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Comment by n3on_net | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if she would still become COO of Facebook without Harvard MBA and all the oportunities resulted from it.

MBA is probably really not necessary, but if you have the oportunity to do one on a top school, it may open some doors and expand your network. At least it has no negative effects (if you can efford it).

Especially if you have technical background and want to move to management position. It simply diversifies your background and strengthens signaling.

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> At least it has no negative effects...

That's debatable. https://www.quora.com/Why-are-MBAs-looked-down-upon-in-Silic...

> At least it has no negative effects

It has opportunity costs though. Assuming that MBA is indeed useless, she would have achieved greater things in lesser time had she spent the time on something more meaningful than pursuing the MBA.

Well, on the other hand, there are a lot of people who haven't paid that opportunity cost, but they aren't the COO of Facebook...

Yes, but there is only one COO of Facebook, so let's not make any statistical conclusions.

But are statistical conclusions really necessary? Or the only conclusions that matter?

I look at it from a market perspective: she had to compete with a lot of people for that position. If an MBA was a disadvantage, would she win that position?

Of course, there are many factors for why she got her position. But I doubt that she strictly speaking knows which of them contributed and which of them didn't.

    > But are statistical conclusions really necessary? Or the
    > only conclusions that matter?

They are in the sense that without any further information, let's make other claims:

  - Would she really be the COO of Facebook if she wasn't a woman?  
  - Would she really be the COO of Facebook if she wasn't an Harvard alumna?  
  - Would she really be the COO of Facebook if she wasn't Jewish?  
  .  
  .  
  .

    > there are many factors for why she got her position. But
    > I doubt that she strictly speaking knows which of them
    > contributed

Precisely; nor do we. There seems little point speculating. (However something statistical like 'x% tech COOs have an MBA' would be more interesting).

The issue with pointing to things like "the Harvard MBA" is that people who are selected into top tier programs are likely to have done just fine on their own anyway... so it's really hard to say that the MBA is why she was successful. I think she was successful because of qualities she already had, not something she learned in business school.

I think the implication may have been that the "Harvard MBA" credentials - not necessarily training - may have been instrumental in her career path. Degrees are filtering mechanisms, and while it may be true that an MBA isn't needed to succeed once you're in the door, it may be harder to get your foot in there in the first place without them.

The assumption underlying your point is that Harvard does a good job selecting people who have the qualities to be successful and would be successful anyway. That's probably true. But the catch is that lots of employers make the same assumption, and use the Harvard credential to screen the candidate pool. Which makes total sense if the assumption is true, but also makes it risky to forgo the credential on the reasoning that if you are smart enough to get into Harvard, you'll be successful anyway.

Just make sure you went to an elite school, preferably Stanford or MIT.

Yes, someone saying something is unnecessary in a given context, while they possess that thing, which may or may not have helped them getting where they are in that very context causes some cognitive dissonance.

I actually agree with her, however, I wonder whether she'd be where she is how having had listened to her own advice.

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