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The long time CEO of ASML, probably one of the most successful engineering companies of the last two decades, is an accountant by training. But if you hear him

The long time CEO of ASML, probably one of the most successful engineering companies of the last two decades, is an accountant by training. But if you hear him speak it's all about the quality of the product and delivering value to the customer. The CEO of Boeing should have his priorities right and be willing to listen to his engineers instead of maximizing profits by reducing cost. What he did in college is not that important in my opinion.

rldjbpin 2y ago
it is easy to use qualifications as a crutch for making excuses about leadership when things don't go well. the same happens for tech founders without a management degree acting as ceo.
anakaine 2y ago
This is also what annoys me about the discourse saying that MBAs ruined the company. As an individual with a science undergrad, engineering postgraduate, and soon to be MBA, any decent MBA program teaches you how to assess things like value proposition, key factors in your offer (eg perception of safety!), with profitability/finance being only one arm of the total educational package you're engaged in. There's a lot of nuance to finding the right leadership as a board.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  I disagree (with some evidence) that these things can be successfully synthesised. I absolutely concede that they are useful. Leadership needs to be aware of the whole spectrum of economics, public perception, brand, international standing etc. And a good leader must know the language so as to hear and instruct his/her subordinates. But subordinate that stuff must stay with respect to hard reality. Evidence is; I taught a bunch of masters business students once. Those who had absorbed too much "financialisation and business" stuff constantly got stuck in what I saw as wishful thinking... that their will alone, or "framing and spinning" could overcome. I found that very dangerous in digital tech. All the more so in something like medicine or aeronautics. I'm fairly serious when I say this stuff can be quite psychologically harmful, because as I read deeper into the management stuff I found it "ideological" and inflexible. Much of it still seems rooted in the 1980s and you can almost still hear Thatcher's voice see the shoulder pads.
  - anakaine 2y ago
    I disagree with this: those who have come through an engineering pathway can be brought up to understand business. Those who have come through business tend to only see engineering as a bunch of propeller hats.
  - RandomLensman 2y ago
    In most business situations it is not so clear what the "hard reality" is. If you don't push even the experts for change or beyond what they are accustomed to, you tend to get stuck in some very conservative and traditional thinking.
pbhjpbhj 2y ago
So they need to be anti-capitalist?
- lukan 2y ago
  It is about short term profits, vs. long term profits. Dumping quality gets you more money now, but ruins your brand.
  - cryptos 2y ago
    First the planes crash, then the company crashes.
- ikt 2y ago
  maximising profits to the point your company goes broke is generally seen as bad business and thus bad for capitalism im not quite sure where it says in the rules of capitalism to extract all available value out of a good product until it is no longer good
  - p_l 2y ago
    It says so under "rational actions for capital owner", along with "Friedman Doctrine" in business ethics (often mistaken for an actual law). A company/factory/workers are just a constraint, a limitation, a problem to be worked around, in the capitalist mode of production where the capitalist (owner of capital) tries to increase said capital. If the capitalist can bleed an entity dry, then use the profits to spin up and dry another entity, resulting in higher wealth increase over the same time than setting up stable long-lived company, then it's the rational action to do as owner of capital. When you repackage and dilute ownership enough, you end up with ultimate investor having simple desire of profit from shares they hold in an intermediary, and said intermediary then trying to squeeze those profits out of portfolio of entities. In absence of any other constraint, the rational action is then to increase short-term profit while reducing long-term risk - for example by dropping the involvement before the harvest of sown risks comes by.
- psd1 2y ago
ju-st 2y ago
I remember some posts on HN describing ASML's software quality as atrocious.

rldjbpin 2y ago

it is easy to use qualifications as a crutch for making excuses about leadership when things don't go well. the same happens for tech founders without a management degree acting as ceo.

anakaine 2y ago

This is also what annoys me about the discourse saying that MBAs ruined the company. As an individual with a science undergrad, engineering postgraduate, and soon to be MBA, any decent MBA program teaches you how to assess things like value proposition, key factors in your offer (eg perception of safety!), with profitability/finance being only one arm of the total educational package you're engaged in. There's a lot of nuance to finding the right leadership as a board.

nonrandomstring 2y ago
I disagree (with some evidence) that these things can be successfully synthesised. I absolutely concede that they are useful. Leadership needs to be aware of the whole spectrum of economics, public perception, brand, international standing etc. And a good leader must know the language so as to hear and instruct his/her subordinates. But subordinate that stuff must stay with respect to hard reality. Evidence is; I taught a bunch of masters business students once. Those who had absorbed too much "financialisation and business" stuff constantly got stuck in what I saw as wishful thinking... that their will alone, or "framing and spinning" could overcome. I found that very dangerous in digital tech. All the more so in something like medicine or aeronautics. I'm fairly serious when I say this stuff can be quite psychologically harmful, because as I read deeper into the management stuff I found it "ideological" and inflexible. Much of it still seems rooted in the 1980s and you can almost still hear Thatcher's voice see the shoulder pads.
- anakaine 2y ago
  I disagree with this: those who have come through an engineering pathway can be brought up to understand business. Those who have come through business tend to only see engineering as a bunch of propeller hats.
- RandomLensman 2y ago
  In most business situations it is not so clear what the "hard reality" is. If you don't push even the experts for change or beyond what they are accustomed to, you tend to get stuck in some very conservative and traditional thinking.

pbhjpbhj 2y ago

So they need to be anti-capitalist?

lukan 2y ago
It is about short term profits, vs. long term profits. Dumping quality gets you more money now, but ruins your brand.
- cryptos 2y ago
  First the planes crash, then the company crashes.
ikt 2y ago
maximising profits to the point your company goes broke is generally seen as bad business and thus bad for capitalism im not quite sure where it says in the rules of capitalism to extract all available value out of a good product until it is no longer good
- p_l 2y ago
  It says so under "rational actions for capital owner", along with "Friedman Doctrine" in business ethics (often mistaken for an actual law). A company/factory/workers are just a constraint, a limitation, a problem to be worked around, in the capitalist mode of production where the capitalist (owner of capital) tries to increase said capital. If the capitalist can bleed an entity dry, then use the profits to spin up and dry another entity, resulting in higher wealth increase over the same time than setting up stable long-lived company, then it's the rational action to do as owner of capital. When you repackage and dilute ownership enough, you end up with ultimate investor having simple desire of profit from shares they hold in an intermediary, and said intermediary then trying to squeeze those profits out of portfolio of entities. In absence of any other constraint, the rational action is then to increase short-term profit while reducing long-term risk - for example by dropping the involvement before the harvest of sown risks comes by.
psd1 2y ago

ju-st 2y ago

I remember some posts on HN describing ASML's software quality as atrocious.