The Five Things I Learned In Business School

I’ve come to realize that a lot of young people who are just starting out in the business world and have an interest in venture capital read this blog. I love that this blog can be a place where they can learn something.

I also realize that many of them struggle with the choice about whether to get an MBA or not.

I think MBAs are worth getting if you want to make a serious career change or need to take a couple years to figure out what you want to do with your business career.  However, if you are sure about what you want to do and are on a track that can get you there, I think MBAs are less useful.

I went to business school because I wanted to be a VC when I got out of college and everywhere I asked, I was told that I needed an MBA.  So I went and got one. I went to Wharton which is one of the top schools and I had a good experience there.

But it wasn’t like MIT, where I attended undergraduate.  At MIT, I learned so much that I could never blog all of it.

I learned five things in business school.  They are five important things, but there are only five that I can list.

I told them to Charlie a couple weeks ago and he seemed to get something out of hearing the list so I figure others might as well.

Here they are in no particular order:

1 – A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. I knew about interest rates and such before I went to business school, but the concept of the time value of money and present values were foriegn to me until I got my MBA.

2 – You will make more money if you take more risk.   I did not understand that there was an explicit relationship between risk taking and expected return before I went to business school.  I do now