<p>
[quote]
but yes, i guess if I get an MBA, the masters might be "not as valuable' but I am a purist. i don't want to be a manager that just tells people what to do without knowing what is going on :\ i wanna tell people what to do, but at the same time, be able to do it myself.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, not to burst your bubble, but that scenario you laid out is basically inevitable. As a manager, you will obviously be spending time on managerial tasks, not technical tasks, and so the fact that you're not touching the technical material inevitably means that you're going to lose your technical knowledge. That's the tradeoff you have to make. </p>
<p>As a case in point, during the early years of Microsoft, Bill Gates insisted on personally reviewing every single line of code that Microsoft ever shipped in its software, and would still write significant pieces of code himself. But later he just couldn't do that anymore because his managerial tasks consumed all his time. Bill Gates may have been the best coder in Microsoft during the early years but clearly not so lately, just because he's not actively coding anymore.</p>