Debunking MBA Myths
Maria |
March 8, 2023

Considering an MBA but feeling unsure about the myths surrounding it? Gain valuable insights from this podcast episode of Business Casual, where our hosts debunk the most widespread misconceptions surrounding the degree. From the common belief that a business background is required to gain admission, to the misconception that only finance or consulting careers benefit from an MBA, this episode provides important information to help you make an informed decision about your future. Learn that a high GMAT score is not the only factor in admissions and that getting an MBA is not a magic wand to easily achieve any career option listed in the career outcomes report. 

Stay informed and make the best choice for your career growth by listening now!

 

Episode Transcript

[00:00:07.210] – John

Well, hello, everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to our weekly podcast, Business Casual, with our co hosts Maria Wich Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. We’re going to talk about myths today. The MBA for some is something of a mysterious degree degree and mysterious experience. And there are a lot of myths that are attached to the degree, and we want to explore them. Maria, do you have a number one myth?

[00:00:34.080] – Maria

I think my number one myth about getting an MBA is that it is a magic wand to easily achieve any of the career options that are listed in the career outcomes report. So I think people look at those career outcomes reports and they look at the salaries involved, or maybe they see someone in the news and it says, oh, 20 years ago, this person got an MBA from a certain school. And so they think, well, all I have to do is get into the school. And then if that happens, boom, I’m instantly guaranteed the job at McKinsey. I’m instantly guaranteed a job at Goldman Sachs or whatever. And that is really not the case at all. I know you guys are probably sick of this little quip that I have, but it’s Harvard, not Hogwarts. It’s not magic. They can teach you a lot, but they also cannot change the fabric of space time, career vision continuum. And so certain employers, it doesn’t matter if you’re at Harvard and say, Lbs, Stanford, it doesn’t matter. You could eventually maybe get to that job that you want, but you might not get it straight out of business school.

[00:01:38.430] – Maria

You might have to take a few detours and do a few preliminary steps to make a complete pivot into something like, say, private equity. And this is something that I think a lot of folks just, they’ll say things like, oh, I’m not sure where will I eventually work? Will I like it more at McKinsey or at Bain? And I’m like, whoa, hold your horses. Like, you need to get an offer. A lot of dominoes need to fall into place first to even be in that position to begin with. So I think that’s my number one myth.

[00:02:03.550] – John

That’s a good one. Caroline, your number one myth?

[00:02:06.400] – Caroline

From an admissions perspective, I think that perhaps the number one myth is the GMAT. And I often speak to candidates or I sometimes speak to candidates who think that if they can ace the GMAT, then they’re almost guaranteed to get into a top school. And that is absolutely not the case, right? And then I also speak to candidates who count themselves out from applying to a top school because their GMAT isn’t fantastic. So I think that often candidates put too much weight on the value of the GMAT in the admissions process and get their hopes up too much if they’ve done really well on the GMAT and think that that’s going to open all of the doors for them. And as we’ve discussed before, it’s just one part of a much bigger picture and it is important, but it is certainly not the be all and end all of what it takes to get into a top business school. It’s just one part of a much bigger picture. So I would like candidates to keep that in mind when they are evaluating their chances for getting into a business school.

[00:03:11.520] – John

I’ll tell you, my number one myth has to do with the perception that many non business majors have about business school. Many nontraditional students, and when I say nontraditional, I mean to a business school, believe that the population that centers around a business school is a group of people who are greedy, who are interested in nothing but money and therefore have little to offer the world. And while that may seem to be an exaggeration, particularly for people who don’t feel that way, I can tell you that many people who major in other fields that are far away from business feel that, particularly those in humanities, there’s also what’s happening. And probably for the last quarter of a century in the US humanities, education has been in tremendous decline. And part of that decline is caused by parents who are pressuring their kids to major in business at the undergraduate level and then to go for graduate degrees, not in philosophy, geography, English or whatever, but in business. Because the fact that you actually get a job and earn money and have a decent living and to that extent I think it’s hardened the opinions of those who have stayed in the humanities about business.

[00:04:35.790] – John

And the truth is very opposite from those beliefs, which is you’re going to find in a business school a remarkable array, an eclectic group of people with fascinating backgrounds who come from all walks of life and all over the world. And the diversity of backgrounds and the diversity of opinions and perspectives and the desire to do something meaningful with your life is a powerful combination. Business school students are not naturally greedy and interested on only money and that has never been more true than it is today. That’s my big myth. There’s a big pet peeve for me.

[00:05:17.960] – Maria

Maria that’s interesting that you actually bring up, then, a myth about undergraduate, the undergraduate experience that you have to major in business, especially. I think parents and families, understandably, want to push their kids towards business, law, medicine. But just realize that a lot of these banks and consulting firms happily hire, readily hire people with English degrees, history degrees, philosophy degrees. It’s more about how well can you think? Do you have a good mind, basically? And some of the critical thinking, the communication skills that you get as a humanities major are in fact more powerful in some ways, right? Someone who can crunch a ton of numbers, but who communicates in an off putting way or who can’t explain their thought process. Well, that person will actually be less successful, typically in business than someone who perhaps you can teach someone how to add and subtract, but you can’t necessarily always teach those softer skills. So I don’t know how many parents of high school people we have listening to us right now, but I would just urge you to not be so focused on one specific major.

[00:06:22.830] – John

So true. What other myths are there out there that you’ve heard from candidates who are now considering an MBA degree but have long delayed the consideration of one because of one reason or another that turned out not to be true at all?

[00:06:40.700] – Caroline

Well, one that I think that often comes up is candidates hesitate because of the cost of a program and think that if they haven’t got the financial means behind them already, then they can’t afford to go. And it’s true that it can be very off putting when you look at the fees and the total cost of when you include all the living expenses, et cetera, et cetera, and you take into account your foregone earnings for two years or one year. It is a very expensive proposition, there’s no denying that. But as we’ve discussed in the past, the return on investment typically is very strong, especially if you go to one of the top business schools. And that, I think, is a useful data point that is reflected in some of the rankings. We love to hate the rankings, but some of the rankings do collect useful data on the financial progress of MBA alumni. And certainly it seems to show year after year that people are doing very well post MBA and that it really is generating a return. And then also, of course, many candidates can qualify for scholarships and there’s a lot of financial aid available, especially at the top schools.

[00:08:06.160] – Maria

Right.

[00:08:06.480] – Caroline

And many of them have very, very deep pockets. So if you are a candidate who comes from a background where perhaps you haven’t had the opportunity to earn a big salary or to save a great deal, then you may well qualify for quite substantial financial support. So I think it’s a shame sometimes candidates count themselves out from going to business school or they count themselves out from applying to a top school because of the headline price and haven’t necessarily realized that there’s potentially a lot of financial support available to them. And in any case, that MBA degree will generate returns for them that will enable them to recoup their costs pretty quickly.

[00:08:52.410] – John

Yeah, that’s true. And then the other part of this is there are people who think it should be Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, or Bust, or if I don’t get into an M7 program, it’s not worthwhile. Right?

[00:09:03.790] – Maria

Maria yeah, this is absolutely one of my biggest pet peeves. I really think people need to keep their eyes on the prize as to what attracted them to the degree in the first place. And those very benefits that Caroline was just mentioning, right? It’s not a matter of, well, only the people from the M7 have good career returns and good results, and everyone else is out of luck. No, all of these MBA programs, for the most part, right, any sort of reputable program, not top seven, not top ten, but top 30, 50, maybe even more, can really provide a lot of value to you in your career. And it’s interesting. Sometimes people, I don’t think, believe me, but I say to them, look, I know people from Harvard Business School who they have not necessarily succeeded. They have not necessarily gone on to make the big bucks. Some of them have even gone to jail. And yet one of the most we’re not going to cough cough, but it’s true. And yet simultaneously, within sort of my extended network of people I know, they’re one of the most financially successful people by far, went to UCLA Anderson.

[00:10:14.210] – Maria

UCLA Anderson has an amazing entrepreneurship program, and people just don’t they either don’t believe me or they discount it. And really it’s the person makes the school, and it’s not the school makes the person again, it’s not Hogwarts. It’s not like they put a sordiding hat on you or they wave a magic wand and now you’re suddenly this amazing entrepreneur. You’re suddenly transformed, and you’re a completely different person than the person you were going in. If you believe in yourself, which hopefully you do on some level, otherwise you wouldn’t even be applying, you should believe in yourself that you’re going to have a lot of success regardless of whether or not you go to a top 510 or 25 school. To Caroline’s point about the people being afraid of the cost and hesitating because of the cost, yes, there is financial aid available, but there is, I think, less financial aid than perhaps there was for people at the undergraduate level because they do take into account things like your most recent salary. And so maybe somebody who did get a big scholarship to go to undergrad and is now working in finance, they might be expecting the same treatment again this time around out, and it might not happen.

[00:11:16.160] – Maria

And what I say to people, even if they don’t get a scholarship, is when they accept you, they’re taking a bet on you. They’re placing a bet on you versus the other people that they rejected for that same spot. And if they are willing to place a bet on you by giving you one of these coveted spots, you need to be willing to place a bet on yourself, because how can you go to a school and say, yes, I deserve you know what? I’m going places school. You need to you’re going to want me in your alumni pool. You’re going to want me to represent you 10-20 years from now, and yet you’re not willing to put your own skin in the game. So that’s my sort of tough love to those folks.

[00:11:55.030] – John

Maria, I’m shocked that you would point out that Harvard MBA from your own alma mater would be in jail.

[00:12:03.350] – Maria

I don’t love it.

[00:12:05.750] – John

We actually do know a few. And if you actually were to search on poets and quants, you’ll find them, you definitely will.

[00:12:13.930] – Caroline

But I think all business schools have alumni who they probably regret admitting to the school. Right, it does happen. And I also know people who have been to top schools who are floundering in their careers. And some of the most successful people I know are not people who’ve been to top ten business schools have been to other business schools. So it’s absolutely right that it’s about who you are and what you make of the experience. And some people will be incredibly successful going to a tier two or a tier three business school.

[00:12:49.510] – John

Yeah, that’s really true. And when you look at the ROI data, it does turn out that a lot of times the people who go to a school that is not ranked very highly have a bigger increase, have a bigger MBA bump immediately after getting a degree than those who go to an elite school. Now, part of the reason for that is you have to be quite accomplished to get into a Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, INSEAD or London business school. And you probably are earning a good amount of money to begin with. So the actual percentage bump may not appear to be as big as it would be from someone who is applying to, let’s say, a public university that’s not in the top 20 or top 25, and then the employer rewards that person very handsomely upon graduation. So you tend to get a bigger bump immediately. Longer term, I think that all gets ironed out. And there’s no doubt we’ve done some research with firms that show that generally the higher ranked schools do return a larger lifetime income number than the lesser ones. Another myth I think about the MBA is that it’s essential to be successful in business.

[00:14:13.310] – John

We know that it isn’t essential. We know that. I think it does increase the odds that you will have a more meaningful career and be in a position to make a more meaningful contribution in your job. But it still isn’t an essential ingredient to success in the world of business. I would rather have it than not. And one of my big regrets is never having gone to get an MBA when I was much younger. But what do you two think about that?

[00:14:39.070] – Caroline

Well, John, I don’t think that you have suffered through not having gone to business school, and I think somebody should give you an honorary MBA degree for your contributions to the industry. But absolutely true. I’ve heard that they say at HBS when the students join, that you do not need to be here to be successful. You would be successful in any case, right, that cohort of students who have managed to get into a school like Harvard Business School do not need that experience in order to be successful in their lives. They would be successful, right? But the wonderful thing about going to business school is that it opens doors that might otherwise have been closed. So perhaps you will you’ll be able to do things that you wouldn’t otherwise have been able to do and you’ll be successful in a different dimension than you might have been if you had not gone to business school. And I think there’s also I live in here in Silicon Valley and you often hear comments coming up about how going to business school is not valuable. We’ve heard comments from that about that from Elon Musk and Sheryl Sandberg and various others in the tech industry.

[00:15:55.670] – Caroline

And so, yes, maybe you don’t have to have a business degree or have gone to business school to do well, but it certainly reduces it opens doors and it reduces risk, right? So if you want to be an entrepreneur and you go to business school, you’re going to have a much stronger foundation which will enable you to increase the chances of being successful if you do start your own business or you join a startup right. It reduces the chances of you failing because of some aspect of whether it’s whether it’s cash flow or not understanding the process for fundraising or not having enough strategic perspective. The wonderful thing about business school is it gives you that breadth of understanding across all aspects of business and gives you the ability to tackle any business challenge. And that is an incredibly valuable basis to have if you’re going to start your own business. So whilst people do sometimes say entrepreneur doesn’t need to go to business school and having an MBA isn’t terribly valuable for that type of profile, I completely disagree.

[00:17:10.810] – Maria

And you know, Caroline, when I was making the decision to go to business school, the very nice and very smart billionaire scion who ran the company I was working for at the time, came and tried to talk me out of it and he was making the argument, the argument about getting in as well as going. He was making the argument of, like, well, you don’t need this because the way you’re going, you’re doing so well, you’ll be running a division within X number of years anyway. And that was a good it was a very compelling argument. But what ultimately tipped the scales for me was this idea of probability of I had seen other people in this company be elevated to run a division or to perform an acquisition for the company. And then once they’re in charge of the acquisition, then they go to run it once it’s part of the it’s been sort of integrated. And I had also seen people just fail miserably. And I thought to myself, the ultimate reason that ultimately tipped me was I thought, well, if I’m going to get one of these jobs anyway, eventually, isn’t it worth it for me to spend two years to really make sure that I know what I’m doing, so that if I get that job, it’s not a guarantee of success, but at least I am limiting I am increasing the probability of success.

[00:18:16.660] – Maria

It’s not 100%, but maybe I’ve increased it from, say, 25% to 40% or something along those lines. And so that was what ultimately convinced me.

[00:18:24.130] – John

True. And now we’re talking about basic skills and tools that you gain from the MBA. We’re not even going into the whole area of the value of that network of people, like minded people who want to make a real difference in the world and who think that this degree can help them do that. And having those folks on your side as friends and at least in school as colleagues even, is a tremendous advantage for a lot of people. And I think that’s a really key part of any great MBA program. So I think we debunked a good number of very popular myths. I want to add one. I’m not so sure that anyone who does their homework would consider this a myth anymore. But I want to put it out there because while a lot of progress has been made in enrolling more and more women in business schools, I think there is still a persistent belief that business schools are largely maledominated cultures that are less welcoming to women and particularly female students. I think that is a myth today. Yes, there are fewer female faculty members than there should be. Yes, there are fewer female protagonists and case studies than there should be. But by and large, I think most business schools have very well embraced and welcomed female applicants and students in a way that makes them feel very included in most business school cultures. Do you two agree?

[00:20:02.050] – Caroline

Yes, absolutely. And actually, there’s one other thing I could add to the list of common myths. John? I sometimes speak to candidates who think that they don’t have a good chance of getting in because they have a nontraditional profile, right? So maybe they are a journalist or they’re a lawyer or even a musician. And I remember admitting a poker player. Sometimes people think that I’m not a management consultant, I’m not an investment banker. I don’t have the profile that they’re looking for. And in fact, often it’s a non traditional candidates who actually have a much better chance of getting in.

[00:20:43.470] – John

Many of the others, yeah, I love.

[00:20:45.870] – Caroline

Working with the nontraditional candidates because they often have fascinating stories and really interesting ambitions and fascinating motivations for heading off to business school and the dream of what they want to do in the future. So actually, they often have a better chance of getting in than those profiles that they think are the typical feed of profiles into business school, which, unfortunately, often there are way too many investment bankers and management consultants applying to business school. And their chances can actually sometimes be surprisingly slim.

[00:21:18.900] – John

True. Well, there you have it. All right, for all of you out there, we hope we have debunked any of the myths that perhaps you may have had about an MBA program. And what you can tell from this discussion is we are all in. We believe in this education. We’re tremendous ambassadors and advocates for it. You don’t have to convince us. Well, thanks for listening. This is John Burwood. Poets and quads.

The Economist Dis on MBAs: Is the Degree Still Worth It?
Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
Debunking MBA Myths
Maria |
March 8, 2023

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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