Sometime around noon today, I ran across a series of tweets by Vivek Wadhwa on Twitter regarding education, MBAs, and a series of great thoughts regarding education, MBAs, Engineers, and a series of other items.  I ran through and started reading the links.  I found them to be very educational.  I always enjoy reading things that discuss regarding business growth.

I am not sure what Vivek's is driving at with these questions or if I correctly understand them, but in my mind, the questions are:

• What is the role of engineering in business?
• What is the role of business education in business?
• How does one cross between engineering and business concepts?
• How do you staff a start up?

Well, where you stand on a subject depends on where you sit.  I've worked at the small start up level and having been through three startups, I thought I would throw out a few thoughts on these below. Here is a brain dump set of thoughts that don't necessarily have a rhyme/reason.

• What is the role of engineering in business? As an engineer, let me shock you, by saying that engineering for the sake of engineering is worthless, yet I see this all the time.  I love Joel Spolsky's line about "Your job is to ship product and make money."  Now for a small company on its way to starting and growing, I've found that the best way to do things is to invest money into engineering work.  The two that were successful spent more money on engineering than anything else.  There was a tremendous focus on producing products that people wanted.  There was lots of product testing and feedback taken from users to build these products.  In the third unsuccessful startup, I'm not sure where a lot of the money went to, but it was not used on engineering.
  Now, as a company grows, I understand why there is need for other resources management, marketing, finance, and hr are all necessary, but at the startup level, these layers need to be kept at a minimum.  Along with that, there must be an understanding that people need to work together for a common good.
• What is the role of business education in business?  Hmm, this is a great question.  With me, I never wanted to work forever at a large company.  I wanted to go for a number of years, and then leave to do my own thing.  I was a product of the late 1980s.  I watched as companies decided to fire people left and right. I decided as I watched this continual trend, I saw that  companies were were not interested in the welfare of their employees and that the "social contract" of employment was dead.  If that's the way its done, what do I owe them?  And after working in Corporate America, I saw that as definitely true.  as a result, I got out and decided to do my own thing.  Given the rates that we can charge for our our skills, writing that it allows me to do, and the excuse to get into new technology, I think that this is a better trade than working in Corporate America.  I think the lack of a focus on employees in Corporate America means that you have more start ups, not less.
  I think that this lack of focus means that you have to make the effort to educate yourself and it also means that you must get out, talk with others, and find out what their needs are.  This will help you in product creation and marketing.  I still remember that late May, 2008 product discussion I had while sitting at a bar eating dinner.  I learned more about human nature in 2 hours than I ever learned in my first 41 years of life.  Go talk to people, they'll tell you fairly quickly if you idea is a winner or loser.  That's been something I have lacked as I've spent too much of my time dedicated to engineering, but I've definitely made up for that mistake.
  
• How does one cross between engineering and business concepts?  Now, I think that this is easier than it appears.  There is a basic concept that more money has to come in than go out, well, unless you are a dot-bomb, Enron, or WorldCom, and even then, the laws of finance do catch up to you.  Now, while this sounds simple, there are tons of engineers that don't understand this concept, they think that everyone is making money hand over fist.  I get into numerous discussions with others that think that the Apple iPhone AppStore is a huge money maker for Apple.  From every financial analysis I have read, the AppStore is not much more than a break even for Apple.  Its kinda like a loss leader for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch devices.  I remember getting into a discussion with a friend of mine not long after I met him regarding something that his company would not do for him.  He was so frustrated with them.  I asked him, "What is the benefit to your employer? It does not make them more money and it does not lower their cost of doing business."  I'm not sure if he ever understood the issue.  Anyway, when I look at engineers, they do not typically make the effort.  If they would just make the effort, they would go way to the front of the line.  It doesn't take a lot, merely that you listen to what the other side is looking to do, what they need, and an understanding of the other side.  Unfortunately, most people, let alone engineers, don't have the ability to put themselves into another person's shoes.
• How do you staff a startup?  I think that this is fairly simple.  You need to have engineering and marketing.  As things get going, you can add finance, management, hr, and other things.  However, at the beginning, you need to focus on the bare minimums to get going.  Conserve your cash, don't act like a drunken sailor on shore leave.