LETTERS: Thursday, February 24, 2000

MBAs necessary for corporate success MBAs necessary for corporate successTo the Editor: I think Mr. Lin is considerably flawed in his analysis of Silicon Valley. Mr. Lin takes advantage of the current climate to trash Wharton MBAs because he does not care to understand the value of an MBA, a degree which is often pursued by engineers once they reach management positions in their companies. First, to clarify some statistics: Based on Wharton career office numbers, only 14.4 percent of Wharton MBA graduates moved to the "West" -- 9.6 percent listing San Francisco as their destination and 2.6 percent listing Los Angeles, leaving just 2.2 percent for everywhere else west of Texas, including Seattle and Denver. Thus, even if we include all those going to San Francisco, at most only 11.8 percent of the MBA Class of 1999 work in Silicon Valley -- that's not even 100 people. By contrast, over 50 percent of the class stayed in the East -- over 30 percent in New York City alone -- and over 15 percent live outside the United States. Despite what you may think of Silicon Valley, I do not believe that MBAs are entirely to blame. When people perceive that money can be made somewhere, they move quickly to get involved. Remember the Gold Rush? There have always been venture capitalists, and Mr. Lin doesn't understand why venture money is so important. Some of the best things ever invented were never successful because they were not properly marketed to the public. Inventors and businessmen have always relied on each other to make a successful venture work. Mr Lin complains that "great ideas don't come from the MBAs," but that misses the point. A good idea must be properly presented to investors, and ultimately, the consumer, to be successful. MBAs are taught to develop a different skill from inventors. In short, MBAs recognize and champion good ideas. It is that subtle but crucial distinction that Mr. Lin misses. Hopefully, Mr. Lin will grasp that concept someday, perhaps when he needs some funding for a "business plan" of his own. Albert "Chip" Hutzler College '88 Wharton MBA '99 To the Editor: Recently, presidential candidate John McCain exposed his bigotry to Vietnamese, in the U.S. and elsewhere, by using the word "gook" to refer to his captors in Vietnam. Unfortunately, I believe some of Alex Wong's observations ("The 'double consciousness' of Asian Americans," DP, 2/21/00) about the success of Asian Americans are also insensitive to many people's suffering. The problem lies in the use of a racial construct as a substitute for ethnicity, which perpetuates the white majority's positing of Asian Americans as a "model minority." As of the last census, for example, more than one fourth of Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans had an income below the poverty level, a rate twice the national average. By focusing on the success of some Asians, we blind ourselves to the obstacles faced by many others. Racially imposed impediments to Asian Americans are real, but the evidence of it becomes skewed when we focus on the relative success of some. Jim Swoyer Law '01