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by lattice_epochs 2111 days ago
Engineers can go from 0 to 1

MBAs can go from 1 to 100

But every quarter it resets back to zero and MBAs can't figure out 0 to 1

2 comments

I'm also a firm believer that this is why.

A bigger question is why don't the MBAs understand this?

Tech people generally understand when something is far outside their skillset. Why can't the organization chart gymnasts do that?

> A bigger question is why don't the MBAs understand this?

MBAs are never in for the long term. They move from one company to the next and follow where the next big position is. That's why they could not care less what happens in the company in the long run.

>Tech people generally understand when something is far outside their skillset.

I see you don't read HN much

Fair point. But I'd say that HN is quite different from real life. People tend to be anonymous and in a casual setting. It's akin to judging people's political views from bar chats.
> Tech people generally understand when something is far outside their skillset. Why can't the organization chart gymnasts do that?

I am not so sure. There's a huge bias in IT tech to approach every problem outside of tech as a technical bug floating in a vacuum waiting to be solved by applying tech methods. I think battling (and most of the time winning) all day long with psychologically rigid computers does that.

> Why can't the organization chart gymnasts do that?

They need to not understand that.

i don't get it
Zero to One is making something people want. "1 to 100" is scaling.

They're saying MBA's get lost in the numbers and forget that the core of a business is to provide added value, which is a moving target in tech (with annual expectations in the case of silicon companies).

MBAs are force multipliers but they can’t do anything without the underlying product being good.