B minor

There’s been an interesting conversation happening in the world of blogs I read over the last week or so about the role and value of MBAs in startups. It started with this post by Charlie O’Donnell. This post was tweeted around the HBS community with some fervor last weekend and I read it and this reply by Rob Go shortly before embarking on an errand expedition (and ultimately a debate about these posts) with Rafael Corrales last Sunday night. Rafael wrote a great response to them, which I mostly agree with, and Kyle Doherty then added his two cents here.

I really have no desire to engage in a debate about MBAs’ approach to recruiting here (at startups or elsewhere) because I think most of the issues have been covered by Rob and Rafael and Charlie (particularly in the comments on Rafael’s post). I do, however, want to say one thing. And I should caveat that this is general commentary inspired by the above conversation and my experiences over the past year and a half, not a response directed at Rob, Charlie, or anyone else.

It frustrates me to no end when people bucket MBAs. An MBA is not a race or a religion. It is a graduate degree. That’s it. There is almost nothing I can generalize about any of the people I’ve ever met in this MBA program (or from any other MBA program for that matter) except to say that they either have or have had an interest in studying business administration.

People who make the assumption that MBAs are X, Y, or Z, simply because they have an MBA are as guilty of lunacy as the MBAs who throw themselves at startups with the expectations of red-carpet-rollouts simply because they have an MBA.

Contrary to popular belief, not all MBAs are flocking to finance and/or consulting. Further, not all MBAs *come* from finance or consulting. There are a ton of people here who come from interesting operational and functional backgrounds and have every intention of returning to operational and functional positions. These are the same types of positions that any startup seeks to fill.

So, what’s my point?

When Kyle said:

While it seems unfair to bucket a whole group based on the actions of a few, it’s human nature to do so.  Those who are really dedicated will figure it out, the perception doesn’t matter.  So I guess my approach is to think: who cares?

My answer to this?

I do.

I care a lot. I don’t want a few people who lack a social compass representing me in the world. I don’t want anybody to assume anything about me when they see MBA on my resume except for that at one point in my life I had an interest in studying business administration. And I want to fight those generalizations that get made (and the people who cause them to be made) for the sake of the rest of us who don’t behave like this. Then maybe the people who use criticism of MBAs and B-schools as a way to sell newspapers and display ads will have to find another way to write about us.

I’m writing to share an initiative I’ve been working on at school and ask for your help.

DARPA, the government agency, is sponsoring a challenge on Saturday to test the ability of social networks to mobilize toward a common task. They are placing ten giant red weather balloons (tethered near the ground) around the US for 8 hours on Saturday. The first person/team to correctly submit the locations of the ten balloons wins $40,000.

We will be donating the money to The Global Fund’s AIDS research/awareness initiative.

I’m working on this initiative with several classmates and a few profs from Harvard Business School, and we’re looking at this as a test of the HBS network. Hopefully we win, but I’m confident we’ll learn something in the process!

details: www.projectredballoon.com
twitter: www.twitter.com/helpredballoon

Please help us spread the word by forwarding to your friends, blogging, retweeting, facebooking, etc.

We need your SUPPORT and it’s for a GREAT CAUSE!

As I was packing up to leave school in late May, I had a weird experience on campus. I had crossed the river from home to school to pick a few things up from my various lockers, closets, etc. It was about 10 days after  school had let out for summer. Most people had already left campus for travel before starting summer internships.

Being on campus, a place where I had had a million intense memories accumulate during the year, I had a rather vacant feeling. The type of vacancy you’d encounter coming to a place you’d never been before.

In my mind I started to feel nostalgic – remembering all the great things that had happened that year.

It occurred to me then that the place would never be the same. Granted, I still have a whole year to go at HBS, and many many more memories yet to create. But the notion that what had happened during the year – the experience – was more closely tied to the people and the circumstance than the physical place, made me realize how much I will need to capture every opportunity in the coming year.

Because once the moment passes: the people, the place, the circumstance – everything that happened there becomes a nice (but unrepeatable) memory.

I wonder what psychologists would say about memories – and the strength of them – relative to people or place.

The section experience is one of the cornerstones of the MBA program at HBS. In the first year of school (the RC, or required curriculum year), the class is divided into 10 groups of 90, called sections. Each section is given a letter, A through J, and its own classroom which it the occupies for the entire year. That group of 90 spends the first semester in the same seats, its five professors cycling in and out of the classroom; and then changes seats and professors before repeating the same exercise in the second semester.

The group elects its own leadership, develops its own norms (rules governing behavior within the section), and basically becomes the nucleus for all school activity in the first year. It’s likely that the section experience was borne out of an examination of the case method of teaching and a need for best practices which would engender more substantive debate. But there are social benefits to the section experience, too.

Given that the whole class is about 900 students, it would be pretty overwhelming to have to build strong friendships while floating in that sea in the first year. The section acts as a microcosm of the rest of the school, mirroring the diversity of background, origin, gender, age, etc. The benefit is that first year students can grow with the group around them, before endeavoring to meet people elsewhere in the class with similar career interests, etc in the second year.

But the section experience doesn’t stop there. It (according to those who came before me) is a lifelong bond – an extended family if you will.

I’ll pause my high-level view there, because I can’t honestly say more without falsely projecting the future.

What I can say is that my section was the best section. I was in Section C (notable alumni include George W Bush). We were in Aldrich 009 all year. We nicknamed ourselves Sec-C (sounds like sexy). While everything that happened in that room stays in that room, I’m pretty comfortable saying that my experience with this group of people was among the more incredible ones I’ve had in my life. A group of 90 of the most intelligent, compassionate, challenging people I’ve ever met: now counted among my friends.

To illustrate the type of bond that develops in the section, I’d share what we’re doing this summer. Whereas one might expect connection to fall off for the summer while everyone goes off to interships, our section is updating the section on their lives, one person a day, all summer long. It’s been a blast keeping up with people all summer and I really can’t wait to reunite with this group in September and share learnings from the summer (and also reconvene wine and scotch tastings).

I was watching one of my favorite movies, “Stand By Me” while working on cover letters and resumes tonight. The movie ends with this quote:

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anybody?

I used to think that was a pretty interesting quote. I partially agreed with it. I suppose it captures something about the truth in friendship that occurs at such an age. Thinking about it tonight, though, I realized I had an answer to the question asked. Yes, yes, I do.

I can go on about this more later, and I will, but I really do feel very fortunate to have come to school this year and to be in the section I’m in. I’ve made incredible friends in a short amount of time, and there are friendships that I’ve no doubt will last a lifetime. I’m not sure if it’s the connection around the shared experience, the genuine commonality around intellect and drive, or just luck – but there is a bond among people here that is truly great.

I gave a toast at a dinner party the a couple Saturdays ago. I had always said I perceived half the value in the mba program to be in the education and half the value to be in the people you meet (the network). I said at dinner that I’m starting to believe it may be weighted more heavily in favor of the people, after all.

This should surprise anyone who perceives HBS as having a stigma of arrogance or obnoxiousness. It did me. That stigma simply hasn’t presented itself (at least not in the level I thought it would – because surely you can’t rid the world of jerks entirely). But it has confounded me how genuinely good the majority of people are at school.

Anyway – long way of saying that I do feel like I’ve had friends as good since I was 12. I have them right now.

We’re in the middle of final exams here at hbs. The school doesn’t have a “reading week” for exam prep and all exams are open book. One prof even told us not to study but just get a good night’s sleep before the exam. As usual with anything evaluative, anxiety seemed high at school going into Friday’s Marketing exam. Coming out, though, it seemed most people were surprised by the intensity of the case and the lack of help gained from excessive preparation.

So this weekend quickly morphed from a 48 hour scheduled study session, to a relaxing study as you want weekend with a social outing Friday night and a dinner party last night. Today is study time.

Exams here all work mostly the same way – 4 or 4.5 hours to read a case and write somewhere between 750 and 1500 words analyzing it (some with exhibits to create in the analysis). The exam is then graded and added to the forced curve… approximately 10% of the section receives a 1 (the high mark), approximately 80% of the section receives a 2, and approximately 10% of the section receives a 3 (the low mark).

Racking up too many 3′s lands one in trouble with the school (though there seems to be a whole lot of urban myth going around about what the criteria are for that – and what the consequences could be). The course final grade is derived from some (varying) combination of midterm grade, final grade, and class participation grade, usually weighted heavily toward class participation.

I’m hoping the rest of the exams go smoothly. There are 4 remaining. Mostly I’m looking forward to the end of them and my birthday party on Thursday night…