Oh really, what did the MBA teach you? What tools are useful in your arsenal of building a great business and product?
- public speaking because we had to do a presentation just about every other week
- how business people with little or no technology experience think and their perceptions about technology
- how to talk to the people in the above bullet about technology
- firing people because one of my groups had a member that was not pulling her own weight, and we were told to fire her from the group
I also agree that the branding aspect is also (somehow) helpful. I recently moved from Florida to SF and when I was looking for jobs you wouldn't believe how many people were really excited/impressed/whatever that I had an MBA in addition to being able to answer the tough software questions.
If I had a choice to go back and either spend $50k on an MBA or spend it traveling the world, I would definitely choose the latter, though.
I don't regret the choice, but I think an MBA from a top school can expose you to more complex and big $$$ business environments than you're likely to discover on your own as an outsider without much experience.
- quantitative marketing models (useful in forecasting + modeling)
- market research techniques (probably the most valuable skill to building products)
- VC from two internships @ early stage funds (useful in understanding how VC's think)
- negotiations
- entrepreneurship classes on opportunity analysis, fundraising, and valuation (useful in helping to avoid solving the wrong problems; articulating the business to investors; building with the end/exit in mind)