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I have an undergrad finance degree + finance career. I also run a website I built my self as a side project (see profile if curious). For a while after learnin

I have an undergrad finance degree + finance career. I also run a website I built my self as a side project (see profile if curious). For a while after learning to code, I thought my business degree was useless. My coding skills felt so empowering compared to my finance/business skills. I can create with coding... learn and do. A car mechanics certificate felt more useful than a business degree. Over this period of introspection, I started paying attention to whenever my business/finance knowledge was actually useful. I very quickly realized that very smart people often have very little knowledge of finance and business. Business knowledge that I assumed as common sense (due to being surrounded by other finance people) is completely enlightening to others. With a business degree you learn how the world works, which is very important to anyone who wants to be entrepreneurial.

sjg007 8y ago
So how does the world work then?
fermienrico 8y ago
“Very smart people often have very little knowledge of finance and business.” This I found to be a glib generalization. What is so intrinsic about business knowledge that cannot be learned through studying and experience? Say compared to learning how compilers work and building one?
- canadapups 8y ago
  I never said it can't be learnt. Business knowledge can be learnt through study and experience. For example, taking a MBA degree is one way. Many people who spent lots of time learning and building compilers haven't put the time to study or have the experience in business... which can make a MBA degree useful for them.
  - fermienrico 8y ago
    Then I think it has nothing to do with being “Smart”. I could say the same thing about business people - they have no idea how to write a compiler. I’m simply alluding to your statement that refers to “smart people” and their lack of business knowledge.
    - spyhi 8y ago
      I think you're misunderstanding what he's trying to say. He's not saying that knowing finance has anything to do with being smart--if anything, it's the opposite: Of the people he considers smart, he noticed knowledge of finance isn't widespread. Perhaps the average smart person doesn't find the problem interesting enough. For what it's worth, I was one of those people. I didn't go for my undergrad until 8 years into my adult life (I'm a veteran), but I had done extensive reading about business to the point that most of my BBA (which I was taking as a bonus alongside CS) felt like review. Except for finance. I knew the basics, but even undergrad courses revealed that my knowledge was very shallow. I think it's just something that people don't expect to have that much complexity. I wouldn't have thought to learn it if I hadn't been forced to take it in school, but I took as many finance courses as I could once I realized the knowledge deficit. Is finance hard? The sophisticated stuff can be, but generally in comparison to engineering it's not. But nonetheless, nearly none of the computer scientists in my class or in my professional circles have bothered to learn...probably because they're more interested in compilers ;)
      - fermienrico 8y ago
        Quoting "I very quickly realized that very smart people often have very little knowledge of finance and business." Can you defend this statement? I don't think I am misunderstanding what he is trying to say. This statement makes no sense to me.
        spyhi 8y ago
        I'm not sure what you're trying to get at...are you trying to say business people are smarter than OP gives them credit for? "I very quickly realized that" <- Implying a prior assumption that was proven false "very smart people" <- The set of very smart people OP has met, which hinges on perspective "often" <- The key phrase here, implying that it is generally (but not always) true "have very little knowledge of finance and business." <- The assumption at hand I'm assuming OP thinks of STEM people as the definition of "very smart," based on his description of his degree, and his feelings about coding. OP may have assumed that since his knowledge is comparatively trivial for STEM people to learn, the knowledge might be widespread among what he thinks of as smart people, and was surprised when this valuable knowledge wasn't. In my experience, the average kind of person I'm assuming OP would consider "very smart" is either averse to business, or didn't bother learning business because it took time away from the hard problems they were more interested in, even though they easily could have. More generally, the total set of obviously and profoundly smart people is bound to be (much) bigger than the set of obviously and profoundly intelligent people with knowledge of finance. Are there smart business people? Absolutely. But it's probably a small percentage when compared with the total set of Very Smart People. Also, at least in my school, the smartest people tend to go into harder disciplines, so that may further dilute the numbers of finance knowledge among the pool of Very Smart People. So, there are multiple ways OP's statement can be true without being specifically about the capacity of intelligent people to learn finance through study or experience.
sp527 8y ago
The insinuation that the valuable aspects of a business education can't be picked up by a reasonably smart and motivated person is pure hoohah. For instance, I'm willing to bet the information in a combination of 'Lean Analytics' and 'High Output Management' would exceed the value of an entire MBA curriculum (which is anyway mostly focused on dealing with big company problems). The network is harder to replicate, but again not impossible. Someone who feels motivated to figure it out can do so.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  I don't think there's any insinuation. > For instance, I'm willing to bet the information in a combination of 'Lean Analytics' and 'High Output Management' would exceed the value of an entire MBA curriculum (which is anyway mostly focused on dealing with big company problems). That's a common cliché, but it's only partly true. There are problems that only occur at large scale (complex mergers, fancy legal structures, sophisticated financing). But the fundamental problems are all the same at every size. You need to manage cashflow, you need customers to become aware of the product or service and buy it, you need to be able to do things at a lower cost than your selling price, you need to keep proper records, pay wages, pay taxes, pay debts, manage inventory. These are universal problems of business. A whale has problems that a dolphin does not. But they both breathe, both pump blood, both eat and digest and move of their own volition. I feel there's often value in humbling yourself before another profession and seeing what you can learn.
  - sp527 8y ago
    > You need to manage cashflow, you need customers to become aware of the product or service and buy it, you need to be able to do things at a lower cost than your selling price, you need to keep proper records, pay wages, pay taxes, pay debts, manage inventory. Half these things take under a few days to learn sufficiently for any business with ARR under ~$1M. And you can anyway hire people to fill in the gaps in your own knowledge for basically peanuts. And there's no MBA program that will teach you strategies that are especially useful in reaching customers - if there was a professor who really could teach that, (s)he'd be monetizing that skillset instead. All this depends on your goals. I want to make that very clear. There is almost no value to an MBA for someone intending to build something from the ground up. There is potentially tremendous value for someone looking to have a career in business at larger companies.

sjg007 8y ago

So how does the world work then?

fermienrico 8y ago

“Very smart people often have very little knowledge of finance and business.” This I found to be a glib generalization. What is so intrinsic about business knowledge that cannot be learned through studying and experience? Say compared to learning how compilers work and building one?

canadapups 8y ago
I never said it can't be learnt. Business knowledge can be learnt through study and experience. For example, taking a MBA degree is one way. Many people who spent lots of time learning and building compilers haven't put the time to study or have the experience in business... which can make a MBA degree useful for them.
- fermienrico 8y ago
  Then I think it has nothing to do with being “Smart”. I could say the same thing about business people - they have no idea how to write a compiler. I’m simply alluding to your statement that refers to “smart people” and their lack of business knowledge.
  - spyhi 8y ago
    I think you're misunderstanding what he's trying to say. He's not saying that knowing finance has anything to do with being smart--if anything, it's the opposite: Of the people he considers smart, he noticed knowledge of finance isn't widespread. Perhaps the average smart person doesn't find the problem interesting enough. For what it's worth, I was one of those people. I didn't go for my undergrad until 8 years into my adult life (I'm a veteran), but I had done extensive reading about business to the point that most of my BBA (which I was taking as a bonus alongside CS) felt like review. Except for finance. I knew the basics, but even undergrad courses revealed that my knowledge was very shallow. I think it's just something that people don't expect to have that much complexity. I wouldn't have thought to learn it if I hadn't been forced to take it in school, but I took as many finance courses as I could once I realized the knowledge deficit. Is finance hard? The sophisticated stuff can be, but generally in comparison to engineering it's not. But nonetheless, nearly none of the computer scientists in my class or in my professional circles have bothered to learn...probably because they're more interested in compilers ;)
    - fermienrico 8y ago
      Quoting "I very quickly realized that very smart people often have very little knowledge of finance and business." Can you defend this statement? I don't think I am misunderstanding what he is trying to say. This statement makes no sense to me.
      - spyhi 8y ago
        I'm not sure what you're trying to get at...are you trying to say business people are smarter than OP gives them credit for? "I very quickly realized that" <- Implying a prior assumption that was proven false "very smart people" <- The set of very smart people OP has met, which hinges on perspective "often" <- The key phrase here, implying that it is generally (but not always) true "have very little knowledge of finance and business." <- The assumption at hand I'm assuming OP thinks of STEM people as the definition of "very smart," based on his description of his degree, and his feelings about coding. OP may have assumed that since his knowledge is comparatively trivial for STEM people to learn, the knowledge might be widespread among what he thinks of as smart people, and was surprised when this valuable knowledge wasn't. In my experience, the average kind of person I'm assuming OP would consider "very smart" is either averse to business, or didn't bother learning business because it took time away from the hard problems they were more interested in, even though they easily could have. More generally, the total set of obviously and profoundly smart people is bound to be (much) bigger than the set of obviously and profoundly intelligent people with knowledge of finance. Are there smart business people? Absolutely. But it's probably a small percentage when compared with the total set of Very Smart People. Also, at least in my school, the smartest people tend to go into harder disciplines, so that may further dilute the numbers of finance knowledge among the pool of Very Smart People. So, there are multiple ways OP's statement can be true without being specifically about the capacity of intelligent people to learn finance through study or experience.

sp527 8y ago

The insinuation that the valuable aspects of a business education can't be picked up by a reasonably smart and motivated person is pure hoohah. For instance, I'm willing to bet the information in a combination of 'Lean Analytics' and 'High Output Management' would exceed the value of an entire MBA curriculum (which is anyway mostly focused on dealing with big company problems). The network is harder to replicate, but again not impossible. Someone who feels motivated to figure it out can do so.

jacques_chester 8y ago
I don't think there's any insinuation. > For instance, I'm willing to bet the information in a combination of 'Lean Analytics' and 'High Output Management' would exceed the value of an entire MBA curriculum (which is anyway mostly focused on dealing with big company problems). That's a common cliché, but it's only partly true. There are problems that only occur at large scale (complex mergers, fancy legal structures, sophisticated financing). But the fundamental problems are all the same at every size. You need to manage cashflow, you need customers to become aware of the product or service and buy it, you need to be able to do things at a lower cost than your selling price, you need to keep proper records, pay wages, pay taxes, pay debts, manage inventory. These are universal problems of business. A whale has problems that a dolphin does not. But they both breathe, both pump blood, both eat and digest and move of their own volition. I feel there's often value in humbling yourself before another profession and seeing what you can learn.
- sp527 8y ago
  > You need to manage cashflow, you need customers to become aware of the product or service and buy it, you need to be able to do things at a lower cost than your selling price, you need to keep proper records, pay wages, pay taxes, pay debts, manage inventory. Half these things take under a few days to learn sufficiently for any business with ARR under ~$1M. And you can anyway hire people to fill in the gaps in your own knowledge for basically peanuts. And there's no MBA program that will teach you strategies that are especially useful in reaching customers - if there was a professor who really could teach that, (s)he'd be monetizing that skillset instead. All this depends on your goals. I want to make that very clear. There is almost no value to an MBA for someone intending to build something from the ground up. There is potentially tremendous value for someone looking to have a career in business at larger companies.