Dangerous is about the right word to describe this article. Their cost utility matrix is patently wrong as there is no way to assess either the cost or the utility value of any skills that they have listed on the matrix. Then the outrageous claim that math and stats skills are of low utility.

But the true danger of this paper is that, many startup and so-called agile coaches and mentors will feel free to distribute this drivel to their mentees and those who are being coached. As a result, there is a risk of projects and careers being ruined by articles like this that go to foster a broken mental model about what the needs for building data science and machine learning skills at the level of production.

We just hope HBR retracts this article. Perhaps a letter to the H R editorial team is in order.