The Economist Asks: Is the MBA Still Worth It?
Maria |
March 6, 2025

In this episode of Business Casual, the hosts dive into a controversial article from The Economist questioning the value of an MBA. They dissect the article’s claims, highlighting the cyclical nature of employment trends and the selective job acceptance of top MBA graduates. The discussion also explores the impact of AI on the job market and reaffirms the long-term value of an MBA in navigating complex business environments. Tune in to hear why the hosts believe the MBA is far from obsolete and remains a powerful asset for future leaders.

Episode Transcript

sM[00:00:00] John Byrne:

Hello everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co host, Caroline Diarte Edwards and Maria Wich-Vila. We were astounded to read, in a recent issue of The Economist, a piece that basically questions the value of the MBA. The title of it is, Why Elite MBA Graduates Are Struggling.

Is the Degree Still Worth It? And basically what The Economist did was, it took the latest employment reports from the top schools and showed that obviously in the past year, MBA graduates have had a more difficult time finding the jobs that they want. It noted that at the top 15 business schools, the share of students who sought and accepted a job offer within three months of graduation fell by six points to 84%.

If you compare that to the average over the past five years, the share declined by eight points. And it goes on from there and gives a bunch of different reasons why it thinks that business schools are in trouble and the MBA is in decline. What it doesn’t know, in fact, is that still the numbers of people getting jobs within three months are very high.

At schools who reported the worst numbers, like at Harvard and MIT, where 23 percent of the graduating class did not accept a job three months after graduation. It makes no note that a lot of this has to do with selectivity, meaning the graduates who quit jobs that paid them a fair amount of money are very effective in the jobs that they want to get after their MBA.

And in many cases, they jobs. With companies that don’t do recruiting of MBAs on the natural cycle of recruiting and that’s primarily because they don’t recruit a lot of MBAs. We’re talking about employers like hedge funds, private equity firms, some wealth management places, early stage companies, and some startups that obviously it’s onesie and twosie kind of recruitment of MBAs.

And they don’t recruit on a cycle where, okay, the everyone’s graduating at this date. And so we’ll start them in August. And that’s part of what has gone on at some of the schools that are reported these lower numbers. The other thing is, yes, the economy was little uncertain and consulting firms did cut back on their hiring and certainly tech firms did as well, but all signs are for already a recovery.

You talk to career management people at the business schools and they will tell you that the number of companies returning to recruit people for internships and for job offers and the job boards have become just loaded with a lot more jobs than they had a year ago. So Maria, what do you make of the economist’s sort of negative take on the MBA?

[00:02:58] Maria Wich-Vila:

Everything old is new again and whatever gets clicks, you can’t fault them for going after the clicks, although I do wish that their their analysis would have been a little bit more in depth and a little bit more trying to get at some of the core reasons behind some of these numbers, so the title says why elite MBA graduates are struggling to find jobs, but then the It doesn’t really answer that question.

It just talks about these numbers are going down. And, I think economies are cyclical. And as the economy cycles through its ups and downs, the hiring is also going to cycle through ups and downs. And one year real estate might be the hot industry that everyone goes into and then two years later, no one’s going into real estate and the same thing happens with tech.

I’m sure that we’re going to start seeing an influx into manufacturing probably in the next year or two. So these cycles come and go. And so I think that overall the death of the MBA reports of the death of the MBA have been greatly exaggerated. One point that the article made was that they thought that perhaps these consulting firms might start looking more towards people who have advanced degrees in technology instead of only going after MBA talent.

And that might work in the short term, but I do think that is not sustainable long term because the technological aspect of it. That’s only one piece of it. The technology, without knowing how to implement the technology alone doesn’t do a whole lot. You need to know how to implement it, how to implement it well, and how to implement it efficiently.

Even in this nascent age of ai, we see so many hallucinations in ai, for example, where an AI algorithm or a chat bot will give you an answer that is absolute nonsense. Waving, throwing your hands up in the air and saying that’s it. It’s over for the MBA because the AI is going to take over everything and only the engineers will have jobs.

If that were the case then there would have never been the rise of the MBA in the first place because it’s not like degrees in computer science did not exist until this year. That technological talent has always been out there. And yet, employers have found that there is in fact a benefit towards having a managerial education that looks at the different moving parts of an organization, operations, marketing, finance, etc.

And knows how to keep all of those pieces in balance when making decisions. I, Do you think that this is just a temporary glitch in things? And I think that we will reach an equilibrium again, once the economy starts to turn around.

[00:05:21] John Byrne:

Caroline, your take?

[00:05:24] Caroline Diarte-Edwards:

Yeah, I’m a big fan of the economist usually, but I find this article rather sloppy.

And we’ve seen it before. Every time there is a downturn in the recruitment market. And there is a downturn with every economic cycle. And there’s another generation of journalists who jump on this and think they’ve discovered something new and make a big song and dance about it, predicting the downfall of the MBA.

And then surprise, 12 months later, they’re writing about the uptick in recruitment for business school graduates. I think the article completely fails to take into account the longer term perspective and how we have seen this happen again and again over the decades. So I think, unfortunately, it’s a rather poorly informed journalist who doesn’t understand the context who’s written this article.

And it’s a shame because The Economist has a very big platform, and this article, I’m sure, has had a lot of visibility. So I think it’s a bit unfair to knock the MBA and question its fundamental value just because there’s been a batch of disappointing recruitment statistics. And, you make a very good point, John.

I think a lot of graduates from the top schools are incredibly picky about the positions that they want to take up. And I’m sure that if they took the first job offer they got, or they were willing to take any job offer that came their way, then all of those Harvard and MIT grads, etc, could have jobs lined up pretty damn quickly.

And that is backed up also by the data that you note in your article about some of the mid tier schools who actually have. Pretty strong recruiting statistics, right? So it doesn’t mean that if you’re graduating from Manchester business school, you have better opportunities than if you’re graduating from Harvard business school, but Harvard’s had a downturn in their recruitment stats and Manchester’s had an improvement in their recruitment stats.

So what it means is that those Manchester graduates are taking jobs that probably the HBS graduates are not going to take, right? So those top tier school graduates are are taking their time and. Yeah, rightly they have fantastic credential under their belt. They will have amazing opportunities and they don’t have to jump on the first thing that comes knocking at their door.

Yeah, it it’s a disappointing article in my view.

[00:07:55] John Byrne:

And then the writer even quotes in books that are negative on the MBA that are more than a decade old, which is really astounding. Now, Maria, you made note of this in our pre podcast call. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

[00:08:14] Maria Wich-Vila:

Yeah, in the middle of this article, there’s a really superfluous paragraph that cites a study from 2007 that says that when compared with firefighters, MBA students are more likely to be upset if a friend bought the same car as them. Okay, what? This study is from 17, almost perhaps even 18 years ago.

And what does this have to do with employment?

I’m used to using the phrase apples and oranges a lot. So comparing apples and oranges, comparing firefighters with MBAs, what does this have to do with. Anything, a study from 17 years ago about what MBA students think about car purchases oh this doesn’t even belong in the same publication, much less the same article, it almost felt like to me there was some sort of like a word limit that the writer was trying to get at.

And they’re like here’s some stuff that I put together for a completely unrelated article. Let me just paste it in here. So I just, I don’t understand that at all. And then also at the very bottom of the article, there’s a heading right before the end that says Donald Trump, MBA. And not only does the following paragraph not really have anything to do, I guess indirectly with Donald Trump, but Donald Trump doesn’t have an MBA.

So when Caroline, again, our resident diplomat, our resident ambassador said, I think that the author does not fully understand the context. Yeah, they don’t. Do they think that Donald Trump has an MBA? Cause Donald Trump does not have an MBA. So right off the bat I whoo, this is a head scratcher of an article.

And unfortunately it, I think it does make some interesting points. It certainly raises some interesting questions, but then unfortunately it doesn’t then proceed to answer them. And then what other, what few interesting points it does make or interesting questions it does make it it, it discredits itself with this random article about by the way, while we’re talking about how McKinsey is hiring fewer people from Harvard let’s also bring up a study about MBAs and firefighters and how they compare with their, what, with their car purchase decisions.

Okay. Okay. Yes, sorry. Sorry, sorry economist.

[00:10:11] John Byrne: Caroline your favorite magazine is really did a boo here I think.

[00:10:15] Caroline Diarte-Edwards: Yeah, they certainly did. Bad marks. Zero out of 10 for the economist , it’s a shame because,

[00:10:24] John Byrne: yeah, go ahead.

[00:10:25] Caroline Diarte-Edwards: I was just gonna say, it’s a shame because I think as Maria said, it does raise some interesting questions and I think there is an important debate to have about how the job market may transform.

We are living in an age of unprecedented change with artificial intelligence, and that is going to transform the job market. And it may be that schools are feeling the impact of that already. It may be that, for example, consulting firms are not needing to recruit as many junior staff as they needed to in the past because of AI.

We also know that AI is going to create a lot of jobs. And we know that business schools have done a great job in integrating AI into the curriculum. So they are preparing graduates to, to take leadership roles and manage change and do all of that implementation work that Maria talked about, but they’re just, they’re going to be massive shifts, right?

In the jobs that People took coming out of business school 10 years ago will look very different from the jobs that people will be taking out of business school in 10 years time. And I think those shifts are starting to play out. And I think, they could have done a bit more research to understand.

What is happening on how that transformation is playing out. And you also cite in your article, an interesting report that talks about the expectation of a growth in demand for MBAs. And AI is predicted to create more jobs than it destroys. And I think MBAs are going to be very well positioned to take advantage of that, right?

Because MBA graduates are well prepared to to manage Organizational change, transformation, take the lead in a context of ambiguity in a fast changing environment they are well equipped with those skills, so I think the business school graduates are going to be very well positioned in this new job market.

And it’s a shame I think The Economist didn’t dig into that a little bit more.

[00:12:23] John Byrne:

Yeah, if anything, AI is going to have a greater impact on business undergraduates who, have done very well. In the past, but the truth is that the enrollment in undergraduate programs at a number of universities now it’s just astounding.

There are some universities where business undergrads make up well over a third of all the undergraduates at a university and everybody has been expanding these programs over the last decade. Because they’re in such demand. But you wonder how AI is going to eliminate some of those entry level jobs for undergraduates and will undergraduates be finding themselves working for insurance companies and not meeting the expectations that have been met by a previous generation of undergrads.

In terms of the graduate degree, I agree with you. Look, business is not getting simpler. It’s getting more sophisticated, more challenging, more competitive, more global, more disruptive. And that calls for higher education, smarter people not dumber people and not less education. So as the world becomes more challenging and more complex, it’s going to require managers who can deal with that complexity.

And I think. That graduate education is a great start for training people to basically deal with and manage the complexity of business today. Caroline, I think you have recently absorbed a future of work report from the world economic forum. What does that say?

[00:14:03] Caroline Diarte-Edwards:

I was just reading an article about that, and they say that 60% of employers expect digital access to transform their business by 2030.

And it says that analytical thinking remains the most sought after course skill with seven out of 10 companies considering is it essential in 2025. So I think that’s very relevant, right? Because business schools are definitely giving. graduates great frameworks and cultivating analytical thinking.

It goes on to say, this is followed by resilience, flexibility, and agility, along with leadership and social influence. So it talks about creative thinking, et cetera. So all of those skills are skills that are cultivated through an MBA program. So I do think that this research that the World Economic Forum has done.

really speaks to the the skills that will be required. And I think that MBA graduates will be very well positioned in that environment. And I think it’s also important to keep in mind that as a graduate degree, Business school prepares you for so many different paths, right? There are other graduate degrees that are much more specific and I think can get you locked into a specific career path.

And that is not the case with business school. I think one of the beauties of this this degree path is that it means that you can Tackle any role in a business environment in the future. It just gives you that amazing foundation and business school graduates often are changing careers and they often reinvent themselves, not just when they graduate, but again and again in their careers.

And it gives them the confidence and the skills to do that. But also I think that the network gives you. A fantastic safety net, because it means that if things don’t work out in your current career or your current position, you have an amazing network of people you can reach out to who can help you with your next step and help you move to a new position or help you transform your career again if you need to.

That’s an amazing resource and asset to have that stays with you. Without throughout your career. So I think that it’s a great asset to have that equips you for an environment. That is where the pace of change is increasing and you will need to reinvent yourself in a way that you can’t even anticipate now.

So I think those softer skills that the MBA cultivates will continue to be relevant and probably even more relevant in 10 years time than they have been in the past.

[00:16:48] John Byrne:

I think getting an MBA degree is a heck of a lot easier than getting a medical degree, a law degree, or a computer science degree.

And yet, you’re not locked into law, medicine, or computers if you get an MBA degree. So I think that’s for all things to they support the notion that the most popular graduate degree in America, in part because of all of these attributes that you can place on it. And the flexibility the degree gives you in the world of work.

So I, I think we can pretty safely conclude that the economist is badly misinformed and misread a slight decline in employment stats for one year to go on and extrapolate that to say the degree may not be worth it anymore. And And we’re going to even cite studies that are over a decade old to tell you how MBAs aren’t as good as firefighters as people,

[00:17:49] Maria Wich-Vila: …which in fairness is probably a valid statement to make!

I just want to be clear, but it’s just not super relevant to the discussion at hand.

[00:17:58] John Byrne: …says the Harvard MBA marry to another Harvard MBA? That’s right.

[00:18:04] Maria Wich-Vila: And we thank our firefighters here in LA every day. So…

[00:18:08] John Byrne: And you know what, Maria, I think of you as a firefighter anyway.

[00:18:13] Maria Wich-Vila: You know what? We MBA graduates are putting out fires of different sorts.

Slightly less perhaps a little bit less fatal, but fires nonetheless (?) .

[00:18:24] John Byrne: There you have it. Take a look at the Poets and Quants commentary, The Economist Asks, Is the MBA Worth It? And take a look at The Economist article and see if you draw the same conclusions as we did about it. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants.

Thanks for listening.

The Economist Dis on MBAs: Is the Degree Still Worth It?
Business School News | General | P&Q Podcast "Business Casual"
The Economist Asks: Is the MBA Still Worth It?
Maria |
March 6, 2025

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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