Road Podcast

“ ONE THING ”
IN COMMON
 ONE THING IN COMMON
There's one similarity between
Amazon and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos,
Apple's Tim Cook, Alphabet's Sundar
Pichai, AMD's Lisa Su, General Motors'
Mary Barra and NVIDIA's Jensen Huang.
These days, the heads of some of the
most successful companies in the world
have one thing in common. They're
engineers. For those who aspire to be
CEO of a company one day, getting an
MBA - a Master of Business
Administration degree - used to be the
way to go. But that's not so true
anymore. Harvard Business Review used
to publish an annual list of the top 100
best-performing CEOs. In 2018, they
found that for a second year in a row,
there were more CEOs with an
engineering degree than an MBA. 34
compared to 32. Some had both. Getting
an MBA can come with a hefty price tag.
Top graduate schools such as the
University of Pennsylvania's Wharton or
Harvard Business School will set you back
over $200,000. Now, some CEOs are
telling you to save your money. Elon
Musk went so far as to say, "I think there
might be too many MBAs running
companies" in an interview with the Wall
Street Journal. He thinks those with
business degrees spend too much time in
board meetings pouring over power
points and finances when their focus
should be on the product. The thinking
being that if the product is good the
profits will follow. In the case of Musk
that means building great electric cars at
Tesla or great reusable rockets at SpaceX.
That's where being an engineer is helpful.
Engineers can design, build, create, and
improve their product because of their
background in math, science, and
technology. And they can help solve
challenging technical problems that might
otherwise scuttle their dreams.
Technically, Musk has a degree in physics
and economics not engineering. He's a
self-taught engineer who read books to
learn about rocket science. When
engineering consultant Sandy Munro
interviewed him for his YouTube channel
Munro Live, he said it's Musk's
knowledge that stands out. I was blown
away. I've seen dozens of CEOs. I've never
seen a CEO ever or a president that knew
more about the product. That technical
know-how that comes with an
engineering background goes a long way
toward building better products. Just ask
Satya Nadella, the engineer at Microsoft
who rose to become CEO. When he took
over the top job in 2014, he had to figure
out a way to make Microsoft relevant as
it faced an onslaught from Apple. We
now need to make Microsoft thrive. The
software company struggled to thrive
under the leadership of his predecessor
Steve Ballmer. Its products were far from
revolutionary. The Surface was a
response to the iPad, the Windows phone
and answer to the iPhone. Ballmer has a
degree in mathematics and economics
from Harvard which helped balance the
books but didn't do much when it comes
to innovation. When Nadella took over,
he transformed Microsoft - moving its
software to non-Windows devices. For
example, bringing Microsoft Word to the
iPad and the iPhone. He also expanded its
cloud business Azure which has become
the biggest rival to Amazon's AWS. In his
first email to employees as CEO, Nadella
wrote: "Our industry does not respect
tradition - it only respects innovation."
That innovative spirit of engineering
saved Microsoft. But it's not easy. It
requires risky moves and not accepting
failure. As American inventor Thomas
Edison famously said: "I have not failed.
I've only found 10,000 ways that won't
work." James Dyson, the British engineer,
knows a thing or two about not giving up.
He became frustrated when a vacuum he
had at home kept losing suction. So he
decided to build a better vacuum himself.
He spent 15 years tinkering with over
5,000 different prototypes to come up
with the perfect bagless design. I'd like to
give you a little demonstration. The
payoff for his perseverance was a multi-
billion dollar company that bears his
name. In order to be successful, Dyson
was invested in the fine details of his
company. Engineers aren't afraid to get
involved in the day-to-day business -
especially when it comes to hiring.
Amazon is notorious for tough interviews.
Bezos, who has a degree in electrical
engineering and computer science, used
to meet every candidate himself during
Amazon's early days. He would ask quirky
questions like: How many gas stations are
there in America? He wasn't after the
right answer but wanted to see whether
the candidate had an analytical approach
in order to come up with an informed
response. Bezos once said setting the bar
high for hiring was the most important
factor for the online retailer's success. It's
no surprise that engineers make it to the
top of the tech industry which has seen
explosive growth over the years. But
they're also doing well at nontech
companies. Like Jeffrey Sprecher, the CEO
of the holding company that owns the
New York Stock Exchange. He has a
degree in chemical engineering. I've
never had a job that had anything to do
with chemistry but the discipline that I
went through there taught me about
problem-solving and business is really just
that. Engineers are very good at solving
problems and that's the key to doing
everything from building a bridge across a
river to designing a rocket to get to Mars.

Road Podcast
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