Lies of B-School

Most of the author's points have some merit. However, just to balance the argument out a bit, here are a few truths of the MBA:

1. If you want to become a Goldman (or similar caliber) I-banker or work at a top flight consulting firm, a top MBA is the way to go.

Yes there are other ways to get these jobs, but the recruiting processes for these firms are highly targeted and organized when it comes to hiring people from prestigious MBA programs. It truly is the path of least resistance. And if you truly set your mind to becoming employed by one of these firms, you can likely attain it once admitted to a top business school. We can argue the merits of joining one of these companies, but that's another argument entirely.

2. If you go work at said type of firm, your employment options thereafter are wide open.

I don't have statistics to back this up, but having worked in corporate for a healthy portion of my career, Goldman and McKinsey candidates were often ear-marked for positions that they applied for.

3. The MBA is good for "career changers".

Assuming you want to go the corporate route, an MBA is a very versatile degree. If from a top school, it practically forgives whatever you were doing before the MBA and enables you to transition into something largely unrelated if that's your wish. You need to do a whole lot of networking and build your story to make this happen, but with two years to do so, there's plenty of time. And the fact of the matter is that, regardless of how you regard MBAS, plenty of highly regarded corporates (including Google!) formally plug into the recruiting process at top schools.

EDIT: I understand many of the arguments above may not apply to the HN community as it skews entrepreneurial and perhaps academic, but I believe they have merit nonetheless.

Let me be a data point. I have a BSc in Comp Sci, run my own company(ies), and did my MBA at a "good" school (Schulich School of Business). Here's, in my opinion, THE best takeaway a technically minded person gets from an MBA: there are people in this world who don't think like you, don't solve problems like you, and don't have the same interests, but you're often working shoulder to shoulder with them so best you learn how to deal with them.

MBA projects are more often than not group work and in your group you'll have a marketing person, a financial expert, an electrical engineer, and maybe a teacher who wants to change careers. It's like herding cats sometimes to get people on the same page, not because they're dumber or slower than you, the Python wiz, but because they're used to solving problems differently.

For me, this was the best part of my MBA. I really improved my sensitivity to others' understanding of issues and became more "personable".

I think we need a case study on the core competencies of the author's point structure. Maybe we can re-org. Big value-add there.

>However, you have to realize that if you’re getting an Ivy League MBA, you’re probably 10x more susceptible to the previous 9 lies than other MBAs. Don’t let yourself be the next Jeff Skilling, the smart Harvard MBA, who worked at McKinsey and then went to Enron and drove the company off a cliff. He had a golden resume – and where did it get him?

Is this really the kind of reasoning they teach in business school?

I dunno if MBAs can be so high about themselves, but I will start giving even less credit them now.

Missing from the list "9 pregnant women in a room for 1 month will produce a baby"

I'm genuinely considering business school because I feel like the "jack of all trades" type and generally the type who encourages others to do their best work, builds bridges, helps facilitate collaboration etc.

I do wonder if the B-school route is just the cop-out for me because it plays to my existing strengths, and let's me boost the resume without being on the corporate treadmill for a few years.

Would love to hear from others who've got MBAs on here. The coding community is generally negative about MBAs, but does anyone on here have any advise?

Are technology-management-focused MBA programs ever any different?

Those are not 'lies of' business schools. Those are false beliefs about business schools, which is different.

The strange thing about MBA's is not the fallacies but the currently attached value to the MBA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value

> You’ve probably worked at companies were people who’ve been there for 2 decades ...

11. You know how to proofread.

You need MBA to prevail in globalization.