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May 18, 2005

Why The MBA?

"Why get an MBA?"

I have been asked this question a countless number of times over the last couple years. The first person that asked it was, naturally, me ("self, why do you want to go to graduate school?"). After I felt like I had figured out what it was all about, I started sharing my answer with others. Eventually, I shared it with the UW admissions office (in essay form, and during in-person interview). They (apparently) liked what I had to say, and now that I've been here (and am soon to leave), I am getting it from whole new constituencies - admits, prospective students, people I meet at weddings.

In fact, I've been asked this question so often that it struck me I should put it down somewhere and see if it can't help other people decide for themselves if the b-school experience might be right for them. Hence: this essay. My intent here is to share a little something about my background, the thinking that brought me here, and how I feel like it's all worked out. If you find this useful, I'd love to hear about it.

NOTE: I've written elsewhere about how business school is a hard sell; it focuses more on the economics of going to school, and what you have to give up to participate in a program like this one. If you haven't seen that yet, you might want to check it out.

About Me
So, first - a bit about me and my professional background. I'm 32 years old, and I've spent most of my working life as an entrepreneur. In 1994, I was attending college in Bellingham, Washington and fell in with a small, local Internet service provider ("Pacific Rim Network") that was just getting started. Soon after, I dropped out of school to build the ISP. My partners and I sold the business to national Internet provider Verio in early 1997 (5.7 MB, QuickTime required).

Following the Verio deal, my partners and I started a Web development company ("Media Access Internet Solutions"). We moved down to Belllevue, Washington (just East of Seattle) and started growing the business. We enjoyed good success for a few years, but got caught in the economic collapse of late 2000 and early 2001. We transitioned a number of our clients to another Web firm downtown, and I went to work for them for a year or so. I left in summer 2002.

What I Wanted
I found myself drawn to an MBA program for three primary reasons: skills, people, and opportunity:

• Skills. I'm a geek. Always have been, and probably always will be. I've been enthusiastic about computers and technology ever since fourth grade, when I - wait for it - chose to stay indoors during recess and poke around with the new TRS-80 our school had purchased. So you could say I was pretty shocked when, one day in early '95, it was decided amongst the partners that I was going to be the Marketing Guy™. I felt like I'd drawn the short straw or something.
  
  Now, I knew exactly squat about marketing, so I got myself down to Barnes & Noble and picked up some info (e.g., copies of Guerrilla Marketing and Crossing the Chasm). From there, I taught myself whatever I could about whatever we needed. Marketing plan? OK. Reseller program? Uh, sure. Advertising copy? I'll get right on that.
  
  We basically bootstrapped the hell out of our businesses, and my skills got better as I made stupid mistakes and learned from them. But I never, ever had anything approaching formal training. And so, the idea of going to school to get that formal training became awfully appealing. As I considered the range of skills I might need in another business - marketing, of course, but also accounting, finance, operations, economics, and so on - B-school struck me as a fabulous way to get a sense of what I didn't know, and to do it in a low-stakes environment (I mean, what's worse - blowing a final in class, or blowing $400,000 on a bad decision?).
• People. One of my personal mottos is, "Jobs come and go, but people are forever." I mean it, too - the good life is one where you cherish the others you meet on your journey. I've been through four colleges and two start-ups, and I'm proud to say I have kept friends from each and every stage. Institutions are just a way of meeting great people.
  
  Now, I've been very, very fortunate to work with some incredible folks (in particular, the team we put together at Media Access). Being around smart, motivated, passionate people who want to do well and are not content with the status quo is a very big thing, one that keeps getting me up in the morning.
  
  Finding good people is tough. But one of the places you might choose to look would be in a business school. Nobody "accidentally" gets their MBA. Think about it: for the range of people that think about grad school, some percentage actually apply. Those people need to be organized - shopping for schools, attending campus visits, writing essays, sitting for the GMAT, considering the financial impact on their lives, and so on. Each one of these gates kicks a few more folks out of the pool, until you're left with only those people who truly want it. And of that group, only a small percentage are actually admitted.
  
  What this means is that business schools, by dint of their application and screening process, are full of people who clearly have what it takes. They tend to be remarkable people, with remarkable stories and a remarkable amount of drive. The UW, in particular, does an amazing job of screening applicants based on who they are and how they relate to the world (as opposed to looking for a specific background, or a specific outcome post-school), which adds up to an incredibly tight group of people who are all going to do great (and wildly divergent) things with their lives. It's a great group to meet, and an even better group to get to know over two years.
• Opportunity. I've never worked for a large business. Ever. I mean, I've gone to work for larger companies after both Pacific Rim and Media Access, and I've done business with corporations, but I've never worked very long for a company where I wasn't one of the major shareholders.
  
  This was, in some ways, a problem. I got to thinking about my startup experiences, and how they had given me a very specific view of the world. And I wondered about bigger firms - what are they like? Do they suck? Are they fun? Is it Dilbert-land? Or can you take your ideas and your energy, and somehow attach them to resources - money, people, talent - that lets you go farther with them?
  
  I had to know.
  
  Problem is, going through the front door of a major corporation is a bitch. It's a real bitch when you consider that I'd just completed my Bachelor's degree in March of of 2002 (it took me 12 years, and it's in General Studies ... no, really! Stop laughing!) and, despite all my experience, nobody had ever heard of my employers (startups, sadly, toil in anonymity most of their lives). That, paired with a devilishly difficult job market (flooded with dot-com refugees), meant my cover letters ought to have been addressed to "Dear Database," if you know what I mean.
  
  Business schools, on the other hand, have recruiting operations. They bring employers to campus, facilitate interviews, and help you network with alumni and business leaders in the community. They're very good at getting students past the front door, and in through the back. And suddenly, despite the fact that Microsoft gets 6,000,000,000,000 applications a day for work, I saw myself being interviewed as one of nine students when they came to campus. The odds, in short, are way better.

Culture Matters
Despite these advantages, one of the things I was most definitely not keen on was going to some kind of Bastard Academy and fulfilling the stereotype of MBAs everywhere - cocky, know-it-all, a little too sure that they had all the answers, and a little condescending to people without the highfalutin' title.

So I shopped around to find programs that were more aligned with my values and had the right "feel". Everyone knows the "feel" when they find it, and two people can have wildly divergent reactions to the same program. The UW, for instance, is very much about collaboration and teamwork, and has a strong cultural belief that success is not zero-sum. That fits me to a "T", but I know some people who find this approach to be touchy-feely, Seattle-squishy, passive-aggressive, and repellent. That's OK; find the program that suits your style. Remember, you're going to be devoting two years of your life to your program, so throwing down with people you respect is very important.

"The Credential"
A lot has been written about the "value of the MBA" as a credential. Now I'm not a hiring manager for a company, so I can't say what impact the MBA has on any one person's chances of promotion or hire with any specific firm. However, MBAs do talk - often with shocking candor - about how their degrees have helped them (or not) as time has gone on.

Some people believe that the MBA will be some automatic ticket to riches and power. Those people are wrong. The MBA program can't make you somebody different than you are. It just makes you, YOU, but with a graduate degree. It's doesn't make you smarter or funnier or harder-working; rather, MBA programs tend to select people based on those criteria, and then give them an environment to try new things out.

My very good friend John (also an MBA) gave me a wonderful piece of advice before I decided to go to school. He said, "The value of your MBA is not in that first job you get out of college. That job is meaningful, but it's not important. Instead, the MBA has the biggest impact when you're three years in to that first job, and are looking around for the next job. Suddenly, you'll find doors open for you that weren't there before. That's not the MBA, though - that's your hard work, smarts, and good performance on the job, plus the MBA. Having the MBA makes it easier for people who like you to justify to their higher-ups why they should spend money on you. It does not, however, get you anything automatically."

I think this is incredibly meaningful advice (in the movie version of my life, John will undoubtedly be played by Morgan Freeman), and it's been confirmed by stories that I've heard from others. In all cases, "the MBA" as the piece of paper, does nothing except cover some chipped paint on the wall of your living room. Rather, "the MBA", as the sum of the skills you've got and the people you've met, synthesizes when exposed to your hard work and creativity, and becomes something more. That is the "value of the MBA" - the experience you have while going through the program, the people you meet, and the opportunities it may afford you later in your life.

Should You Go?
If you're thinking about school, my strongest piece of advice is to know yourself. Know why you want to come to school. Know why you want the degree. Understand how the experience fits in to your life, and what you'll be able to do differently once you've come through the other side.

Admissions essays ask these kinds of questions for a reason: they matter. If you come to a program expecting that it will just convey knowledge to your head and cash to your pocket, well, you're in for a rude surprise. If, on the other hand, you have a good sense of yourself, what you want, and why the MBA will help you get there, then these programs can open doors in a way that's truly magical.

Final Thoughts
Did my MBA investment pay off - was it worth it? Definitely. The skills I've obtained are remarkable (I shudder to think of what I could have done with them when building my companies), the people astounding (truly, one of the most exceptional groups I could have ever have imagined being associated with), and the opportunity ... well, my internship was fabulous, and now I'm going back to Microsoft in August. So that worked out, too.

I've become a big proponent of MBA programs. They're excellent at helping people reinvent themselves, whether you're a finance admin whose inner marketer needs to be let out, a recovering engineer that wants to work for Starbucks in Thailand, or an ex-Amazon.com employee who's eager to hone her skills at a hedge fund. These programs give smart people a real opportunity to find new sides of themselves and change course in their lives. We're not given too many chances like that in life.

And, if that sounds like you - well, maybe you ought to apply. (And if you want to know more about the UW, let me know. Seriously.)

Posted by Gavin Shearer at May 18, 2005 9:12 PM. Posted to UW MBA.

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