Comment by v64 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by v64 | Hacker News Reader

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Like you were in 2000, I'm a software developer who realizes my business acumen is far from adequate for running my own shop. My question is: Why did you decide the way to improve was to go back to school and get an MBA?

As a self-taught programmer, I tell people wanting to get into software development that it's definitely not something you have to go to school for, and that the best programmers I've met are those who are always taking the initiative to enrich their own knowledge, and not those with the most academic degrees. In my experience, number of personal projects is a better indicator of the quality of a developer than GPA in CompSci classes.

Of course, being the CEO of a multinational corporation or a software developer on critical banking infrastructure is different than running your own 5 person business or developing alarm clocks for your phone. At what point does one really need an MBA to further their business development, and why did you believe you had reached that point?

>> At what point does one really need an MBA to further their business development, and why did you believe you had reached that point?

You don't need an MBA to further your business development. It helps, but you can simply surround yourself with experienced people (and learn from them).

You will only get out of the MBA what you put in. Where it can be valuable is being exposed to other professionals who are taking the MBA who will share their own experiences related to whatever you're learning. For example, if you're learning about contracts, you'll hear what other people in the program have gone through and get more context of how things apply in varying industries.

But keep in mind, an MBA isn't some mandatory thing to succeed in business. I had a few key valuable takeaways from my MBA program, but I also don't think that made me any better in business, but it really depends on your exposure to things like accounting, business law, etc. from your work experience or prior education.

I'm a self taught programmer as well. Spent several years as a developer or dev lead and then decided to get an MBA. I now own and run an interactive agency (design and dev) shop.

Depending on your focus an MBA is a very broad program, well suited to running a business. My particular focus and program wasn't on high finance it was very focused on the myriad of skills needed to run a business I learned marketing, financial accounting, and operations - heck even shipping logistics in one or two classes each of 3 semesters (I did a night program). Appropriately used an MBA is almost a bootcamp for CEOs. I got a lot of very valuable information. As my small dev shop grows I constantly lean back on some skill or bit of information I picked up from my time in my MBA. Things like being able to project cash flows to know when I can't make payroll to all the science behind effective interviewing. There's a lot that goes into running a business that you can learn in an MBA program.

I can't speak for Jack, but I can speak to learning both programming skills and business skills. When you self teach programming, you usually don't end up shipping a product that you're not sure will work. Most of the time, you can try things and the compiler and some basic QA will tell you if it worked. Unless you don't test your implementation at all, you know how well you did when you push your code.

In business decisions, there is no test bed. Your choices play almost exclusively in time, money, and human capital. You can definitely try to self learn in that environment, and many successfully do, but it's a lot easier to screw up to the point where you can't continue.

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