[seanahrens]

My finance professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley preached that maximizing profit was our ultimate service to the world---so much so--that he taught that if we were running a company and had an option to maximize profits by producing a product that would seriously harm the health of people (eg. give them a medical condition), we should undoubtedly DO IT. Because we would have maximized profit for shareholders, made something great for our customers, and (if we needed) we could take the extra profits and make medical payments to the people harmed to make it whole.

He made this argument in front of 150+ person lecture class. I was so dumbfounded and shell-shocked at the argument that I couldn't believe what I just heard. I looked around at the undergrad business finance students around me, and it looked as if they were absorbing it in.

That was the day I knew I chose the wrong major.

I really did think about raising my hand in that class to respond to the hellish ethics he just espoused. But this professor frequently shouted down students or used ridicule to make people regret raising their hands, and I didn't have the worldview I now have to be able to tell him precisely and irrefutably why what he was teaching us was so so wrong.

The real trouble, however, is that this professor was just a preacher for the doctrine of modern day American capitalism. I just expected to hear the doctrine in a much more sugar-coated and digestible form. He literally read the doctrine to us right out of the book.

UC Berkeley allows undergrads to study at their Haas School of Business and earn a BS (bachelor of SCIENCE) in Business Administration. This is what I was studying. Luckily I had enough time left in undergrad after this lecture to switch to studying computer science at the College of Engineering--where I then felt like I was learning real skills.

[bspn]

It doesn't sound like this is the case with your professor, but this is actually an increasingly common technique used by professors to weed out the rote-learners. They "teach" deliberately provocative material/view-points and then include it in the exam in the form of a "discuss ..." type question. People who have properly engaged and thought about the material will argue their counter-point while those who simply regurgitate notes will just repeat the professor's teachings. Perhaps not surprisingly, it's particularly popular at many law schools.

[quadrangle]

Unfortunately, the very people who should get weeded out this way become professors themselves commonly enough!

[ukulele]

I had several instances of the opposite while across the Bay: put ethics above profit always. It sounds like you just had a bad professor (which you already know).

[eric_h]

"But this professor frequently shouted down students or used ridicule to make people regret raising their hands"

Pretty much the definition of a bad professor, IMO.

[seanahrens]

Yeah he definitely was a bad professor. Sad that he was the finance professor (for this required, main track course) every undergrad my year had. Which meant, I think, 300-400 students received his indoctrination that semester. I use him as an example because that moment was so, well, exemplary. Other courses weren't as extreme, but they generally echoed the core tenet: your goal is "maximize profit" with sometimes an explicitly added "above all else". It generally gave me the impression that the corporate social responsibility club was the window dressing to this tenet--and the place in the business school for liberals to get out of the way and still fit in.

But to zoom out a second, in America, it's not just a "tenet", it's a legal responsibility of the CEO of a corporation to maximize shareholder value. The professor, and school, are preachers of something much larger than themselves, and so I don't want to point my finger so strongly at just this professor, and just this school.

[ScottBurson]

I think you've been downvoted for this:

> in America [...] it's a legal responsibility of the CEO of a corporation to maximize shareholder value.

This isn't actually true, or at least I've seen it disputed convincingly [0], though it is very widely believed. It's no surprise that you were explicitly taught it.

[0] https://hbr.org/2017/05/managing-for-the-long-term

[ukulele]

The problem was discussed several times across different courses for us. Essentially this is all based on Friedman's book Capitalism and Freedom, which says:

> There is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits

That is the basis for the argument your professor made. However, the passage in its entirety is:

> There is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.

Which is a pretty major caveat.

[ismail]

Just curious are b-schools in the states still teaching with this ideology?

Here in South Africa this view is intially discussed but soon after the negative consequences of this view. Long term sustainability is a big focus area, specifically around the SDG.

Have posted another more detailed comment. Below

[gaius]

Has this professor ever actually worked in industry? I would like to know so I can avoid those companies.

[giardini]

Would your professor have espoused the same actions were the costs of medical payments for harmed employees greater than the profits to shareholders? I doubt it.

The purpose of a business model is to simplify the truth. Actual implementation is up to you. In any business, people get hurt and profits may be used to compensate them or may be re-invested into the business to reduce the harms. By quitting business you unfortunately removed a more measured business graduate from the pool. Had you stayed, corporate policy today might be more enlightened a bit.

BTW sounds more like "British Victorian-era capitalism" than "modern day American capitalism."

[dba7dba]

I was a student at the great institution called UC Berkeley and I remember well the teenagers walking around in suits/ties and skirts/blouse. These were undergrad Business school students and I remember well the air of superiority they showed. They seemed so proud.

[seanahrens]

I was in classes with these kids. Many of them were smug AF and wanted to start tech companies, but didn't know a thing about software engineering. I just felt they wanted to manage/direct the people and make the money.

Since I had been coding since a young age, building web apps in my spare time, when I was in classes with these people I started to actually realize I had this superpower they valued.

But truth was I didn't want to work with any of them. I didn't see the value in someone whose studies were about learning how to harness my value.

[seanahrens]

Actually, I remember in my business classes we were taught to project confidence independent of if we had the knowledge/experience to back it up. As if confidence were an attribute in itself (unrelated to actually having the skills and experience to do a job).

I think this teaching bred that pride of which you speak.

[cycrutchfield]

>Luckily I had enough time left in undergrad after this lecture to switch to studying computer science at the College of Engineering

Uh, so you did a double major with Business Administration in Haas and EECS in the CoE? I'm going to call BS here.

[seanahrens]

I graduated with a major in Business at Haas and a minor in Computer Science from the College of Engineering. And I tacked on an extra semester to get it done.

Yeah you're right to think doing double major w/ EECS would have been quite a tall order. Probably logistically impossible.

[QML]

Did you already have a majority of the engineering prerequisites before deciding to switch into EECS after two years?