Intro to Entre
A recent meeting of techies and entrepreneurs in early November rekindled an increasingly heated debate just in time for the holidays. The big question asked seemed simple enough: “Do tech start-ups need an MBA?” Most of the start-up participants at Harvard Business School’s Cyberposium 18 had a decidedly tepid response to the query.
The heated aspect comes from the seemingly defensive MBA attendees and current business school students, professors and graduates who read of the meeting soon afterward. After years of validation in the form of significant salary increases to reward their advance from a bachelor’s degree in business, they seem stunned that their own presumed indispensable and crucial contributions to any business venture seemed, well, superfluous. As Barb Darrow, a reporter for GigaOm.com, wrote, she was “struck by the concern [MBA] attendees seemed to feel about what their advanced degree will mean in a tough economy and in a tech business that elevates technical prowess above everything else.”
Welcome to the Real World
Darrow’s remark is hugely significant to the extent that it exposes the complete lack of comprehension some MBAs have that their own profession might, in fact, be subject to the some of the same rules that govern other professions. “Struck by the concern … about what their advanced degree will mean in a tough economy?” How can the graduate of any business school awarded with a master’s degree be stunned that his degree is not a guarantee of employment and might be subject to the same cruel economics that have hurt other workers? “Struck by the concern … about what their advanced degree will mean … in a … business that elevates technical prowess above everything else?” What? Business school graduates are further surprised that their diploma doesn’t excuse the inability to do a job?
In prose that belies her own surprise that MBAs are not necessarily required for one to chew gum and walk at the same time, Darrow added, “One Cyberposium panelist basically told MBA candidates interested in big data opportunities that they need not apply unless they also had technical chops. I’m simplifying here, but that was the gist.” One can almost feel the fans fluttering furiously as the belles sit and gossip on one of the side porches of Tara. Darrow doesn’t mention it, but it seems that grief counselors may have been necessary for some of the MBA attendees after the Cyberposium was completed.
Mortality Revealed, MBAs Mortified
In January of this year, J.J. Colao, a contributor for Forbes.com, wrote an article that in hindsight may have been the beginning of this massive MBA pout. “Eight Reasons Start-Up Incubators Are Better than Business School” raised some hackles when he proclaimed that entrepreneurship couldn’t be taught. Arguments about that comment were still being raised in Darrow’s article responses 11 months later. Unlike what you’d think from the outcry, no one is calling for MBAs to be burned at the stake. Nor has anyone publically denounced his or her services as worthless. But that’s almost how that coalition seemed to take Dropbox founder Drew Houston’s response to a Cyberposium question as to what “he wanted in an MBA he said … um pretty much the same thing he seeks in any hire.”
There. It’s official. MBAs are still mere mortals.
Opportunity Abounds
For readers who have the “technical chops” as one cyber entrepreneur requires, this news means there are tremendous opportunities out there for people willing to work very hard on very challenging projects that use new technology. The field is wide open to you if you have the experience, education and enthusiasm these CEOs in sweatshirts are seeking. No one will be hired instead of you just because they have an MBA. For those of you who do have MBAs, congratulations. Now learn to do the jobs these cyber CEOs need people to do and you’re hired. But not for your paper—for your ability.
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