To MBA or not to MBA
I ran across a great article in the Economist today regarding the value of an MBA:
http://www.economist.com/whichmba/think-twiceI couldn't agree more. Despite having an MBA from a top school, I've never felt that any of my jobs post-MBA benefited from the degree. This is particularly true in my case, as I already had many years of experience at Microsoft before my MBA and returned to work in Internet / tech companies post MBA. Had I made a complete career change such as going into banking, perhaps the MBA would have opened more doors for me. As such, I only leveraged my pre-MBA experience and my own professional network in getting all my post-MBA jobs.
http://www.economist.com/whichmba/think-twiceI couldn't agree more. Despite having an MBA from a top school, I've never felt that any of my jobs post-MBA benefited from the degree. This is particularly true in my case, as I already had many years of experience at Microsoft before my MBA and returned to work in Internet / tech companies post MBA. Had I made a complete career change such as going into banking, perhaps the MBA would have opened more doors for me. As such, I only leveraged my pre-MBA experience and my own professional network in getting all my post-MBA jobs.
Rather, I would even go so far as saying that the 2 years I lost to my MBA (in time more than in money) were significantly *detrimental* to my career. This is probably true for anyone who plans to work in web companies post MBA. Things move very fast in the valley. Not just companies but entire industries come and go faster than it takes Harvard to write cases about them. To name a few: YouTube / Flickr and the user-gen content phenomenon of web 2.0, Apple app store ecosystem, the gaming revolution - mobile and social games, Twitter and its ecosystem. By the time (if ever) any of these companies or industries get written into business school cases, they will already be irrelevant.
My advice to anyone considering an MBA is to do it if you want to make a major career change, or have no intention of working in or starting your own venture in tech / internet. From what I've seen, not only does the valley not reward an MBA, it may actually penalize it.
