Bob Lutz in his recent book Car Guys vs. Bean Counters makes the
point that GM was doing fine until in the mid 1970s the MBA-
trained finance guys took control of product development from
the "car guys," who were engineers and designers. The result, he
says, was inferior cars and a decline in the firm. He believes
that CEOs and the top management should not be bean counters but
rather should be a "product guys."  The poster child for his
view was Roger Smith who was an MBA-trained accounting and
finance specialist. During his ten year tenure as GE's CEO
during the 80s, Smith made breathtaking strategic and operating
blunders. He invested in robotics that did not work, created a
disastrous reorganization that resulted in cars so similar they
were a joke (remember the Cadillac Cimarron?), mismanaged some
ill-conceived acquisitions, built up enormous debt, and on and
on. GM's share went from 45% to 36% under his watch. A role
model, on the other hand, was Steve Jobs, with no degree but
deep computer expertise, wh