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I recently finished an executive MBA at a top European B-school. To echo some of the comments, it was overall way easier than my initial studies (eng school), w

I recently finished an executive MBA at a top European B-school. To echo some of the comments, it was overall way easier than my initial studies (eng school), with some exceptions such as a brutal strategy assignment. There was also a sense of entitlement from some of the participants, especially those who were financed by their company. “Entertain me and give me my diploma” so to speak. On the other hand, due to the executive nature of the program (average age was something like 38-39) the classes were much more nuanced, especially on topics such as HR, management and so forth - when everyone in the room has some degree of managerial experience and a few war stories to share there’s much less room for indoctrination. This was also due to European culture, which is a big part of the school’s DNA and reinforced by the mostly European cohort. I did learn a lot of stuff; what will stay with me the most is what I learned about myself, through introspective assignments and interacting with other students, most of whom had very different backgrounds. But I would never have been able to do this had I taken the program as an undergrad or right after eng school. It’s true that you can’t teach common sense, you must learn it through practice. However having the opportunity to reflect on that practice, formalizing it and sharing it with likeminded persons was tremendously helpful. EDIT: to constrast my experience with the content of TFA, I crossed a few MBA students in NY during a seminar. The discussion went something like this: Me: so what business do you guys want to work in after graduating? One of them: real estate! Me: cool, any particular reason why? Him: to make lots of money and retire early! (Rest of the group nod in agremeent) Me: ... This was in 2017 and I assume they had at least heard of the subprime crisis.

factsaresacred 8y ago
> This was in 2017 and I assume they had at least heard of the subprime crisis Brings to mind this from Peter Thiel (exclude the length): Q. You’ve written that you doubt the efficacy of MBA programs to prepare future business leaders. What would an effective MBA program look like? A. The question is, what substance of business are you focused on? The conceit of the MBA is that you don’t need to have any substance at all. It’s just this management science, and you can apply that equally well in a software company or an oil drilling company or a fashion company or a rocket company. That’s the bias I’d want us to cut against. So for the degree, people would learn substantive things and then on the side you’d pick up some business skills. But you wouldn’t treat the business degree as the central thing. I think one challenge a lot of the business schools have is they end up attracting students who are very extroverted and have very low conviction, and they put them in this hot house environment for a few years — at the end of which, a large number of people go into whatever was the last trendy thing to do. They’ve done studies at Harvard Business School where they’ve found that the largest cohort always went into the wrong field. So in 1989, they all went to work for Michael Milken, a year or two before he went to jail. They were never interested in Silicon Valley except for 1999, 2000. The last decade their interest was housing and private equity. So there is something about the way in which business school is decoupled from anything really substantive that I’d want to rethink. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/10/10/peter-thiel-on-what-works-at-work https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/10...
- purplezooey 8y ago
  And we should listen to Peter Thiel because....
  - theyinwhy 8y ago
    ... the downvotes say so. I am wondering about the same. Peter Thiel does not seem to be someone the world should listen to. His politics are anti-human I would say. And yes, by being as influentual as he is I think we can and should talk about his politics here. I am still trying to figure out how two such different world-views like thiel and musk were able to work together.
    - jaredklewis 8y ago
      Just because someone has bad ideas (or ideas you disagree with) in one area, why would that mean all their ideas are bad? To take an extreme example, Bobby Fischer is easily in the running for best chess player of all time. He was also an anti-semite. Does that somehow make his chess less good? Should we ignore that he was an anti-Semite? No! But should we cut all his games from chess books because of it? Indeed, if you read many biographies one might quickly reach the conclusion that many of the world’s most accomplished men and women are also among its most flawed. Science, literature, and art would be set make many centuries if we had to discard all the work of those not meeting modern standards of decency. To be clear, I don’t think Thiel is anywhere near as extreme a case as Fischer. I disagree with his politics (just the ordinary libertarian Baloney), but I think he is right on this point. My advice to you would be to learn to separate ideas from the people that originate them, or you’ll miss out on so much great thought.
      - theyinwhy 8y ago
        Why promote a chess player who is anti semite if you could promote another one who is not?
        briandear 8y ago
wpietri 8y ago
I know somebody who studied aerospace engineering and then went to business school later. He also thought it surprisingly easy, saying that he only learned one thing that he couldn't have easily figured out on his own: the principle of comparative advantage. [1] He said for him the main benefit was building a good set of connections. [1] It's indeed tricky, and important. Without it trade makes little sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
- camelite 8y ago
  That's unfortunate[1]. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/08/ricardos-vice-virtues-industrial-diversity/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/08/ricardos-vice-vir...

factsaresacred 8y ago

> This was in 2017 and I assume they had at least heard of the subprime crisis Brings to mind this from Peter Thiel (exclude the length): Q. You’ve written that you doubt the efficacy of MBA programs to prepare future business leaders. What would an effective MBA program look like? A. The question is, what substance of business are you focused on? The conceit of the MBA is that you don’t need to have any substance at all. It’s just this management science, and you can apply that equally well in a software company or an oil drilling company or a fashion company or a rocket company. That’s the bias I’d want us to cut against. So for the degree, people would learn substantive things and then on the side you’d pick up some business skills. But you wouldn’t treat the business degree as the central thing. I think one challenge a lot of the business schools have is they end up attracting students who are very extroverted and have very low conviction, and they put them in this hot house environment for a few years — at the end of which, a large number of people go into whatever was the last trendy thing to do. They’ve done studies at Harvard Business School where they’ve found that the largest cohort always went into the wrong field. So in 1989, they all went to work for Michael Milken, a year or two before he went to jail. They were never interested in Silicon Valley except for 1999, 2000. The last decade their interest was housing and private equity. So there is something about the way in which business school is decoupled from anything really substantive that I’d want to rethink. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/10/10/peter-thiel-on-what-works-at-work https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/10...

purplezooey 8y ago
And we should listen to Peter Thiel because....
- theyinwhy 8y ago
  ... the downvotes say so. I am wondering about the same. Peter Thiel does not seem to be someone the world should listen to. His politics are anti-human I would say. And yes, by being as influentual as he is I think we can and should talk about his politics here. I am still trying to figure out how two such different world-views like thiel and musk were able to work together.
  - jaredklewis 8y ago
    Just because someone has bad ideas (or ideas you disagree with) in one area, why would that mean all their ideas are bad? To take an extreme example, Bobby Fischer is easily in the running for best chess player of all time. He was also an anti-semite. Does that somehow make his chess less good? Should we ignore that he was an anti-Semite? No! But should we cut all his games from chess books because of it? Indeed, if you read many biographies one might quickly reach the conclusion that many of the world’s most accomplished men and women are also among its most flawed. Science, literature, and art would be set make many centuries if we had to discard all the work of those not meeting modern standards of decency. To be clear, I don’t think Thiel is anywhere near as extreme a case as Fischer. I disagree with his politics (just the ordinary libertarian Baloney), but I think he is right on this point. My advice to you would be to learn to separate ideas from the people that originate them, or you’ll miss out on so much great thought.
    - theyinwhy 8y ago
      Why promote a chess player who is anti semite if you could promote another one who is not?
      - briandear 8y ago

wpietri 8y ago

I know somebody who studied aerospace engineering and then went to business school later. He also thought it surprisingly easy, saying that he only learned one thing that he couldn't have easily figured out on his own: the principle of comparative advantage. [1] He said for him the main benefit was building a good set of connections. [1] It's indeed tricky, and important. Without it trade makes little sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

camelite 8y ago
That's unfortunate[1]. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/08/ricardos-vice-virtues-industrial-diversity/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/08/ricardos-vice-vir...