Biggest Surprises & Regrets Of MBAs
Maria |
September 19, 2024

In this episode of Business Casual, the hosts delve into essential insights from Poets and Quants‘ annual surveys, gathering reflections from recent graduates and incoming students of top MBA programs globally. They discuss common surprises and regrets, highlighting the importance of setting clear goals and prioritizing effectively amid the rigorous demands of academic, professional, and social commitments.

Emphasizing the value of fully leveraging the MBA experience, the hosts offer strategies for engaging deeply in academics, diverse interests, and network building to help new students navigate their journey and avoid common pitfalls.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:04.360] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-host, Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. It’s the start of a new school year. One of the things that we do at Poets and Quants is we ask graduates, that’s the latest graduating class from all the top MBA programs in the world, and we ask incoming students to all of these top business schools, what has surprised you most as an incoming first-year MBA, and what regrets might you have as you graduate and leave the campus and go on to your career? These are among my favorite stories because there are real people stories with real insights. I think that if you are an incoming MBA student, you could be greatly benefit from them now. It’s true that a lot of the observations It might be obvious, but like anything in life, sometimes the obvious needs to be reinforced and reaffirmed. I think that that’s what these stories do, particularly when you think about, Okay, what regrets do graduates have after having gone through the full experience? They wish they had done this or that that they didn’t do, because I think it can make an incomer realize that there are things that you might want to know or can take advantage of that you’re not doing or won’t do.

[00:01:31.110] – John

And so that information can be very valuable to be getting the most out of your MBA experience. Now, Maria and Caroline, you were both obviously MBAs, and you both had surprises and regrets on your own. But I wonder in reading these pieces, 20 biggest surprises and 20 biggest regrets that we’ve published, what stands out for you, Maria?

[00:01:53.330] – Maria

I think many of the comments in both of these articles tend to fall into this bucket around prioritization and striking the correct balance between being focused on your goals, but also being open to exploration or serendipity or getting to know other people. I think that In a recent podcast episode, we talked about maybe going into business school with a little notepad or someplace jotting down to yourself like, Okay, what is my true north here? What am I hoping to get out of this experience? And realizing that might change while you’re in program. But at least when you have those trade offs to make with your time, which you will inevitably have multiple trade offs you need to make every single day between, do I study? Do I go to that recruiting presentation, do I go to that party, whatever it might be, you can refer to it and say, Okay, within my framework, what am I going to prioritize it to try to help you find that balance? Because a lot of folks said, Well, I got to business school thinking I wanted to do one thing, and then I got swept up in the popularity of a certain topic, and in retrospect, I wish I wouldn’t have, or I focused too much on studying and I should have prioritized networking more.

[00:03:09.030] – Maria

A lot of these regrets or surprises do come down to this idea of prioritization and knowing what do I want out of this experience? How am I going to make those choices accordingly?

[00:03:21.830] – John

Yeah, that’s really good point. We quoted the Chicago Booth MBA who just graduated and basically said, We all know the The first few months of business school are a whirlwind. You’re overloaded with social connections, professional opportunities, and class commitments, it’s easy to get pulled in several directions. If I were to do everything again, I wish I spent more time prior to the MBA, determining what my goals and priorities were and aligning my schedule to those priorities. Wharton MBA told us pretty much the same thing. At the end of the day, we’re all running our own race. We have our own priorities When we are starting this journey from different places, instead of getting caught up and excited by others, I wish I would have been more frequently checking in on my goals and reflected on how my actions align with those priorities. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that we make this experience right for ourselves, and that will look different for every single Wharton student. It’s about not chasing the pack, because I think, Caroline, when you get in there, it’s like you’re overdosing on all these new and smart and ambitious people who are like-minded in the sense that they want more meaningful and fulfilled career than many other people.

[00:04:45.400] – John

It’s very easy to chase that pack, meaning wherever they go, whether that’s the consulting route or signing up for the consulting club and nothing else, preparing for case interviews and just finding that little tribe and not getting out of yeah, definitely.

[00:05:01.660] – Caroline

I’ve seen that a lot, that students get swept up by the whatever is most popular and that can happen academically. So it may be that you feel that everyone is focusing on AI or your classmates are super focused on finance and you feel that you have to master that. And maybe that’s not really what you should be focusing on given your career goals. And you also see that in recruiting as well, that people get swept maybe everyone is super excited about interviewing with a technology company or everyone is targeting top consulting firms, and it feels like that is the thing to go for. I’ve definitely seen that. The students who come in with certain goals, and then they feel like other people around them are targeting something different, and it sounds hot and exciting, and challenging, and perhaps I should be giving that a try, too. And then they end up fragmenting preventing their efforts. And those are often the students who, in the end, struggle with a job search because they have tried to pursue too many different paths. And it is a competitive process in recruiting. And so If you’re trying to prepare for too many different interviews and interview types and different companies, then you’re probably not going to do the best job.

[00:06:23.530] – Caroline

So I’ve definitely seen that a lot. And I’ve also seen that students who come into a program who don’t really have a clear view of what they want to do. And we sometimes see that in the admissions process. So you see some students who are super clear about what they want to do in the short term, how they see their career evolving. They’ve got a fantastic plan. And then there are other students who have some sense of their direction, and it seems like it’s good enough. But then when they get to the school because they haven’t really thought through their plan in detail, they get pulled in lots of directions. And it’s often those students who then struggle to figure out how they want to dedicate their time and the direction that they want to go in for their career. And of course, at INSEAD, where I studied and where I worked, it’s particularly challenging because it’s a one-year program. So it really is like drinking from a fire hose. And you go into it knowing that it’s going to be intense. I think that’s true of any top business school, that you’re going to go into it knowing that you’re going to be surrounded by incredible people, by incredible opportunities, and that you won’t be able to do everything.

[00:07:35.240] – Caroline

But even though you know that going, it’s pretty impressive when you get there and it can be quite overwhelming. And with the one-year format, I think that that is even more the case. It’s just pace is super fast. That prioritization, I think, becomes… That sense of what it is that is really important for you to get out of the program is even more important. I did like the quote that you mentioned from one of the students that you interviewed who said that we’re all running our own race. I think that’s really an important thing to keep in mind. That’s great advice for future students.

[00:08:12.580] – John

Yeah, and there are a lot of specific examples here of things people regret, like taking classes outside the business school. There was a Yale MBA grad who wish that he had taken advantage of the School of Drama, the School of Architecture, the Divinity School at Yale, Instead of just staying focused on primarily the business school. But when you look at the curriculum and how demanding it is and you’re thinking, Oh, my goodness, this is going to be so short. I got to do everything that I think is directly relevant and applicable to my career, and I can’t afford to take any other courses. In retrospect, this person wishes that they had. Leveraging your student card. When you’re a student, you can pretty much call up anybody and get a response because people want to help other students, and you want to really take advantage of that time that you are, in fact, student because many doors are open to you that may be closed or only partially open once you graduate. Or The idea that you should limit the leadership role you pursue and not spread yourself too thin, or you should spend more time with your professors and try to create some intimate relationships with a few of them who are going to help over your career and really act as your mentors, asking more questions in class instead of just sitting back.

[00:09:37.650] – John

Some people regret it not taking coding classes, particularly if they were going to enter in the technology field, worrying less and networking more. There’s just a lot of really cool things that people have expressed to us. Maria, I wonder if in retrospect, is there something that you regret from your experience at Harvard Business School?

[00:10:00.580] – Maria

Yeah, I think the one that spoke to me the most was the spending more time with professors. I did not prioritize that. I think that’s the number one thing I would do, over again, if I could, because I think for someone to be a professor in a business school, instead of being, say, a management consultant, because anyone who’s good enough to be a professor at a business school could also probably get a very high paying role somewhere in corporate America. And yet they’ve made the deliberate choice to instead be a professor at a business school. So usually it means that they’ve made this choice for many of the many reasons, but one primary reason is that they want to be involved on some level with students, and they enjoy the process of teaching others. Not always, but there are always some exceptions, but for the most part. And so they want you to come and talk to them and ask them about their research or ask them questions that you might have. I think the other thing I didn’t notice or I didn’t realize naively is that a lot of these professors actually do during the summers or during the breaks, for example, they will, in fact, often be asked by large companies to come and either do a presentation or to do a consulting project on the side.

[00:11:06.390] – Maria

And so your professors are not only fonts of wisdom in terms of whatever subject matter they teach, but they themselves can have amazing contacts at different businesses and corporations, especially if they specialize in a particular field of study or a particular industry or function that you’re very interested in. So I would have taken more advantage of developing those relationships.

[00:11:27.810] – John

Caroline, what about you?

[00:11:29.170] – Caroline

Yeah, definitely. Some of the things that were mentioned in this article resonated with me. I think that in retrospect, I probably got too stressed about the course, and I probably spent a bit too much time studying and not enough time socializing. I still did do a lot of socializing, but I think that it’s easy to underestimate the value of the time that you spend just hanging out with other students. It’s easy to think, Oh, what’s the most productive use of the next hour? It’s thoroughly reading the case study and making my notes and doing a bit of extra research ahead of the class versus, and that sounds much more productive than sitting out on the lawn with my classmates and having a leisurely lunch and just talking about who knows what. It’s easy to dismiss some of those social opportunities, I think, and get too wrapped up in the academic experience and not always take the time that you could do for hanging out with your classmates. Actually, often students learn as much from their classmates, if not more, than from the faculty, because you’re surrounded by incredible people who’ve done completely different things from you and who can share things with you that would never have occurred to you before and expose you to things that may have a completely different mindset from you.

[00:12:59.690] – Caroline

So that’s incredibly enriching. It’s also building relationships with people who will be your lifelong classmates and will be your lifelong support. I think in the long term, that is the biggest value of the MBA. It’s the network. It’s more so than even what you learn in the classroom. I think that when you are caught up in the moment of that academic experience, it’s easy, and I certainly did that, to spend too much time focusing on the academics, especially if the class is not something that’s really critical for you and not spend enough time hanging out and having that beer on the lawn with your teammates.

[00:13:41.090] – John

That comes through in the story as well, because one student said, Stop being a perfectionist. This one student, or graduate rather, said, Because I came from a non-traditional background and I’m one of only two moms in my program, I felt like I had to prove myself 24/7 and show that I belong. I competed for a high GPA, volunteered for everything, and pushed myself so hard to never fail or mess up. It’s part of my personality and probably helped me succeed in the program. However, I’m learning now the better way of priorities and know that it’s okay not to be perfect. So there you go. Spend more time with your classmates and network and don’t worry about getting A’s in every single course is her big takeaway. Another interesting takeaway is trust the process. I think particularly in the core curriculum, when cores are often designed to throw so much work at people to deliberately overwhelm them, people can get a little disenchanted with the process. But it’s all meant to force you to make priorities with the understanding that in the real world of work, there are going to be times when you’re going to be overwhelmed and you’re going to have to make choices.

[00:14:52.860] – John

Those choices need to be thoughtful and they need to be informed, and you may as well learn that in business school. But while you’re going through the process, you may be questioning that and wondering why in the world would people demand so much of you far more than you can actually deliver. The truth is, the process is designed to do exactly that, to allow you to make the kinds of decisions that you’re going to have to make in the real world. What about the surprises? When you first start on campus, I know one of the big surprises that people often have is how quickly you have to think about a job. Here you are, let’s a two-year program. Within the first two months, people are coming to campus and inviting you to go to cocktail receptions and presentations by companies, and they’re looking you over, and you got to put your best foot forward because you start to have to worry about your internship possibilities and all that. People are often surprised and shocked by that. Were there surprises for you in the first year, Maria?

[00:15:57.130] – Maria

That’s a good question. I think my biggest I think a surprise goes back to what you said a second ago about trusting the process. Every business school has a core, but the way in which they handle the core might be slightly different. Some business schools let you test out of certain core subjects. You either don’t have to take them at all, or if you do have to take it, you can take it at a higher level. Let’s say you’re a certified public accountant, you might not have to take the introductory accounting class. Some schools might have a core that only last one semester versus two semesters. The school that I went to, you couldn’t test out of the core, no matter how experienced you and the core was one full year. I remember being grumpy about that. I often say that the one that I had that just made me the angriest, or maybe angry is too strong of a term, but that I was like, I just rolled my eyes at the fact that I’m like, I can’t believe they are forcing me to take a stupid class in entrepreneurship. That’s the last thing I…

[00:16:48.290] – Maria

I will never become an entrepreneur. Are you nuts? And so, hey, they forced me to take the class and it ended up being my favorite class. Or conversely, the accountants, I thought, That’s so unfair It’s fair that the CPA in our section has to be in this very, very basic elementary accounting. It’s so unfair for her. But then it allowed her to really shine. It allowed her to lead study sessions and to be the expert and to really just be a star in that one subject. Because if you are an accountant, you have to specialize and focus so much to get that CPA that perhaps there were other classes where she was learning a lot. She was able to receive and to benefit from other people in those classes, and she was able to give in the accounting class. Having the opportunity for the experts to step forward when it’s a class about their expertise, but then this step back when it isn’t their class of expertise, I think it helps you see people in a different light, perhaps, that you might not get to if you wouldn’t have had the chance to be like, Wow, that person really knows what they’re talking about if they would have skipped out of the class.

[00:17:50.930] – Maria

Yet I could also very easily make the argument for why it makes perfect sense to allow people to skip out of classes and why a flexible core is the best thing you could possibly. There’s no right or wrong. But I think just, again, trust the process. That was my biggest surprise was how much I ended up appreciating the way in which the core was structured.

[00:18:08.750] – John

Yeah. Caroline, what was your big surprise at INSEAD?

[00:18:11.660] – Caroline

A couple of things. I think one of them was that The learning experience was so different from my undergraduate experience. I knew I was going to get a lot out of the program, but I hadn’t realized how much fun it would be, how engaging that classroom experience would be. It was so different from my undergrad where the classes could be very dry. Professors couldn’t really care less if you were engaged or not. I went to a pretty decent school, but it was just a very different style and very different expectation of how the faculty would engage with the students and how interactive the experience would be. So that was a very pleasant surprise that the learning experience, even for classes that weren’t my my favorite classes and my favorite topics. Nevertheless, the classes were really stimulating, really fun, always engaging. And just clearly, the professors have a very different attitude and very engaged with the students. So that was something that surprised me and was really a good discovery. And then the other thing was how much I spent on things like travel. And that’s one of the things that somebody mentions in your article is that they were surprised by how much people travel.

[00:19:34.940] – Caroline

I had set aside some money for travel, but it wasn’t enough. And you want to take advantage of opportunities to travel with classmates or travel, faculty-led trips, et cetera. I think I was a bit conservative in my budgeting ahead of time. I realized that I wanted to be able to take advantage of those opportunities. And it does cost money, right? But it’s good to be able to do that if you can because a lot of the bonding and the exchange can happen on those trips as well. So that was something that was perhaps not for the good surprise as how much it ended up costing me to do the MBA.

[00:20:16.820] – John

Yes, right. In fact, one of the regrets of one of the graduates that we quoted was not taking full advantage of the global emersion trips that you just mentioned when they are led by faculty. Some of the surprises. One person said, fail fast, fail forward. The sheer velocity of the learning curve is remarkable. It’s certainly baptism by fire, juggling classes, networking, and recruiting all at once. But what I found truly impactful was how quickly I adapted by throwing myself into it. We’re here, and we’ve already said this, but it’s worth saying again because I think it’s so important, your network is your net worth. I was surprised at how quickly some of my peers went from classmate to confidante. And boy, that is a real rewarding part of business school. That observation is by a Wharton MBA who just joined the school. Another surprise was alumni, welcome hearing from students. Yeah, this goes back to the regret about. Leverage your student status because it will open doors for you that may not open doors later on. You don’t learn in silos. That’s one thing you really learn quickly because in any really good school, immediately assigned into a team, very diverse people with very different backgrounds than your own.

[00:21:37.660] – John

You learn a lot from your people. The other really interesting thing about business school is students run the school. That was a surprise for some. Most really good business schools have student-centered cultures, and there’s a lot of hands-on activity that the students control. Here’s one that’s funny. The dress code is pretty lax. I don’t think that surprises me, but it’s definitely surprised one of the persons that we interviewed. Everyone is still trying to figure it out. Yep, the first months are naturally difficult. Case studies can be fun. Really? That’s a surprise. Everyone works as a team. Again, the student card is a powerful tool. You won’t come out the same person. I think that’s really true. A good MBA program is a transformative one. Check these things out. 20 Biggest Surprises for First-year MBAs is the title on one of our stories for incoming students. Then 20 Biggest Regrets of MBA Graduates, which catalog people on the way out, what they wish they had done that they didn’t. Hope you enjoyed this, and I hope it makes your MBA experience more meaningful for you. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Thanks for listening to Business Casual.

The Economist Dis on MBAs: Is the Degree Still Worth It?
Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Biggest Surprises & Regrets Of MBAs
Maria |
September 19, 2024

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] John Byrne: Hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets& Quants. We have a really cool story to relate to you today. Me and my co host, Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards, are going to talk about the most disruptive MBA startups of the year. Every year, Poets& Quants invites the top schools all over the world.

To submit nominations for ventures with what we call the greatest potential for lasting beyond business school. So what we want to do is acknowledge MBAs who have launched really cool companies that are paving the way for the future. And this year, we have 41 student startups that we have honored in what is the sixth annual list of the most disruptive MBA startups.

And they come from all over. We got nominations from Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, MIT, INSEAD, London Business School and others. And, uh, I think what the basic list shows is that entrepreneurship is alive and well in business schools are a lot of great ideas. A lot of them are powered by AI. No surprise there.

They involve every imaginable industry. There’s a good number of these in the business of health as well as in beverages, consumer products and things like that. And I wonder, Caroline, if you have a favorite among this group, and I bet you it’s going to be an INSEAD startup.

[00:01:30] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah, I have a few favorites, and definitely INSEAD is on my list, although I’m going to start with a London Business School one.

Um, and there were a few international ones that I thought were really interesting. I like the story from kiro, which is a fintech startup, coming out of London Business School, founded by LBS student Alicia Chowdhury. she secured 200, 000 in funding, and it’s the first AI powered financial coach, which is designed to help,

Gen Zed, as I would say, or Gen Z, as you would say. and young adults, get personalized financial guidance. So that’s something that jumped out to me, given that I now have a young adult among my children and trying to teach her financial literacy is somewhat challenging, so I can definitely see the need for that. And she tells a really interesting story about how financial literacy was something that she had struggled with and realized that there was a gap in the market, right? There’s a lot of great financial information out there, but it’s not necessarily tailored and communicated well to young people. And she ended up working in finance before business school.

she doesn’t have a tech background, but she did. Teach herself the fundamentals of AI and machine learning, and she assembled a technical team to work with her. And I thought it was really interesting as well, how she leveraged the LBS resources. And I think a lot of the stories that you have in this article really tell a great deal about the power of business school experience in helping people launch a company. And of course, there’s often a lot of criticism about the value of going to business school. And if you want to be an entrepreneur, there’s no point going to business school. And I think that this article really debunks that. so for example, this is how she benefited from LBS.

She was a finalist in the LBS Launchpad. She completed the LBS Entrepreneurship Summer School. She joined the LBS Incubator. She led the LBS Entrepreneurship Club. And then, of course, she benefited greatly from a lot of the courses that she took at LBS. I got a lot of great advice from LBS faculty, as well as the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Private Capital.

I think a wonderful story about how a student had a vision of something that she wanted to do and saw a gap in the market and really went after it, leveraging that wonderful ecosystem that you get at business school and she’s got a VC group backing her. So that’s one of her investors and Aviva Group is a huge financial company.

I think it sounds very promising. So congratulations to Alicia.

[00:04:11] John Byrne: Yeah, you’re right. One of the things that comes through here is the support that students get from the schools. And their classmates and their professors, it’s a real terrific thing.

As you said before, a lot of people say, hey, if you want to start a company, instead of paying a school tuition, just use that as your seed capital and you’re going to be better off, but the truth is that a business school you’re surrounded by really smart colleagues and people who’ve been through this before and mentorship from professors and seed money from the many venture challenges that occur at different schools can make a very big difference and shift the odds in your favor of success. Maria, do you have a favorite?

[00:04:53] Maria Wich-Vila: Yeah, my favorite.

startup was Cell Mind, which is out of the Johns Hopkins business school. This one really hit home for me personally. What they are trying to do is they are trying to maximize access to a type of cancer therapy called “Car T”. And I have indirectly lived this. We have a good friend from business school who has been battling cancer for several years, and last year there was a complete rollercoaster around  this car T therapy. And I apologize to any doctors if I’m butchering this. But basically, my understanding is that if it works for you, it essentially can cure your cancer or cause it to go into remission. But, if for whatever reason, if your body is too weak at the time that you receive it, it can actually kill you. Unfortunately, it can cause something called a cytokine storm, I think.

And so, the decision of whether to go or no go is obviously one that is very fraught with a lot of, emotion and risk. And so, we actually had a friend who last year was approved for CAR T. But then in the weeks right before they were going to give it to her, they then disapproved her because she had gotten weaker … it was this whole roller coaster.

And so any sort of startup that is doing something to figure out, which patients actually are likely to do well with this therapy? Can we expand our doctors being perhaps understandably a little too cautious because they’re concerned about the negative side effects, perhaps being worse than the.than the cancer itself.

Anything that can help expand access to this is why they were number one in my book. And as you guys were just talking about. Because Johns Hopkins is one of the best, if not the best medical school in the world, this is a great example of a business school student or group of business school students leveraging the resources and the expertise at that overarching institution, trying to find ways to commercialize it, and just make the most of those resources.

I really loved that story.

[00:06:40] John Byrne: Yeah, and that’s what you increasingly find. it’s not a bunch of MBA students doing their thing. It’s reaching out and having these really entrepreneurial collisions with students from other departments, other schools where they have deep expertise in computer science or engineering or medicine or law or public policy or environmental sciences teaming up with MBAs to launch things. which really give them extra power.

One of my favorites comes out of, uh, Chicago Booth. And, it’s sort

a really interesting idea where, first off, it’s called Encore, and it’s a marketplace for high end collectibles. Now, you think, how could that really be a cool thing? What they’ve done is they’ve combined TikTok style videos. With the traditional eBay auction format, to create a really engaging experience for people who want to shop for these collectibles. But what’scool is the MBA who’s behind this. His name is Will Enema, at first thought he shouldn’t apply to Chicago Booth, new venture challenge, because he had already raised a pre seed round and thought that Encore might not be good for that traditional, giving money out kind of program. But, he entered it after he was urged to by a number of professors at Booth. The idea placed second in the competition. He won $350, 000 to help launch his company, but here’s the real kicker:

Within two weeks of that competition, a venture capitalist who participated in the judging agreed to lead their seed round. So it just shows you how, incredible things can happen, in the environment of a business school.

Now, Caroline, I’m sure you have others that you really thought were really cool. Name another one.

[00:08:29] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah. So my second one is of course, an INSEAD startup and it’s called faceflow. ai. And I really liked this one because it’s an AI powered skincare platform. So again, relating it to my personal experience of having four daughters who are constantly clamoring for the. latest ridiculous beauty product that they’ve seen on Instagram.

I think this is a fantastic idea.

What it does is it actually gives you scientifically based product recommendations, right? So they have for the two founders, Daniel Patel and Simon Zhang, Patel had previously founded a marketplace for international skincare brands. So he knew the skin, the beauty industry, skincare products.

And then his partner, Simon, is an experienced AI engineer, and so they’ve combined their expertise to bring AI to skincare recommendations. And it’s underway. I checked out their website. I have signed up already. The product is not yet available, but I’m looking forward to when it comes through.

And they won the INSEAD French competition and, talk about how they’ve benefited from the very entrepreneurial environment at INSEAD,

I really enjoyed reading about their experience and I’m excited to learn more about their products.

[00:09:49] John Byrne: Yeah, absolutely. And now

Maria, I know there are 2 Harvard startups on the list from your alma mater. did you pick 1 of them as your 2nd choice?

[00:10:00] Maria Wich-Vila: It was not necessarily my 2nd choice, but there was 1 called Vulcan Investments. This is a little bit out of my, Wheelhouse. So I think we all tend to gravitate towards something we know or something we have experience with, but it’s trying to figure out how to solve the rare earth magnet problem. Right now. A lot of these rare earth materials that are powering modern technologies are coming from China, which poses several challenges, especially should relations with that country not go well in the future. So this is trying to solve for that issue. I think that was a really interesting one.

But actually, my second choice was one that again, I have indirect personal experience with, albeit in a different way. It was called Yogger. What they’re trying to do is, I believe it’s taking your phone to watch you as you perform exercise then give you feedback on, your gait, your form, et cetera.

And this was really interesting to me, not so much because of exercise, although I wish it were (ha ha) (though: side note, my dad was a track and cross country coach for decades and I totally forgot about that in the moment, but I should have mentioned that!!! D’oh!!!), but who knows, maybe this will motivate me to jog more (har har har).

In the interview with the entrepreneur. he talked about how you can do things like a gait analysis right now, in other words, tracking how your legs move when you are running or jogging, and then providing an analysis, but these sorts of things are very difficult to get to. It’s expensive. You need to be set up with, they put a whole bunch of sensors on all of your joints. and I have a friend who has a child with cerebral palsy and they’ve had to do these, go to actually Hopkins (this is not a Hopkins based startup, it’s from Tuck, Dartmouth Tuck), but they’ve (my friends, I mean) had to go to Hopkins and actually have these, it’s a day long thing to set up your child with the different sensors. And so the thought of using something as simple as an iPhone app, perhaps, machine learning, et cetera. all that good stuff to analyze your gait and make this accessible. It’s not only I think useful for casual exercise enthusiasts, but I think it could also have ramifications and uses even in other areas. For example, kids with special needs. So I was really excited about this one.

John Byrne:

MIT Sloan has three startups on our list this year.

That’s more than any other school. And one of the really cool ones is called Vertical Horizons. This is an incredibly ambitious startup. It’s all about commercializing high density, high efficiency power supplies for AI computing. Essentially, it’s a semiconductor company. and you might not think that an MBA would be involved in actually creating a semiconductor company.

But it’s founded by Cynthia Allen, an MBA in the class of 2024 at Sloan and one of her professors. So it’s a good example of where university develop some sort of new technology or new insights. And then needs to commercialize it. And in this case, you have an MBA coming along, who has a great interest in this, and is helping to commercialize it. The actual idea of it has 4 million in research grant funding to develop the technology. So there’s a good amount of money behind this very ambitious idea.

I think, stepping away from the individual startups, what I think this says about, the ability of people who want to go to business school and use that experience as an incubator to launch a startup, it’s alive and well, it’s a great way to launch a company because it does take a lot of risk off the table and these startups, these 41 startups that these different business schools really give you a great insight into what different people are doing.

Caroline, I’m sure, and Maria as well, you probably meet a number of people in your practices, that want to use an MBA to do a startup. Do you think they’re ready to take full advantage of these experiences?

Caroline Diarte Edwards:

Yeah, I certainly hear from a lot of candidates who are hoping to launch a venture. Some of them want to do it as soon as they graduate and for some of them it’s more of a longer term ambition because of course financing can be a challenge.

Especially if you’ve invested a lot in taking on a lot of debt with your MBA and a lot of the themes that I hear, candidates are interested in come through in your article as well. So it’s noticeable that there are quite a few startups in your list that address, healthcare issues as Maria highlighted, also education, environmental challenges. And I think those are three areas that I hear a lot about from candidates in terms of where they would really like to have an impact.

And I think, something else that is noticeable is that a lot of them are really trying to have a positive impact on the world as well. They’re really trying to address,  fundamental societal challenges, many of them, which I think is wonderful from health care, mental health issues, pollution. et cetera. There’s a lot of really interesting, and important issues that are being addressed by some of these startups. and, I think it’s wonderful that we have this young generation, going through business school who are ready tackle these challenges that that they have inherited from our generation.

John Byrne:

Yeah. And these ideas are going way beyond, some of the earlier ideas of five, 10 years ago, hookup apps and match.com, uh, wannabes and things like that. some of these ideas are remarkably sophisticated and elegant as well.

Maria, last words.

Maria Wich-Vila:

I think that this article not only is very optimistic in terms of these amazing ideas that are out there, but I also like that it shows that there are so many different paths to entrepreneurship through the MBA that first of all, number one, the NBA is valuable for entrepreneurship, which, as you noted a second ago, is often a stereotype that that exists that, oh, I don’t need this. but also there are so many different MBA programs out there. Look at the range of schools that are creating these amazing startups. Look at the fact, one of the, Stanford ones, the student was not an MBA student. They were an MSx student.

Sometimes I’ll meet people who are a little bit on the older side who are applying and they’re like, I have to do the two year program and I’m like, no, you can… you just need to get your foot in the door and even if it’s that MSxs program, it’s one year versus two years. For example, you can, you just need to get to a university that’s going to teach you the things you need and give you the resources and then you can take it from there.

So I, the other thing I really appreciate about this article is showing the breadth of programs and the breadth of students and the breadth of backgrounds of these students who are creating incredible new companies.

[00:16:37] John Byrne: Yeah, check it out. It’s called most disruptive MBA startups of 2025, and it’s on the Poets& Quants website.

If you are interested in doing a startup, I think you’ll learn a lot about how business school can help you make it a reality. This is John Byrne with Poets& Quants. You’ve been listening to Business Casual, our weekly podcast.

Maria

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