[depereo]

MBAs are fine, honestly. I have a manager who came up in the industry he works in. He worked at the 'coal-face', understands the issues and has real perspective. He got an MBA later in his career and uses what he learned from that to more effectively communicate up the chain and has some new ideas that he filters through his industry experience to make his team more effective.

Children who get an MBA before getting a job and think they have some magic sauce that solves problems for an industry without respecting the work that's been done and knowing why those problems exist to begin with (maybe they're trade-offs? For a real reason?) are a problem, as are the clueless twats who listen to their breathless assertions as though they carry any weight.

[hasty_pudding]

The MBA philosophy vs the craftsman philosophy differ vastly.

[mywittyname]

MBAs are taught techniques for optimizing for quality and cost. It's not always an either/or decision.

Even when it is an either/or situation, sometimes it's better to build a product that is half the price for a quarter of the lifespan. A buyer who will use a tool for 30 hours doesn't really care if the service life of a tool has been reduced from 1000 hours to 250 if the price is halved.