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All great reasons, but there's one I would add as an MBA: Learning to program makes you a better business person. How? Made to Stick has a great story about a

All great reasons, but there's one I would add as an MBA: Learning to program makes you a better business person. How? Made to Stick has a great story about a math teacher who struggled to convince his students of math's importance in life. As he put it, math is like weight lifting. You don't work out to prepare for the day a rogue barbell comes and traps you on the ground, you work out so you can run faster, tackle harder, and jump higher. Math is weight lifting for your analytic mind - it helps you rationally think through problems and establish logical steps to the solution. Learning to program, and to take it further, learning computer science, is not about making the best app ever created. CS is mental weight lifting on the _process_ of tackling business problems. Dissecting an app into its MVC components will help you understand the business you plan to create, what is core, and what is fluff. In other words, learning to program will make you a better business person, even if you suck.

edcastano 15y ago
Absolutely Ryan. Thanks for your sharing your thoughts with me. I also see other parallels between building great software and building a great business. For one, focus is important for scaling both. You don't want to be all things to all people. In addition, whether you're bug tracking or solving business problems, it's important to get to the root cause. Full disclosure: I used to be a management consultant. Finally, it takes a great team to build great software and a great company. I'm sure there are many others. Would love to hear what others here come up with.
gbeeson 15y ago
Very well put and I certainly agree. This thought process can also lead to far more realistic goal planning for all walks of life (you give a great example about weight lifting). Learning just to learn is admirable in and of itself but perhaps not as realistic than learning for a specific need that can be enumerated.

edcastano 15y ago

Absolutely Ryan. Thanks for your sharing your thoughts with me. I also see other parallels between building great software and building a great business. For one, focus is important for scaling both. You don't want to be all things to all people. In addition, whether you're bug tracking or solving business problems, it's important to get to the root cause. Full disclosure: I used to be a management consultant. Finally, it takes a great team to build great software and a great company. I'm sure there are many others. Would love to hear what others here come up with.

gbeeson 15y ago

Very well put and I certainly agree. This thought process can also lead to far more realistic goal planning for all walks of life (you give a great example about weight lifting). Learning just to learn is admirable in and of itself but perhaps not as realistic than learning for a specific need that can be enumerated.