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Why we have never hired an MBA
21–30 of 72 posts
Re: Why we have never hired an MBA
#22It's kind of ridiculous that HN and the whole startup community has a vendetta against MBAs. Seeing it as a blackmark? You are quick to judge an MBA based on their education. Maybe if people working in startups weren't such elitists and thinking you don't need business skills to run a startup, you wouldn't have so many fail.
What makes you think that being a MBA equates to having business skills? Being MBA is just being MBA. People who don't get higher education and just start their companies fresh out of high-schools will have WAY more business skills than MBA. I'd say that 2 years of running your own business gives you more business skills than 5 years of MBA education.
The real question is whether 4 (or 5, etc.) years of running your own business gives you more business skill than 2 years of MBA education and 2 (or 3, etc.) years of running your own business.
Re: Why we have never hired an MBA
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
"In the same way being an hobbyist programmer will never give you the same skill set than a CS degree." Never? Despite the countless examples, including Torvalds and Carmack? I really disagree on that.
Torvalds has a masters in CS. "Never" is a strong word, but the rest of the paragraph you're harpooning makes a different point than the one you're refuting.
According to Wikipedia, Linux was developed around his second year in university. That would suggest that he did not have a degree during its development and had a formal education, at that time, roughly equivalent to the average university dropout. I think that still supports the parent's claim, even if it is a little misleading as written.
Re: Why we have never hired an MBA
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes you think that being a MBA equates to having business skills? Being MBA is just being MBA. People who don't get higher education and just start their companies fresh out of high-schools will have WAY more business skills than MBA. I'd say that 2 years of running your own business gives you more business skills than 5 years of MBA education.
Doubtful. In the same way being an hobbyist programmer will never give you the same skill set than a CS degree. It's highly unlikely you are ever going to study extensively algorithm, os and databases design, compilation or declarative and functional programming all by yourself because objectively it's not something you need to get the job done. Nevertheless, this knowledge becomes really useful as soon as you start…
Programming and business managament are two different fields. You can't compare them.
I agree, you can't become a good chemist without proper education, the same goes for particle physics. Business is not a hard science, it's a set of skills you have to develop such as: perseverance, creativity, people-skills and confidence. You can't learn it in any school, even the top-ones.
You can be a great actor, amazing cook, great musician or artist without having any degrees. Running a business is similar - it can't be simply in schools because it's not a hard science.
You get the experience from running your own company, look: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison
They don't seem to have any degrees and there are thousands of CEO's just like them who didn't get higher education yet built something amazing.
Re: Why we have never hired an MBA
#25Hi Matt, You just haven't found the right MBA :) Some quick background: I'm attending school part-time for my MBA (Richard Ivey, case-based). I've also been with a successful YC startup from the the ground floor as a technical hire, and am currently the co-founder of a very early stage startup. Your article raises some really good points - most of which I agree with completely. Execution is key, and becoming a PM at…
Totally agree with this
Re: Why we have never hired an MBA
#26One of the best hires I've ever made is a classic finance MBA -- top tier investment bank analyst program out of undergrad, HBS, private equity. The key was that: 1) He was referred to my startup by someone in our network, so he had at least a basic understanding of how our company worked. 2) He offered to come in as an intern just to get his foot in the door, and was extremely humble about his value to the company;…
Do you think the MBA and banking was a boost, or a five year delay in getting his career going?
Re: Why we have never hired an MBA
#27I had the impression that GoCardless was founded by a few ex management consultants, how come when they 'become' startup founders they start attacking their own trade? Also judging the whole population of MBAs by seeing a few over-anxiously MBA job seekers doesn't do any justice?
Absolutely. I should have made this clearer, I've added a note in the first para of the post.
The intention was not to attack any trade but to highlight a worrying misconception that seems to be particularly prevalent amongst MBA grads and ex-consultants. A segment that I feel my background makes me particularly able to comment on.
Re: Why we have never hired an MBA
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Torvalds has a masters in CS. "Never" is a strong word, but the rest of the paragraph you're harpooning makes a different point than the one you're refuting.
According to Wikipedia, Linux was developed around his second year in university. That would suggest that he did not have a degree during its development and had a formal education, at that time, roughly equivalent to the average university dropout. I think that still supports the parent's claim, even if it is a little misleading as written.
Linux 0.0.1 was not a sophisticated piece of code.
Re: Why we have never hired an MBA
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
An MBA is like an engineering masters - you're more valuable with a BS/BA and 3 years experience. After you have ~5 years of experience, that graduate degree becomes highly valuable compared to additional years of work experience. An MBA is an important step towards becoming a stronger manager for most people, however it probably shouldn't be the first step you take out of undergraduate studies.
Absolutely. I have an MBA after being in the software industry for a while. MBA fresh out of undergrad is insane and all of the MBA programs I looked at required years of industry experience. I'd really question the value of a MBA program that lets in 22 year olds fresh out of undergrad.
I think your point is key.
I'm finishing an MBA-type program (it's a Masters in Technology Management actually, but 2/3rds of the courses are shared with the MBA), and I definitely wouldn't have gotten so much out of it 5 years ago.
Similarly, many of the things I was taught as an undergrad only made sense many years later (and I regret not having given them more attention).
In fact, my MBA-type program actually has an emphasis on entrepreneurship - we had an entire class based on Steve Blank's Customer Development model, which involved "getting outside the building" a lot.
They encourage startup building so much, I'm planning to turn my business plan into a startup :)
Re: Why we have never hired an MBA
#30As another data point, YC's fastest ever exit was ran by an MBA.
I actually knew this. I should have mentioned it. As I said: any argument that "no MBA has a clue about startups...[is] demonstrably untrue".