Elon Musk Talks About the Importance of Physics, Criticizes the MBA 343
New submitter ElSergio writes "In a two-part interview with the American Physical Society, Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, talks about how important it is to be able to think in terms of first principles, a tool learned as a physics student. Later in the interview, he recommends against obtaining an MBA, claiming, 'It teaches people all sorts of wrong things' and 'They don't teach people to think in MBA schools.' In fact. if you are in business and want to work for SpaceX, you will have a better chance getting hired if you do not have one. According to Musk, 'I hire people in spite of an MBA'. He goes on to point out that if you look at the senior managers in his companies, you will not find very many MBAs there."
Re:couldnt agree more (Score:5, Funny)
But then who's going to move you to open floor layouts to "improve collaboration"?
Re:There is not much to an MBA (Score:5, Funny)
Years ago I read a book called The 12 Hour MBA Program [amazon.com]. I have never met an MBA who knew something important about business that wasn't in that book.
Wow!
That's twice as fast as all my programming books!
Re:couldnt agree more (Score:5, Funny)
But then who's going to move you to open floor layouts to "improve collaboration"?
Well, I consulted with the IT department and the facilities department. Facilities says that, since it's a leased space, it would be pretty expensive to pull out all the cubes and make the necessary wiring changes.
IT said that all the PCs already have mics and built in speakers, and they can get the work-experience kid to hack together a system that samples background noise from all over the office, mixes it, and plays in continuously from all PCs (with the process running in a security context high enough that the peons can't turn it off) by next week for no money.
In light of that, we've decided that a simulation of the open-plan experience is the best way to go. Plus, those worthless non-team-players who "work from home" will love it when we roll it out to them.
Re:Physics versus MBA (Score:5, Funny)
Quick MBA books probably cut to the chase and tell you how you can dismember, cook and eat competing managers, creatively shit on subordinates from great heights, and how to fool semi-conscious boards into letting you set up your stock dumping scheme.
That's the first chapter. The rest of the books is phone numbers and email addresses of lawyers who can help you bury the bodies and elude indictment on RICO charges.
A MBA is about to reform a business ... (Score:4, Funny)
While he walks through the dining room of the restaurant he realizes: "this is the profit center!" ...
Now he turns to the kitchen and realizes: "this is the cost center!"
Guess which part gets closed first and who gers fired
Re:couldnt agree more (Score:4, Funny)
There's a balance between open collaborative environments and solitary confinement cubes.
Someone here will disagree with any configuration you suggest because their particular slice of the autism spectrum doesn't allow them to work in their own special snowflake way.
Re:couldnt agree more (Score:5, Funny)
(removes headphones) Huh? Did you just say something?