Engineers eat MBAs for Lunch

MBA vs Engineering: How Career Choices Have Changed

I am a double MBA from IIM Lucknow and ESCP-EAP Paris, and then did another super MBA (Sloan Fellow) from MIT Sloan School of Management. And I am an Engineer from IIT Delhi. That was then – when MBAs were the rage and pretty much all engineers would try to either get a Master's in Engineering or an MBA; the latter much more than the former.

Remember – all these choices were fundamentally driven by job availability. MBAs would earn much more than engineers and would have a better employability index over the long term.

Why Engineering and Technical Skills Are Gaining Importance

Now, all of this has changed (or is changing). As Andreessen Horowitz puts it so succinctly, ‘Software is Eating the World.’ One of the founders of this very successful VC firm told me that they don’t like MBA cofounders (as opposed to Engineers). The reason, he told me, is that an engineer can be taught marketing, sales, or strategy, but it is very hard (almost impossible) to teach an MBA to code.

In today’s world, undoubtedly, there is a premium on engineering skills – ability to make (engineering) as opposed to the ability to sell (MBA). The proverbial wisdom of you making a better mousetrap and the world will beat the path to your door is still true. Well, almost! The entry-level salaries of engineers are still lower than those of MBAs, but the peak engineering salaries are way higher than their corresponding MBA peers. (Remember the Guy Kawasaki equation to value a company – pre-money valuation = 1MM* (No. of Engineers) – 500K* (No. of MBAs))

How AI and Automation Are Reshaping Future Jobs

Now here is the essence of this blog. As you decide on the courses that you pursue, think beyond MBAs or Engineers. You are readying yourself for a career in the 2020s through the 2070s – think of what skills would be at a premium in that world…? That’s a world of driverless cars (100 MM jobs gone!), tellerless banks (already happened in many cases), and completely automated factories with 3d printed products and robots manning the scant supervisory roles, if any. It’s a world of AI and Machine learning, and many jobs or skills that are at a premium today would have become completely obsolete by then!  

You need to invest in building skills that are sellable in the world which has changed fundamentally from the world of today!  

Interdisciplinary Skills: Preparing for Careers of the Future

I think that you need to invest in skills which have rich dimensionality and multi-disciplinary importance. Design Thinking, Financial Engineering, Nano-Engineering, education design, Game design, negotiation, conflict resolution, and many more – could be some of the subjects that may be relevant in the years to come. Try to incorporate elements of these in each of the course/ university program that you pick up, and I am sure you will not only enhance your educational experience but also prepare yourself for 21st-century careers in a robust fashion.