This isn't a great list--it's a lot of fluff, and self-help books masquerading as business content.
There are basically two skills you really need to hone in an MBA. The first are the hard skills/knowledge on finance, accounting, (basic) stats, and (basic) economics. The second is being able to assess and analyze business models, from both strategic and operational angles. The former can be learned in MOOCs, while the latter is best approached with case studies, ideally discussed as a group. I'd honestly suggest trying to start a business/entrepreneurs book club with ~12-20 people to try to replicate that experience over reading books on your own.
What are some good publicly-accessible collections of case studies if someone wanted to start a discussion club? Someone once told me that part of the value proposition of the best business schools is the library of case studies that they amass (and sell). Is that true?
If you want good, you're unlikely to get free. We are talking about business, after all. The standard is HBR, which you can buy for what I believe is a reasonable cost: https://store.hbr.org/case-studies/
The real value of an MBA is the network you create with other MBA students.
That's why a Harvard MBA is worth more than (unknown school) MBA - the top companies hire Harvard MBAs who then have a business network with other Harvard MBAs - who of course got hired at other top companies.
MBA programs are also often predicated on predicting the next y years based on the past x years.
This is increasingly hard for mbas to do or stay ahead of because how things are done in business isn’t the same, and changing faster than mbas are updated and taught.
Like anything it not what your education makes of you, it’s what you make of your education.
I agree some of these are fluff. However many here are great to have basic knowledge of for specific scenarios one may run into and then know where to dig deeper when needed.
Agree though to marry being a ferocious reader / learner with being a do’er is the way to go. Personally I did not grow up with an opportunity to develop an intuition about business and self-motivated action. Has taken a lot of work to move that direction over the years.
I took some of the Wharton first year MBA classes for free on Coursera. Left me incredulous that people take out huge loans for that stuff. It's Wharton, though, so the signaling alone may be worth the price.
You're conflating startups with the broader business world. Startup models are shit because there are so many unknowns and it's in the interests of the people making them to fluff them up as much as possible. In the other 99% of businesses, business models can be quite accurate and are valuable tools for decision making and evaluation. For example, public companies often issue revenue guidance and analysts do their own earnings projections based on models.
Ideally your business model is evidence (including to yourself) that you've done some hard thinking about who your customers, suppliers, and competitors are - and about some basic dynamics of your space.
It doesn't mean anyone should expect it to go that way exactly and the deviation from projection could be quite large, but it's still miles ahead of someone who's not bothered to think through it at all in most cases.
Everyone knows the forecasts don’t accurately predict the future. That’s not the point of forecasts.
The value of models is the assumptions you put in. How big is the potential market? What price do you think you can charge? How much of the market will go to competitors.
The value of forecasts is in pressure testing assumptions and opportunity.
>If it were possible to accurately forecast cost and revenue, then everyone would start a profitable business, right?
that doesn't follow: it's just as likely if you could accurately forecast cost and revenue, then you wouldn't start many businesses because you'd know they wouldn't be profitable
As someone who got a long ago MBA (and has also worked as an engineer), a few comments.
That's a lot of books. I'm not sure it's more total reading than I did in an MBA program but it's certainly more books than I read.
I'm not sure the best way to replicate case study discussions--which is a big part of most actual MBA programs and is probably at least somewhat important. (Also projects as opposed to just reading.)
Seems very light on finance and accounting. Honestly accounting doesn't need a lot--the main lesson is things are this way because the financial accounting standards board says it is--but the equivalent of core Finance 101 is probably necessary even if you're not going to be primarily a finance person. What I didn't have in B-school but would want today is a deeper dive into VC/startup/etc. term sheets and the like.
There's no real operations on that list. Probably don't really need real operations research but some basic manufacturing lingo and concepts would be useful.
I'd probably look for a basic Marketing 101 sort of book/course in addition to UX and things along those lines.
I'll stop there but I'd probably encourage more reading along the lines of what's actually used in MBA programs and looking at ways/materials that are closer to case studies and learning by doing.
I think if I were actually putting together a curriculum (and not worrying about copyright/access), I'd probably have a lot more chapters of books and articles/papers/webpages/videos than I would complete books. And I think you need to bring in discussions/projects in some manner in any case.
> I'm not sure the best way to replicate case study discussions--which is a big part of most actual MBA programs and is probably at least somewhat important. (Also projects as opposed to just reading.)
As someone who did an MBA twenty years ago, I think this is a really important point
The value for me wasn’t the reading, it’s the discussion the exploration of different (sometime opposed) viewpoints and understanding the differences between them
Talking to friends who’ve done other Masters degrees one of the key things we all agree on is they taught us how to “think better” and not sure you’ll get that from reading a bunch of books
I think if I really wanted to put together a DIY MBA, I'd try to gather some friends who would be open for semi-regular discussions, put some lightweight projects together, and some reading/watching that was also relatively short and lightweight. My goal would be to distill things down to something busy, working people with lives might actually be willing to do absent the spur of getting a diploma.
The author missed the Fred Wilson's MBA Mondays Archive [1] which personally was a great resource in the quest for my "business success" (whatever it means). There is a more organized and illustrated edition here [2]. BTW, I always return to some articles such as "Commission Plans" for Sales [3].
Regarding books:
- Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew Grove (Intel) [4]. It is always in my "pocket". It is real experience with pain points from a top CEO, not an academic exercise.
- Other books that are not focused on business but are more "epistemological". For example, "How Life Imitates Chess" by Garry Kasparov [5]. I don't know who created this title for the book though. Many autobiographies, in general, or good business biographies such as "Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire" [6].
The author does acknowledge this in thier linked post, but I think it's worth pointing out. They are in the UK, where MBAs are not as credentialized. DIY MBAs are low value.
You can get a BS in Business Administration, or even a minor in it, and have more knowledge and experience than from reading these books. Guess what? Even with those credentials, they will not help you. "I have an MBA from [prestigious school]" are the magic words. The hiring managers don't care about lesser credentials or actual knowledge.
It’s very likely this person doesn’t care about the credentials but rather just wants to gain the knowledge to do something themselves.
I more or less did this for years by reading a ton of books + many years of HN / articles / interviews / videos + startup weekend events + tried starting things + coding hobby for years + enterprise consulting work, and now I’m fairly well equipped to co-lead the company that I do.
The first 5+ years of doing this I debated attempting to go to a prestigious school for an MBA, primary reason (95%) was for the networking opportunity (meeting great likeminded or driven people), (0% because I would’ve been able to tell people I had an MBA from somewhere for job purposes, the snobbery from that would have been a detriment often instead I believe), and 5% for the education which I think has value but when it’s free and I had the motivation there was no reason to pay $100ks for that. At this point this company is doing fairly well so although I would love to meet more driven and likeminded people, I’m not sure it the best path to do so anymore for me.
A classic case of Goodhart's law. If your metric is convincing a (rather bad) hiring manager, why even bother? And once you've convinced them, what do you do?
MBAs are low value...depending on perspective. Around these parts, they are deemed very value, or at least in low regard. Look at Boeing as exhibit A.
If you're an engineering company that allows MBAs to make the decisions, you won't be a good engineering company for long. At that point, you become the dead carcass that the MBAs point to as to what their purpose is.
You make a great suggestion. Not that B-schools get everything right or that they're on the cutting edge but, to the degree curricula and lectures are online, I'd probably lean that way more than bestselling business titles. (Which, truth be told, often have a chapter or two that distills down a lot of the key content. In some cases, they're worth the lengthier read to reinforce the key content but often they're not.)
I find lectures much better than books. A lot more engaging and good lecturers are also good storytellers.
Especially if you watch lectures at 2x the speed, you can save A LOT of time. And I'd bet your understanding is better, since lecturers can think through problems out loud. Indispensable, IMO.
His list begins with The 10 Day MBA which is an excellent book I recommend highly. It gives a brief overview constituting 90+% of what you need to know. The other books on his list, many of which I have read and enjoyed myself, “merely” give greater detail on the material covered by T10DMBA (except macroeconomics which is rarely MBA-relevant anyway).
The book is humorous, but quite serious about the material.
It's probably useful to know something about the various macroeconomic theories so you can at least nod knowledgeably :-) But it's not that useful practically. Traditional micro is worth knowing. I was also lucky enough to take a behavioral economics course (before it was called that) and a somewhat related pricing strategy course.
Sounds cliched, but the remaining 10% is real world experience applying and reflecting on a myriad of (sometimes pseudo-) psychology concepts developed over the years in the areas of leadership, self awareness, and workplace behaviour.
I was going to give the list of readings I had for my MBA which I finished last year, but my comment was too long to be posted here.
I read a lot. Probably at least 10x more than what is listed in this DIY MBA list. However, the reading was probably only 10% of the actual effort that went into my MBA. There were a lot of projects, group projects and case studies to do, as well as real-life consultancy work, and meetings... with other students, and with real companies. And then... there was also lectures, about 8 hours a week worth of lectures, and then annoying interactive activities I had to complete each week, which were designed to prove that I was indeed actually doing the readings. Some courses wouldn't let you progress to the next week of readings etc, unless you completed the interactive activities, which would then unlock the next week's coursework. Other courses would just take a percentage off your final grade for every activity that was missed.
A list of readings is just kind of not really the same experience, even if it contains a bit of the same knowledge. It's also about how you take the knowledge and implement it in real-life situations.
As a previous M7 FTMBA student who dropped out halfway through to do a startup, the real MBA is starting a company. Venture, cash flow/lifestyle or otherwise.
There have been a few companies advertising something like this (e.g., oneday.io) where you build a startup and earn an accredited professional MBA along the way.
Readit News
There are basically two skills you really need to hone in an MBA. The first are the hard skills/knowledge on finance, accounting, (basic) stats, and (basic) economics. The second is being able to assess and analyze business models, from both strategic and operational angles. The former can be learned in MOOCs, while the latter is best approached with case studies, ideally discussed as a group. I'd honestly suggest trying to start a business/entrepreneurs book club with ~12-20 people to try to replicate that experience over reading books on your own.
https://commoncog.com/c/cases/
I do like Cedric's blog a lot, it frequently gets shared here on HN.
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=commoncog.com%2Fblog
That's why a Harvard MBA is worth more than (unknown school) MBA - the top companies hire Harvard MBAs who then have a business network with other Harvard MBAs - who of course got hired at other top companies.
It's self reinforcing.
MBA programs are also often predicated on predicting the next y years based on the past x years.
This is increasingly hard for mbas to do or stay ahead of because how things are done in business isn’t the same, and changing faster than mbas are updated and taught.
Like anything it not what your education makes of you, it’s what you make of your education.
Agree though to marry being a ferocious reader / learner with being a do’er is the way to go. Personally I did not grow up with an opportunity to develop an intuition about business and self-motivated action. Has taken a lot of work to move that direction over the years.
I've spent a decade in startups, and pitch decks along with projections are more or less riding-the-edge-of-grifting fluff.
If it were possible to accurately forecast cost and revenue, then everyone would start a profitable business, right?
It doesn't mean anyone should expect it to go that way exactly and the deviation from projection could be quite large, but it's still miles ahead of someone who's not bothered to think through it at all in most cases.
The value of models is the assumptions you put in. How big is the potential market? What price do you think you can charge? How much of the market will go to competitors.
The value of forecasts is in pressure testing assumptions and opportunity.
that doesn't follow: it's just as likely if you could accurately forecast cost and revenue, then you wouldn't start many businesses because you'd know they wouldn't be profitable
Deleted Comment
That's a lot of books. I'm not sure it's more total reading than I did in an MBA program but it's certainly more books than I read.
I'm not sure the best way to replicate case study discussions--which is a big part of most actual MBA programs and is probably at least somewhat important. (Also projects as opposed to just reading.)
Seems very light on finance and accounting. Honestly accounting doesn't need a lot--the main lesson is things are this way because the financial accounting standards board says it is--but the equivalent of core Finance 101 is probably necessary even if you're not going to be primarily a finance person. What I didn't have in B-school but would want today is a deeper dive into VC/startup/etc. term sheets and the like.
There's no real operations on that list. Probably don't really need real operations research but some basic manufacturing lingo and concepts would be useful.
I'd probably look for a basic Marketing 101 sort of book/course in addition to UX and things along those lines.
I'll stop there but I'd probably encourage more reading along the lines of what's actually used in MBA programs and looking at ways/materials that are closer to case studies and learning by doing.
When teaching yourself you need multiple sources as a stand in for things being explained different ways by a teacher or through discussions.
A fair metric is about 3 books where you'd otherwise use 1 in class.
As someone who did an MBA twenty years ago, I think this is a really important point
The value for me wasn’t the reading, it’s the discussion the exploration of different (sometime opposed) viewpoints and understanding the differences between them
Talking to friends who’ve done other Masters degrees one of the key things we all agree on is they taught us how to “think better” and not sure you’ll get that from reading a bunch of books
Regarding books: - Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew Grove (Intel) [4]. It is always in my "pocket". It is real experience with pain points from a top CEO, not an academic exercise.
- Other books that are not focused on business but are more "epistemological". For example, "How Life Imitates Chess" by Garry Kasparov [5]. I don't know who created this title for the book though. Many autobiographies, in general, or good business biographies such as "Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire" [6].
[1] https://avc.com/category/mba-mondays/
[2] https://mba-mondays-illustrated.com/
[3] https://avc.com/2010/08/commission-plans/
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Exploit-Challen...
[5] https://www.amazon.com/How-Life-Imitates-Chess-Boardroom/dp/...
[6] https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Making-Microsoft-Empire/dp...
You can get a BS in Business Administration, or even a minor in it, and have more knowledge and experience than from reading these books. Guess what? Even with those credentials, they will not help you. "I have an MBA from [prestigious school]" are the magic words. The hiring managers don't care about lesser credentials or actual knowledge.
I more or less did this for years by reading a ton of books + many years of HN / articles / interviews / videos + startup weekend events + tried starting things + coding hobby for years + enterprise consulting work, and now I’m fairly well equipped to co-lead the company that I do.
The first 5+ years of doing this I debated attempting to go to a prestigious school for an MBA, primary reason (95%) was for the networking opportunity (meeting great likeminded or driven people), (0% because I would’ve been able to tell people I had an MBA from somewhere for job purposes, the snobbery from that would have been a detriment often instead I believe), and 5% for the education which I think has value but when it’s free and I had the motivation there was no reason to pay $100ks for that. At this point this company is doing fairly well so although I would love to meet more driven and likeminded people, I’m not sure it the best path to do so anymore for me.
MBAs are low value...depending on perspective. Around these parts, they are deemed very value, or at least in low regard. Look at Boeing as exhibit A.
If you're an engineering company that allows MBAs to make the decisions, you won't be a good engineering company for long. At that point, you become the dead carcass that the MBAs point to as to what their purpose is.
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/15-401-finance-theory-i-fall-200...
The lectures are well structured. Class questions are good.
And best of all... these lectures were done during the 2008 financial crisis, so you see how people react in real time. Fascinating.
Especially if you watch lectures at 2x the speed, you can save A LOT of time. And I'd bet your understanding is better, since lecturers can think through problems out loud. Indispensable, IMO.
The book is humorous, but quite serious about the material.
I read a lot. Probably at least 10x more than what is listed in this DIY MBA list. However, the reading was probably only 10% of the actual effort that went into my MBA. There were a lot of projects, group projects and case studies to do, as well as real-life consultancy work, and meetings... with other students, and with real companies. And then... there was also lectures, about 8 hours a week worth of lectures, and then annoying interactive activities I had to complete each week, which were designed to prove that I was indeed actually doing the readings. Some courses wouldn't let you progress to the next week of readings etc, unless you completed the interactive activities, which would then unlock the next week's coursework. Other courses would just take a percentage off your final grade for every activity that was missed.
A list of readings is just kind of not really the same experience, even if it contains a bit of the same knowledge. It's also about how you take the knowledge and implement it in real-life situations.