The Personal MBA: Master The Art Of Business
April 10th, 2011
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Is business school worth the six figure price tag? About 15 years ago, my college econ teacher said that an MBA would pay for itself, but only if it was from a top 20 school. Today, I suspect the ROI is even less.
Josh Kaufman wrote The Personal MBA
Is this book really an effective substitute for business school? I don’t know. You’d have to ask someone who went to business school, and see how it worked out for them.
I’m sure we could all debate the merits of business school until the cows come home. But anyway, for someone who has any interest in business school, it would be pretty dumb not to read this book. (Business schools will still be around when you’re done reading it.)
I did find the book slightly entertaining, but it’s not really something that you’d read for pleasure. It’s no-fluff, heavy-duty business knowledge, and lot of it, on a broad range of critical topics. Anyone interested in business would consider it a must-read.
Is there any situation where Josh would consider an MBA a good idea? Yes – if someone wants to work for a prestigious consulting firm, an investment bank, or a Fortune 50 company that uses MBAs as an interview filter. In that case, a $150,000 piece of paper is the cost of entry. Otherwise, you might as well avoid the debt.
(Now, to sit back and wait for flames from business school students…)
May 28th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Hi Hunter,
Jeremy from Insight Writer here just making sure all my blogger friends that participated in the Creating Value group project are still doing their thing!
Anyhow, I have my MBA, but my price tag was about $25,000 because it was partially funded by my job, and a little cheaper then some of the other ones out there.
You won’t get any flames from me. I agree with you 100%. The price for admission is too high. At this point in life Im starting to wish I had an engineering or comp sci degree but I digress…
Instead I want to say, lets do a guest post exchange if your up for it! And if you can think of a great group project we should do it!
Cheers,
Jeremy
May 30th, 2011 at 11:23 am
@ Jeremy, a $25,000 MBA sounds like a much better deal than usual. If your employer offers to help out, that can certainly make a degree much more affordable.
You sure do a good job of keeping in touch with the “value creators!” I’m sort of taking a break from blogging right now, so I’ll pass on the guest posting, but thanks for the offer.
June 4th, 2011 at 9:55 pm
Hi Hunter,
I love the perspective of you post. I am not an MBA but I do have a finance degree. Had I known then what I know now, I would have never stepped foot in a University to “learn about business”…..The high level finance that I know about and have experience in(Leveraged Buyouts, Mergers, Private Equity, Roll-Ups.etc…) I learned by getting in the trenches and doing it. I learned by being around the “old dogs” with experience.
The price to entry was my desire to learn. Believe it or not, my finance degree WAS IRRELEVANT. Not one of my “mentors” ever asked me: Do you have a biz degree”……..you don’t need one to learn how to structure a leveraged buyout:using the assets of the company to create the cash to buy the company.
You just need to have a desire to learn how to structure deals and apply concepts as fast as you learn them.
Had I known that in 1992 when I entered college, I’d be a “multi-milly(millionaire)” by now.
I think a biz degree is the worst thing a aspiring entrepreneur can have. It really warps your thinking of how things are really done and the possibilities of what can be done.
I dislike hearing: “It takes 3-5 years to break-even for new businesses, blah,blah,blah”…you’ve heard it before. Bullshit. You can go from zero to $100 million in 3 to 5 years and no, you don’t need to start the next Social Media site to do it nor do you need to start some high-tech firm.
It’s all about obtaining the knowledge. Sorry about my rant……..I’m a passionate entrepreneur that get’s sick of seeing people being mislead and having limitations placed on their potential.
As always Hunter, your blog is insanely awesome. Your blog is the only one I follow and make comments when I can.
Ron
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PS- Have you heard about the book titled: “RUSH” by-Todd G. Buchholz
subtitle: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race
It’s not for the 4HWW types…it’s for guys like me ;0)
Talk later Hunter.
June 5th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
@ Ron, great rant.
I had a feeling you were a “learn by doing” type based on the comments you’ve left before. I’ll see if I can check out that book sometime. Even though I’m more of a 4HWW type myself, I’m sure it’ll be interesting.