500k in actual cost+opportunity cost), they're almost certainly worth it.

For middle-/ lower-tier MBA programs, 2) and 3) above aren't NEARLY as valuable, or perhaps don't even exist- is your "network" from Local State School MBA actually valuable? For these, the only real value is the actual education, and most students would be better served with an online program or just actually picking up some books/ case studies/ reading online articles. There are a few exceptions to the this- for instance, often schools that aren't in the top 3 nationwide can punch above their weight in regional networks. For instance, if you want to live and work in LA (or work in the entertainment industry) I've heard that it can be really useful to go to UCLA or USC for an MBA.

I was at a company previously that had a liquidity event, and many of my colleagues (not me unfortunately) had very meaningful stock awards.

A lot of people discussed what they should do openly, and recognized the potential for the stock to go up later on- many defaulted to selling half of their holdings as soon as they could to put some cash in their pocket, and holding on to half for potential gains. Not super sophisticated, but it seemed like it made good sense to me.

I don't have a clear stance on whether O365 is "better" than G-Suite, either, but the lock-in is real.

For non-technical business users, having a deep expertise in Excel (and knowing all the hotkeys) is really tough to pivot from. Powerpoint is also pretty similar- once you're an expert, you don't want to relearn on a different application (whether or not it's better on a few criteria)

I was there at the end of June- it's pretty spectacular. We arrived on a Friday morning at 7am to beat the heat, and we were the only tourists on site at all.

Extremely surreal to go down in to the middle of an engineering marvel that large, and I couldn't believe that I was alone inside of it.