Ask YC: MBeA or to not be - is an MBA worth a hacker's time?

Maybe for someone, but not for me.

"it'll be completely different stuff"

Exactly. That's my whole point. Some things I learned in my MBA program, like the time value of money, were at best, easily gleaned from dozens of books at Borders. Other things, like marketing strategies and case studies, were just wrong and counterproductive. Nothing valuable I ever learned on the job was even on the business school's radar.

"Real leaders in the corporate world are rare."

True. And much rarer in academia.

"If you've worked and then go back and got an MBA you come back at mid-management."

So what? Been there, done that. As an experienced hacker, I don't remember the last time I had a mid-manager who earned more than I do. They are easily expendible. I am on the critical path.

"hacker with a chip on his shoulder"

No, just one who loves what he does and has seen the light. If you can hack, don't make the same mistake I did. Forget the MBA and get better at hacking by hacking.

Then again the credibility it brings if you want to go to finance in Wall St or move up in Big Corp X may be useful to some people (assuming that you go to a top 10 MBA program)... but probably not too useful to most of the people who come to yc news

I can't think of a single thing that would be on that list. Business School is not like Law School or Medical School where you must remember the "things" you learned. Employers use the MBA to differentiate candidates. It's unlikely that you'll use all that much from the curriculum on your first job. You even say so yourself, "firms hire MBAs on their abilities to learn and not what they've already learned".

"I just don't see how that is remotely possible."

How could you if you've never done it? Every large project I've ever worked on had issues with interpersonal communication, project management, logistics, deployment, revenue generation, and profitability (you know, all the important stuff), in a manner that business school can't even imagine covering.

"the problem is the quality not the quantity"

Exactly. That's my whole point. The quality of a hands on business education blows away anything academic. I imagine most business people (with MBAs or not) would heartily concur. The only thing I remember from business school was, "A degree in business is a degree in nothing."

"in-depth case analysis"

Case studies are notoriously poor for learning about business. What good is it to study business decisions after the fact, when you already know what they didn't? Marc Andressson said as much in his talk at Startup School here:

http://www.justin.tv/hackertv/98124/Marc_Andreessen_Founder_...

or here:

http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/marc-andreessen-at-startu...

If you don't want to listen to me, perhaps he's a little more convincing. (Whether you agree with me about anything or not, I strongly suggest this video. A lot to learn from someone with real battle scars.)

"with your professor and the other students"

who pale in comparison to people your encounter every day on the job. Why do you think the most important class in any business school is the internship?

I don't. I just believe that we all have a lot to learn from all the ordinary people running the world, a little bit at a time. I imagine the best and brightest business leaders in the world would agree with me.

"I'm sure I could go talk to any partner at Accenture and get a vastly different opinion"

Yes you will! But don't forget to talk to a few of the many business people who despise firms like Accenture. I know they're out there because they're the ones who call people like me (and many others here) to clean up the messes MBAs leave behind.

"I don't really think that the MBA makes that much sense for someone interested in starting their own web company but for many career paths it does."

Yes, I agree.