An MBA doesn't make a CEO. CEOs are born, but their rise can be accelerated with an MBA.
Successful CEOs have a particular perspective and mindset that allow them to understand both the underlying value of their company, and, the business strategies that enable the value to be realized. The MBA program cannot instill this perspective and mindset. But it can fill in the gaps of knowledge that is used to realize value.
An engineering degree, coupled with product development experience, goes a long way towards developing the sense of what is valuable in a tech firm. In order for an engineer to rise to CEO and be successful, they would need to understand:
- A P&L
- A Balance Sheet
- The liability of different hiring/firing approaches
- The standard terms of different partnership and marketing contracts.
- I.e., the basic functional operation of the Legal, Financial, HR, manufacturing ops, facilities, and, importantly, Marketing & Sales.
You can learn a lot of that in business school, but I believe you can learn it well enough just by getting involved in those functions in some way and seeing how it all works together. For me, I view it like any system: functional blocks and interfaces that interact to cause profit and growth. Engineers who become successful CEOs can more or less naturally assimilate this and make solid plans and strategies.
I feel that this statement is too strong. Maybe something along the lines of "CEOs are formed"... Some people also believe entrepreneurs are born entrepreneurs .... is that what you meant?
I always come back to the fact that the brain is a muscle and we can change our thinking and improve our abilities
Successful CEOs have a particular perspective and mindset that allow them to understand both the underlying value of their company, and, the business strategies that enable the value to be realized. The MBA program cannot instill this perspective and mindset. But it can fill in the gaps of knowledge that is used to realize value.
An engineering degree, coupled with product development experience, goes a long way towards developing the sense of what is valuable in a tech firm. In order for an engineer to rise to CEO and be successful, they would need to understand:
- A P&L
- A Balance Sheet
- The liability of different hiring/firing approaches
- The standard terms of different partnership and marketing contracts.
- I.e., the basic functional operation of the Legal, Financial, HR, manufacturing ops, facilities, and, importantly, Marketing & Sales.
You can learn a lot of that in business school, but I believe you can learn it well enough just by getting involved in those functions in some way and seeing how it all works together. For me, I view it like any system: functional blocks and interfaces that interact to cause profit and growth. Engineers who become successful CEOs can more or less naturally assimilate this and make solid plans and strategies.