I went to a conference for college newspaper editors at the University of Georgia in 2000. The goodie bag included a copy of a UGA professor’s book When MBAs Run the Newsroom. And prescient. Now they run everything and have no fucking clue what the business actually does.
Comment on The rise of Whatever
Evkob@lemmy.ca 19 hours ago
I think what the author describes as the culture of Whatever is also a big reason everything kinda sucks now. It’s all run by MBAs who have no relation to the product and have no vision except “line goes up”. They have no incentive to care about the product they’re offering because they couldn’t care less about it.
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 18 hours ago
OpenStars@piefed.social 18 hours ago
Worse: they actively do not care. "I don't know how to [insert business type here], but I know how to manage." Like the former CEO of McDonald's taking over (one of?) the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Who needs a PhD, MD, or knowledge of things like biology, medicine, chemistry, physics, etc., when you know how to uh... what was the goal again? Oh yes: "make number go up".
OpenStars@piefed.social 19 hours ago
They have no incentive to care about the product they're offering because they couldn't care less about it.
I think it's kinda even worse: they'll take a good product and actively make it worse, so it's not mere indifference to it but active hatred towards the wants of the customers, in contrast to the desires of the Board.
Like why change a perfectly good logo? If it serves its purpose, then leave it alone?! But no, line must go up, and even if changing the logo makes it go down, then oh well...
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 18 hours ago
Golden parachute time! They can take some time off while figuring out what to fuck up next.
OneRedFox@beehaw.org 9 hours ago
Yeah, and with the corporate culture that MBAs bring with them, they also tend to make everything as boring and sterile as possible since any degree of fun and personality could be seen as off-putting to a hypothetical person.