> My complaint (and I suspect many others') is with the idea that someone who has studied the discipline of "business" is qualified to run any business, regardl

> My complaint (and I suspect many others') is with the idea that someone who has studied the discipline of "business" is qualified to run any business, regardless of what it does. Yes, this is my impression too, having once worked for a CEO whose primary qualification seemed to have been his MBA. What they taught him seemed to be applicable to running a division of a large company; it seemed anywhere between irrelevant and outright wrong when applied to a software startup. Maybe the efforts of people like Peter Thiel and Steve Blank will help get out the word that managing a startup requires a very different skill set. In general, it's my observation that different kinds of businesses need to be managed very differently. While there probably are some general principles, I have the impression that business schools underemphasize the variety that's out there, and the importance of understanding the business before trying to manage it.