Thursday, November 1, 2007

Please no MBAs

So I was reading Marc Andreessen's blog today and noticed a post that his company, Ning was hiring. I thought I'd poke my head in and see what they had going on and ran across a position for Product Manager; a career change I've been investigating since I started my MBA program. What astounded me was the line at the bottom of the posting:

Qualifications

  • Passionate about creating great software that people use
  • Experience developing and launching new online services
  • Intuitive sense for feature design: ability to think through every aspect of the experience and make good decisions
  • General understanding of web technologies (e.g. AJAX, CSS, Flash, Streaming Media), how they're implemented/served, and how they fit together
  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
  • Entrepreneurial spirit and pace. Thrive in a dynamic, fast-moving environment
  • BA/BS degree. Please no MBAs.

I'm not sure what to make of that comment. Can anyone shed some light on why a company would so plainly reject people with an MBA? I suppose it is Silicon Valley; applying rational logic rarely seems to work in that dimension.

2 comments:

Peter Williams said...

If I were to hazard a guess it would be either that they have found that MBAs tend see a Product Management position as a mere stepping stone to a larger position or that they don't want to pay the premium that graduate degree generally entails. I think it is usually dangerous to judge a person by their education but a high profile company like Ning might get so many candidates that limiting the field, even using clumsy rubric such as education, could conceivable be to their advantage. Or perhaps it is just that the hiring manager is insecure and easily threatened. :)

Karl said...

you have BS in Comp Sci. Just leave the MBA part off your resume :-)