MBA Moralist provides a brief overview of an intriguing new HBS Case study on the tensions between the economic juggernaut of the innovation economy's global HQ and the history, sticky social attachments and realignments in demographics. A heady mix of morality-tale heroes and villains (depending upon your point of view) compel your attention: Capital, Progress, Visionaries, Communities, the Dispossed (and theatrically vocal!) The forces can seem so impersonal that even engaged arriving tech sector workers can't figure out what, if anything, can be done. Join MBA Moralist in this quick overview with a mind to demonstrate how articulating your personal values can help you refine your sense of self so as to succeed in a MBA Application

1. San Francisco, 2015 #tech
#inequality
An MBA Moralist Gloss on an Intriguing New Case Study
Published by Harvard Business School

2. HBS Case 315-076 January 2015
Abstract
▪ In December 2013 a group of angry protesters blocked one of the commuter buses
provided by the large SiliconValley firms (known as "Google buses") which was stopped
in San Francisco on its way to the company's headquarters 40 miles south.The protests
were a tangible manifestation of the sharp increase in tensions between citizens upset
with changes they saw in San Francisco and the "techies" and technology companies
they held responsible for the disappearing middle class, increased homelessness,
languishing public education, and a sense of departure from the unique culture and
values of the city's past.This case explores some of the substantial economic inequality
problems facing San Francisco, and how much responsibility for creating or
exacerbating the problems rests with the government, technology firms, their
employees, and the nature of capitalism, among others. It also allows for discussion of
what technology firms and the "techies" might do to help alleviate the problem.
▪ Keywords: income inequality; Economic inequalty; technology; SiliconValley; Income
Characteristics; Equality and Inequality;Technology Industry; United States; California;
San Francisco
▪ Language: English Format: Print 25 pages
▪ http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=48470

3. This Deck
▪ Strives to give an impression of how blowing up the context of your
personal and professional development to larger horizons is almost
always a rewarding way to enhance an MBA application to a prestige
school

4. This Casse: MBA Moralist Is Intrigued
▪ Because the case would seem to have so many ambiguities, many of
which touch upon not subject to managerial analysis within agreed-
upon contexts…Thus…
▪ One’s personal values have to come to the fore
– Action and engagement would be close to purposeless and futile if one didn’t
have values against which to judge efforts and outcomes
▪ Furthermore, as MBA Moralist tends not to like simple, pat narratives
– History & a keen eye for social intelligence and revealing details make for
dramatic candidacy enhancement
– This case is arresting because…

5. Competing, Divergent Interests:
Unlikely to End Easy/Pretty
▪ "There is this real squeeze on certain parts of the community—
housing prices are out of sight, the middle class is leaving, and
homelessness is a serious problem.This is in the face of great
prosperity for many technology workers…. People are afraid that this
special culture in this special place could get lost.“
– Case Author Clayton Rose
▪ What’s old is new
– A great mixture of Interest/Identity/Power Politics on a grand scale
– Far from black & white: there are lots of things to root for

6. New MBA Elective:
Reimagining Capitalism: Business and Big Problems
▪ Taught by
– John and Natty McArthur University Professor Rebecca M. Henderson
– Jakurski FamilyAssociate Professor George Serafeim
▪ “The course asks students to explore why and how business leaders
should engage with some of society's biggest problems, like
economic inequality, environmental degradation, and crony
capitalism.”
– Prof. Henderson

7. Authors & Inputs:
Mix of Professors & Local Alumni
▪ Clayton S. Rose
– Professor of Management Practice in the General Management
▪ Allison Ciechanover (Harvard MBA 2002)
– HBS California ResearchCenter Director
▪ Kunal Modi (Harvard MBA/MPP 2013)
– manager at McKinsey & Co. in San Francisco
▪ They invited 22 Bay Area-based Harvard MBAs who had graduated as
recently as a year ago and as long as 30 years ago to a series of
roundtables to discuss their perspectives on inequality and the
tension between the community and technology firms and their
employees.

8. Complex, Dynamic Environment Burdened by
History’s Legacies

9. Symbolically Freighted, Mediagenic:
A “Google Bus” Meets Citizens With
▪ A well-defined sense of civic
values worth fighting for
▪ Determination to self-actualize
around meaning & values
▪ A flair for the theatrical and the
potential of bad optics to
distort normal, ‘objective’
measures of the power
differential

10. This Story is Not New
▪ But two key ingredients are notable both for their scale, the distance
of their positions/goals
– Staggering FinancialValuations &Wealth Generation in the Bay Area
– A local sensibility refined to an unusual and eclectic extent
▪ IfWar is Politics by Other Means then…
– This war of interests collapses back onto itself as a political phenomenon

11. Local Government Seems Conflicted
▪ Doing a key function of
coordinated planning
– Sound Regional Development
Policy
▪ Results in Politically Awkward
Outcomes
– Feature?
– Bug?

12. But in Reality,
Of course this Depends Upon Where You
▪ Upon where you
– Stand
– Work
– Live
▪ Sleep regularly (Or Don’t)

13. Prosperity & Progress:
What’s not to like?
▪ Main components/attributes of the Pro-Development Camp
– Wooing innovation industries and offering policy incentives
– Cultural Buzz &Vibrancy to entertain and envelop innovation industry workers
– Unlock the staggering potential value of innovation synergies
▪ Rise, wash, repeat

14. Prosperity & Progress:
Hold On A Second….
▪ Main attributes/desires of the Resistance
– Not everything good and worthwhile has an obvious or easily calculated
financial value
▪ OscarWilde’s witticism:A cynic knows the price of everything but the value of nothing
– Authenticity Matters, and is a delicate thing, once killed, not easily revived
– Savor, don’t run-over
▪ History’s layers
▪ Complex dynamics of community identity and
▪ Inter-community relationships, clout & power politics

15. Prosperity & Progress:
Faking Can Be Incentivized
▪ A Difficult Balancing Act
– Respectful is easy
– Sincerely Respectful is the profound challenge
– Mutual suspicions across a psychological chasm cloud the process of sincerity-
judgment
▪ Character and the sincerity level of the respect is distressingly like
Justice Learned Hand’s pithy analysis of the slippery essence of
pornography
– I know it when I see it
▪ Multiply complexity where each participant reserves the right to their
own opinion & world-view & biases

16. Prosperity & Progress in Tension:
So Balancing May not, in Fact, be Possible
▪ Snarky career advice
– If the responsibility to make such balancing decisions falls to you, may you be as
far as possible from the public eye
▪ Great quotes from the local alumni who participated
– "I think of San Francisco as many layers of communities that see right past each
other, but live right on top of each other”
– Some in the “tech camp” archly observed that residents might be more apt to
interact with “community” online than with the community outside their door

17. A Thoughtful Characterization
▪ Of the psychological conflict MBAs experience in fast-moving social
situations such as San Francisco’s current evolution
▪ "They realize that they are operating in a remarkable environment,
where there is true innovation going on.They're energized and proud
that their companies are creating products and services that are
changing the world for the better," says Rose. "At the same time they
realize that San Francisco is changing, and almost certainly not
changing for the better."
– HBSWorking Knowledge Feb 17, 2015 (Link)

18. An Additional Wrinkle
▪ Ironic and vaguely almost even tragic…
– The self-doubt inherent in the confession
– “I’m just a coder, not some mythological beast that blends the best of Martin
Luther King’s emotional oratory, Gandhi’s quiet determination and dialectical
approach, MotherTeresa’s empathy and Conrad Hilton’s commercial gut
instincts”
▪ Because…

19. Impersonal, Systemic Macro-drivers
▪ Coupled with differential access to power in its varied forms
– Including legitimacy basis
– And the perceptions of insider groups and outsiders
▪ Often have an ironic result
– Learned passivity
▪ Worse still, even among those genuinely who are
– Observant/self-aware and
– Sincerely interested in optimizing path, process and outcome

20. Direct Action May Be Futile
▪ I want to do something….
– But what?
– The scale, the forces, the inter-relatedness of it all
▪ Where does one grab onto even one of this Hydra’s moving parts?
▪ This ties back to
– Who caused the problem?
– Who is responsible?
▪ But also to a lack of a blueprint for individual action

21. Traditions of Engagement
▪ From practical, capacity-building community development
– Supporting education-focused organizations
– Faith & SocialOrganizations
– Childhood Interventions
▪ To Idealistic Communitarian
– Community Fabric Enhancements
▪ Homelessness programs
▪ To Patrician Approaches that reify class privilege
– Art Museums
– Ballet & Symphony
– Theater

22. Lots to Think About
▪ That would help you to demonstrate your sense of the concentric
circles of citizenship that complement and complicate the way you
make sense of your place in life and this world
▪ Don’t go for cheap and certain
▪ For example
– Tax inversions make perfect sense as a manager
– But are queasily unappetizing to the policy-minded citizen
– As these two viewpoints often inhabit one body, the tensions can be productive
and illuminating

23. About MBA Moralist

24. MBA Moralist
▪ Is aYale history grad whom circumstances brought through the doors of Columbia
Business School as an MBA
– Has an insider’s edge as to process (NOT results), as a Columbia GSB Alum Club leader
▪ Pleasantly surprised at how valuable his writing skills – expository reasoning and a
lively, reader-engaging tone of voice – have proven in the MBA Admissions Race
– Especially when harnessed to incisive critical thinking skills
▪ Has read over 2,000 essays between 2006 and 2013 forVeritas Prep Consulting and
their MBA Gameplan web-service
– Highly refined sense of a balanced, authentic application subject to the limits of the medium’s
stipulated formal limits as a written form
– Essays don’t get you in; they win you an interview, where the follow-up question proves decisively
powerful as a BS-detector

25. MBA Moralist
▪ Believes firmly that MBAAdmissions is hard to game – so better to focus on
developing some self-understanding along the way
– Better applications result from viewing yourself as a person, not a product
▪ Self-understanding is hard work – and can’t be done for you. So choose your
partner wisely. MBA Moralist is not easy to please and partners best with clients
who don’t seek a magic wand but rather view the application process as self-
clarification
▪ Understand yourself well and (not surprisingly) the good impression takes care of
itself
▪ www.mbamoralist.com