I thought I owe a more detailed explanation about my insignificant MBA. Back in 1986, I decided that it wasn’t enough to have an undergraduate degree (Math/Computer Science). Not wanting to deal with the school of Mathematics anymore, I opted for a business degree to “open new horizons” (…and not be quite as academically challenging as another exact science). Back then, there was no executive MBA program. Classes were taught in the middle of the day, totally ignoring the fact that 99% of the students had full-time jobs. In fact, there was really nothing that took this into consideration; the administration of the school felt that working students were an annoyance, and treated us as such.
Now, let’s talk “form vs. substance”. The “form” was a disaster. It took me 3.5 years to complete the degree. I definitely earned points for perseverance…. by the time I was done, I had sworn never to set foot into a University again!
But was it worth it? Let’s talk “substance”. Business school was described to me by an HBS graduate, as similar to plumbing school. You’re taught the tools, and the talk, required to be a plumber - or rather investment banker, consultant, etc.
In my case, post-MBA, I joined Mercury as the first marketeer; there was nothing that I learned during my studies that was of any relevance whatsoever. I learned from doing and watching my boss, my peers, my competitors and customers. In school, we never learned about product marketing, product launch, market penetration, pricing for a non-existent market, financing for start-ups, venture capital, etc, etc.. I did learn how to balance a balance sheet (although was never quite good at it), how to do all sorts of statistics, game theory, HR fundamentals, economics, manufacturing, some advertising, etc., etc. Great for the horizon opening exercise, but useless for the business world in which I found myself.
Then 5 years later, when I joined Gemini as a venture capitalist, and was given the task of looking at the P&L of a company, I had no idea what I was doing (didn’t have a clue what was a gross margin, nor operating margins). Mind you, I did very well on the exams during my MBA studies, but they had no context to my real world out there.
My conclusion: my Tel Aviv University MBA was a waste of time, and not enjoyable either. That does not mean that all MBA’s are like that. The main advantage in obtaining a good MBA, goes to the network that you build, and I am sure that at Stanford, Harvard and INSEAD, the relevancy of what you learn, has higher correlation to the real world. In retrospect, I made a poor choice. I would certainly recommend MBA studies - but pick the institution according to career goals, and not what’s most accessible.
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