I've never seen or heard of a technical manager with an MBA... I've seen plenty of technical people, with an aptitude for it, move into management and pick up the ropes, so I'm skeptical that an MBA provides anything but a neutral or even negative signal in these situations.
> The problem with the so-called elite MBA schools is they are designed not for people with experience, but recruit those right out of undergrad with 0 business experience
I have no interest in an mba, but I was under the impression most elite programs expected significant work experience. At Harvard the 2023 has an average of 5 years work experience. https://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/class-profile/Pages/defau...
Your point about career shift is really where the MBA shines. MBAs should be viewed as a tool for those who are moving out of a direct technical field into management, and MBA students should bring some real world context with them to their classwork.
The problem with the so-called elite MBA schools is they are designed not for people with experience, but recruit those right out of undergrad with 0 business experience. This results in a general graduate population with highly inflated sense of confidence and no actual work to back it up, a very dangerous combination.