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Comment by planet-and-halo | Hacker News Reader

This is something I've been interested in for a while. Do you think it's worth getting an MBA or some other financial degree if you're already in the workforce, or can you learn enough on the fly?

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I asked the same question a few years ago (tech background, needed to uplift my business knowledge/lingo). The response was "you should find a way to obtain the knowledge of an MBA, without having to do one".

As a result of searching a few years back, I ended up buying a copy of "The Personal MBA" and reading it through. This comes with the list of 99 business books, listed here; https://personalmba.com/best-business-books/

* I have no affiliation with the site, author or book. I'm just speaking from my personal experience and the benefit of business knowledge this gave me.

I do not recommend getting an MBA or some other financial degree. Rootsudo's response is excellent. There are actually very few financial concepts involved in these types of analyses (e.g. discounted cash flows, IRR, and NPV).

IMHO, the best thing you can do is work with someone in your FP&A (Financial Planning & Analysis) group discuss your investment idea and why you think it is a good idea. If they are a decent analyst, they will help build a model to describe financially your investment opportunity. This is what they live for.

Thanks, appreciate the suggestion.

I would agree strongly with the comment to which you are replying (the parent? This is my first time commenting :). The primary benefits of an MBA are not the knowledge learned and said knowledge is shallow enough that it is feasible to gain it without the degree.

FP&A agrees. For what it’s worth, I never did MBA. I did finance undergrad and it just felt duplicative to do it again. It can be limiting to an extent but it’s also meritocratic once you’re in. It’s a screening question for many employers at the manager/director level and up but if you haven’t built a strong enough network by then than something is off anyways. (Make friends with recruiters.)

DevFinOps and Cloud cost efficiency is a thing. As more orgs move to utility based pricing, understanding and optimizing spend and accurately projecting are becoming much more valuable.

So, I’d say go for it if it’s something you think you’d enjoy.

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