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Is an MBA a Plus or a Minus in the Startup World?

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Re: Is an MBA a Plus or a Minus in the Startup World?

#41

Post by grinich »

pg wrote: post #28
neilc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MBAs train you to be junior officers in the armies of managerial capitalism. Some MBA programs do -- most, even. But more and more programs are focusing on entrepreneurship. I think it is pretty obvious that having an MBA is useful if you're going to do a startup. Is getting an MBA more useful than spending the time/money on something else? Perhaps, perhaps not -- depending on the person involved, the skills of their…

Actually I would say it's a slight net minus to have an MBA when doing a startup. You learn nothing of use to you, but investors discriminate against you slightly. Almost all investors are looking for founders who match past stars. So what they're looking for at this point is hackers. I have to say I agree with them. I can't imagine Bill Gates or Larry & Sergey enduring B School.

What about Elon Musk?

Re: Is an MBA a Plus or a Minus in the Startup World?

#42

Post by endtime »

mvp wrote: post #31
endtime wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment inspired me to do some research, and the first page I found was this one: http://www.kamalsinha.com/iit/acceptance-rate.html Given your comparison to Harvard, I thought you might be interested in this paragraph: >While it seems true that admission rate at IITs is less than even the most selective US school like the CalTech, it does not mean IIT recruits students of higher caliber. In a country like the U…

glen is probably referring to the ratio of the number of successful applicants to the total number of applicants - which is about 1% ( about a decade and half ago, maybe even less now). I don't know whether it makes any sense to compare the calibre of students coming from colleges in different countries with vastly different cultures in the absence of results from common tests. However, these people are definitely am…

Yes, I knew that's what he was referring to. But the comparison to Harvard was obviously intended to imply something more, thus my quote.

Re: Is an MBA a Plus or a Minus in the Startup World?

#43

Post by pramit »

Related Reading Which You Will Find Useful: The Simple MBA Manifesto: Do We Really Need MBAs? A Presentation http://www.slideshare.net/pramitsingh/the-success-manual-do-... Presentation Transcript is Available Here http://bighow.com/news/the-simple-mba-manifesto-do-we-really... Do we need MBAs? A 5- part look http://bighow.com/tags/doweneedmbas

Re: Is an MBA a Plus or a Minus in the Startup World?

#44

Post by herdrick »

pg wrote: post #23
rick_2047 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much but I have a slight doubt whenever I read something like this. I presume you get an MBA to give you a better understanding about business. And startups are in essence businesses. Then how come having a better understanding not impact your startup?

The cause of the apparent paradox is that "business" spans a huge range. MBAs train you to be junior officers in the armies of managerial capitalism. But there is almost zero overlap between that sort of work and what startups do.

Agreed. But you link to HBS's "Working Knowledge" in the YC library. Is there much good stuff there? HN voters don't seem to think so.

(That link in the YC lib broken now, btw. It's redirecting to their front page. You want this now: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/topics/entrepreneurship.html)

Re: Is an MBA a Plus or a Minus in the Startup World?

#45

Post by [deleted] »

grinich wrote: post #41
pg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I would say it's a slight net minus to have an MBA when doing a startup. You learn nothing of use to you, but investors discriminate against you slightly. Almost all investors are looking for founders who match past stars. So what they're looking for at this point is hackers. I have to say I agree with them. I can't imagine Bill Gates or Larry & Sergey enduring B School.

What about Elon Musk?

[deleted]

Re: Is an MBA a Plus or a Minus in the Startup World?

#46

Post by mwerty »

tullius wrote: post #32
sachinag wrote: post #14

I'm a non-technical founder who's founded one startup, joined another, and am now an Advisor at TechStars - before I go back to B school to get an MBA. And that's after I did a business degree in undergrad. To me, getting an MBA is all about option value. If I want to go to a big company, it's a prerequisite. If I want to do startups, it's not. If I want to jump back and forth, then it's a prerequisite again. I'm wil…

Exactly the kind of the logic that people use to justify going into the corporate world instead of a startup. For people serious about building a successful startup the possibility of going back to a cushy corporate job if things don't work out should be the last thing on their mind.

So should health insurance by that logic.

Re: Is an MBA a Plus or a Minus in the Startup World?

#47

Post by ojbyrne »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #21
gaius wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's often business degree -> analyst at a bank or consultancy -> MBA -> associate at bank or consultancy -> industry job when it becomes apparent that partnership isn't on the horizon. The problem with MBAs of this type is that they believe management is a universal function that can be applied directly to any industry. The real world is more subtle than that.

As long as the recruiters keep believing that "management is a universal function that can be applied directly to any industry", students can hardly be blamed for it.

Actually I think that's true, but it takes experience to gain sufficient humility to know that you have to respect the differences in domains. Obviously (for example) manufacturing is different from software, but motivating people, managing costs, solving customer problems - those are universal.
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