Some MBA programs do -- most, even. But more and more programs are focusing on entrepreneurship.
I think it is pretty obvious that having an MBA is useful if you're going to do a startup. Is getting an MBA more useful than spending the time/money on something else? Perhaps, perhaps not -- depending on the person involved, the skills of their cofounders, the type of the business, and so on.
Almost all investors are looking for founders who match past stars. So what they're looking for at this point is hackers.
I have to say I agree with them. I can't imagine Bill Gates or Larry & Sergey enduring B School.
For a small percentage of startups, that might be true, but I think it is far from true for most startups. Consider the 1-year "mini-MBA" at Duke that Wadhwa mentions, which covers "marketing, finance, intellectual property and business law, and management." You would really suggest that this training offers nothing of value?
Again, there might be more efficient ways to spend your time/money, but for the vast majority of startups, that is a very useful skillset to have, particularly if it complements technical knowledge.
Maybe that knowledge isn't useful if the founder is content to handle only technical stuff, the startup remains small, and the company doesn't have any paying customers. Seems like a pretty big limitation to me though.
Pretty much. Early stage startups don't need to know anything about finance, business law, and management. All they need to know about IP I can tell them in 5 minutes. As for marketing, it depends what the schools teach, but startup marketing is so unusual and varies so much depending on the product that I would be very surprised if a B school class had anything useful to say about it.
Do you think that the majority of investments you make (which likely aren't going to be the next microsoft or google) could be better done with an MBA on the team? Has this really been even tried in the startup world since the dotcom bust? I am not saying the way you in vest in founders is wrong by any means, but could VC's be missing out do to a bias of trying to find the next microsoft when in reality they know the company they are looking at is likely only acquisition bait?
I don't think the majority of companies we fund would be better off if some of the founders had MBAs, no. It would at best not be harmful. What makes startups succeed, at our stage, is building products users like, and I have seen no evidence that an MBA gives you any advantage there. In fact I've probably seen evidence to the contrary.