3 ms·

Hi Sama, You have a CS degree from Stanford and you're now running YC. Do you wish you had a MBA or management degree or some sort? How did you learn about man

• sama 12y ago
  No, I don't (I don't have a CS degree either--I dropped out after two years). I'm skeptical about how much one actually learns in business school, and I think it's a bad investment of time and money. I think management is one of those things where you learn much more by actually doing it. That said, I don't manage much at YC. Part of what being a partner means is that you're at the point in your career where you don't need a manager.
  • dragonwriter 12y ago
    > I'm skeptical about how much one actually learns in business school, and I think it's a bad investment of time and money. From what I've seen (and I haven't myself gone to B school), I think the people who seem to get the most (in terms of apparent skill improvement) out of B school are the ones that do it while working in management; I think that the combination of theory and practice is probably valuable. OTOH, a major purpose of B school (and this is true of many other areas of formal education) is credentialing, networking, and social signaling, which can be important to success independent of (even if it is taken by others as a sign of) actual skill development. So, it may be a mistake to assess the value to the student as simply being about what one actually learns.