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How Should Business Schools Prepare Students for Startups?

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: How Should Business Schools Prepare Students for Startups?

#41

Post by analog31 »

gaius wrote: post #35
analog31 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression, working for a Fortune 500, is that management is largely an information processing task. They are gathering, analyzing, and communicating information, but typically have to deal with both quantitative and qualitative information of varying quality from disparate sources. They are also skilled at certain kinds of tasks such as creating business plans, budgets, etc., and serving them up in a recognizable…

management is largely an information processing task. They are gathering, analyzing, and communicating information, but typically have to deal with both quantitative and qualitative information of varying quality from disparate sources This layer is going to be utterly destroyed by machine learning when it goes mainstream. The value of an MBA is trending towards zero.

Even machine learning isn't necessary. All that's needed is more widespread communication. For instance, my boss doesn't need to communicate the company's strategy to me, because I can figure it out by sharing information with workers at similar companies.

Re: How Should Business Schools Prepare Students for Startups?

#42

Post by cat199 »

gaius wrote: post #35
analog31 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression, working for a Fortune 500, is that management is largely an information processing task. They are gathering, analyzing, and communicating information, but typically have to deal with both quantitative and qualitative information of varying quality from disparate sources. They are also skilled at certain kinds of tasks such as creating business plans, budgets, etc., and serving them up in a recognizable…

management is largely an information processing task. They are gathering, analyzing, and communicating information, but typically have to deal with both quantitative and qualitative information of varying quality from disparate sources This layer is going to be utterly destroyed by machine learning when it goes mainstream. The value of an MBA is trending towards zero.

> both quantitative and qualitative information of varying quality from disparate sources

sounds exactly like the kinds of 'easy' problems that 'machine learning' has totally figured out. Good point.

Re: How Should Business Schools Prepare Students for Startups?

#43

Post by rdlecler1 »

dchichkov wrote: post #8

As per PG: Two Types: I think you only need two kinds of people to create a technology hub: rich people and nerds. They're the limiting reagents in the reaction that produces startups, because they're the only ones present when startups get started. Everyone else will move. I guess that could be a good clue onto what to teach. And I'm not sure this is enough actually. For example, you probably need rule of law . My g…

You need more than rich people, you need people who are rich and who embrace the kind of risk that startups offer. There's a big difference in the kind of investors you meet in NY compared to SV.

Re: How Should Business Schools Prepare Students for Startups?

#44

Post by tryitnow »

I'm an MBA and I just don't see the value of business schools preparing students for startups. The MBA skillset is only valuable at a certain maturity level. Before you hit that level focus on engineering/product/sales, not finance and strategy. I don't think MBA programs teach engineering management well and they aren't particularly good at teaching sales.

I kind of agree with the old idea that you deduct $1M off the valuation for each MBA a startup has on board. In all honesty, there's just not going to be a lot for an MBA to do at a startup.

Now to be clear I'm using the word "startup" in a strict sense meaning a company that's come into existence recently. An 8 year old multi-billion dollar behemoth is not a startup in my book.

Think of an MBA as a two year immersion program in the language of the C-suite. If you're just starting out you really don't need to learn that language. Instead focus on product/market fit, good engineering, and sales. Sure, MBA programs claim to teach all those skills - but I just don't think they're good at it.

An MBA program is good at teaching you strategy, finance & accounting, and maybe some types of business analytics (if you take those electives). And it's definitely good at teaching you corporate politics (perhaps it's biggest benefit), but you don't need to know corporate politics -just startup politics, which are a different beast altogether.

Re: How Should Business Schools Prepare Students for Startups?

#45

Post by sjg007 »

Upvoter33 wrote: post #2

easy: - get students to drop out of b-school - encourage them to learn about deep tech field (cs, bio, etc.) - help them raise $$ for said endeavor more seriously, I have had numerous people from the b-school world (now VCs) tell me this, more or less. they want people w/ technical know-how, not b-school skills.

That's because they have the b-school skills already so they undervalue them.

Re: How Should Business Schools Prepare Students for Startups?

#46

Post by [deleted] »

spyhi wrote: post #11

I'm currently working through this struggle in Hawaii. I'm currently an adult student pursuing concurrent degrees in CS and Entrepreneurship at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and trying to find ways to bring the two programs closer in ways that reflect my self-study on SV-style tech entrepreneurship and my experience in the professional workforce...and it's not easy. Not mentioned in the video are a couple factor…

[deleted]

Re: How Should Business Schools Prepare Students for Startups?

#47

Post by sjg007 »

These guys are both selling something:

1. An MBA

2. YC startups

The question is which do you want to buy? And what can you buy. Both are investments.

An MBA from a top school likely has a higher pay off long term as most startups fail (statistically). But you have to be accepted into the program. You can read about alumni, gather various statistics, where they are and how much they make etc... There are ~80,000 alumni from HBS programs.

For YC, you either join a YC startup then go to YC, or get into YC directly. It may be easier to do the former, prove yourself and then join YC as a founder. If you want this path. You also have to build something.

YC also reduces the risks of "failure" by building out their own network and keeping alumni within the network as partners or as employees in other YC startups.

As to the rise of entrepreneurial programs.. well it's business. MBA programs probably also want to attract entrepreneurial minded types to improve diversity/value but startups are hot and everyone is selling.

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