Comment by jraines | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jraines | Hacker News Reader

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consider that the author's program was an undergraduate program and try to remember how experienced or useful you were at 18-21.

This is important. I got an undergrad business degree and I got a nice background in accounting, finance, marketing, and to a lesser extent IT.

When I think back on it, either it doesn't seem useful or I've forgotten the useful bits (had some great classes on branding that taught me a lot more than what you'd learn from reading blogs or articles on it; but I couldn't write an insightful paper on it now).

But then, I've dealt with people with no background in these things and watched them make some pretty stupid mistakes that could've been prevented with basic knowledge of these subjects. (I once got a sick feeling--justified--when asking a partner about our finances after he insisted on handling them, and getting an email where he referred to "the books" in scare quotes).

On the MBA side -- the MBA program at my alma mater has placed several of my friends in jobs that were a big jump in salary and growth potential from where they were coming in -- and none of them were bankers.

I heard someone say once that an MBA is a great preparation for an entry-level CEO job, but no such job exists. That's why real world experience matters; not only do you gain perspective that will benefit your MBA education and post-MBA career, but it also helps you "know thyself" so that you don't bother with an MBA if it's not the right move for you.

Last thought: business education doesn't really prepare you for entrepreneurship, but entrepreneurship can help you benefit from a business education. Best example would be an entrepreneur who has had some failures and moderate successes, but now has the experience and skills to command a 100K+ salary and is ready to further prepare (or for the cynical, get credentialized) for a job at that level.

"On the MBA side -- the MBA program at my alma mater has placed several of my friends in jobs that were a big jump in salary and growth potential from where they were coming in -- and none of them were bankers"

But I think this is what the author was trying to say. An MBA (I'll talk about the MBA since undergrad business degrees seem really terrible) is a way of gaming the corporate structure (and getting a raise in salary and so on , as you point out) more than acquiring any real skills or insights, which is why most MBA students become Management consultants vs entrepreneurs. One job is about talking the talk and the other is about walking it.

As an enginner/hacker I am a bit dubious about how business school professors can actually teach anything business related. (By and large) They have never run businesses, so how can they teach you how to run one? If they could build or run a multimillion dollar businesses would they be teaching? ( Not snark, I am genuinely curious. Can someone who has done an MBA explain how this works out. What value do these professors add. Couldn't you just read the books yourself?)

I think a lot of the comments in this discussion, yours included, seem to be misunderstanding what business school is about.

Business schools are teaching management, which by definition is about reducing risk and optimizing existing operations in a running business, hence the emphasis on accounting, finance, etc. The idea is that looking at the whole picture, an MBA is able to more efficiently manage an existing corporation. The comments made about MBAs seeing people as "tools" is spot on and in recent years the organization behavior subject has made a lot of progress in reversing this damaging trend, started during the industrial revolution.

On the other hand, entrepreneurship is all about taking an invention and turning it into an innovation and a sustainable company, and in the process mitigating various business risks (e.g. is there anyone to buy the product, how to make the product, what product to make, etc.). The two (startups vs. companies) are fundamentally different (I elaborate on this here: http://www.deyanvitanov.com/entrepreneurship-foundations/sta...). Very few business schools make the claim to be catering to the entrepreneurial crowd, and even fewer do it well - I can speak only for Stanford GSB, although I have heard similar for Berkeley and Babson, among others I am sure.

So the comment about talking the talk and walking the walk sounds nice, but the assumptions behind it simply fall flat.

FYI, I have an MBA from Stanford and I am basing my comment on my experience there. At the same time, I came to business school specifically to start a new company, so I am hardly the typical MBA I think.

They have never run businesses, so how can they teach you how to run one? If they could build or run a multimillion dollar businesses would they be teaching?

Several of the better teachers at my university had consulting gigs on the side where they worked on real world projects that interested them. A few had worked many years in industry and now wanted to do something different. Some genuinely preferred the more theoretical and research aspect of the field and felt that a university was the best place to foster that. And yes a few where useless, could probably never cut in industry and just hung around because for some reason no one had fired them yet.

Conversely, having running a business will teach you many things, but there are other things you can only learn by having studied and carefully analysed and compared hundreds of businesses and the people who work there. So just because you have never run a business yourself doesn't mean you have nothing to teach, and just because you happened to be in charge of a business that happened to successful doesn't mean you know all there is about all aspects of running a company.

If they could build or run a multimillion dollar businesses would they be teaching?

Business school professors are very well paid and live the life of leisure. Starting a business is risky and is hard work, and business PhDs aren't generally recruited to work as CEOs.

Agreed on the first point. That's why my example is more like someone who for whatever reason (kids probably) is ready to trade the ups and downs of entrepreneurship for a steady high-level job.

To your second point: Is that true of most b-school professors? I honestly don't know, but I think some if not most have some good experience. The guy who taught me finance rocketed up the ranks for Coke, ran the operations of a multinational region, and retired to teach while in his 40s.

My international business professor, however, was an insufferable douche who had no real-world experience that I know of.

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