Start a company, or go to business school?
The question keeps creeping into the spotlight, most recently because of investor Chamath Palihapitiya, founding partner at VC firm The Social + Capital Partnership. He had a jarring message for Harvard Business School students last week — essentially calling their MBA a liability. Recorded DealBook:
It's really unfair to you guys, but I think you're discriminated against now ... I would bet a large amount of money that the overwhelming majority of us would not look favorably on a company started by one of you.
Palihapitiya's statement left my colleague Gillis Bernard asking: "Quite tough love, but might the VC's controversial statement have merit?" Bill Aulet, managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, would argue, "No."
"That question is framed in such a way, it's an either/or," Aulet told BostInno over the phone.
You can go to school and start a company. Although a tiring process, the choice could better benefit an entrepreneur in the long run.
Aulet pointed to different MIT-spun startups. Take local business data provider Locu, which was acquired by GoDaddy in August for a rumored $70 million in cash and stock. Or, how about Vanessa Green, who made Forbes' "30 Under 30" list for launching FINsix, formerly known as OnChip Power, while at MIT? After all, Green raised $1.8 million for the semiconductor startup while enrolled in a business school course called "Entrepreneurial Finance."
"Would the students have been ready to be the CEOs of these companies?" Aulet rhetorically posed, adding that business school is far more than just the credential. A proof-point is PillPack, which recently raised $4 million to deliver prescriptions to users' doorsteps in 31 states. The healthcare startup built its beginnings out of the Trust Center's Hacking Medicine.
Beyond serving as a pool to find talented co-founders, what business school also allows for is a safe haven to experiment, iterate, build skills and, oftentimes, fail.
"I would have spent a lot of money to be able to fail faster," Aulet said, reminiscing on his first two startups — the former being a failure and the latter, SensAble Technologies, being "much, much more successful," having been acquired in early 2012. For serial entrepreneurs, the odds of succeeding increases with each new attempt, according to Aulet, so why not take the initial step when you have a two-year safety net to fall back on?
"I'm not saying an MBA as a credential is valued," Aulet added, "it's the skills you get."
Yet, whether you get those skills in business school is also up for debate. People will, and have, argued, "Entrepreneurs are born, not made." When asked whether entrepreneurship can be taught, however, Aulet bluntly responded, "It's complete bullshit that you're born, not made," arguing there's no gene for entrepreneurship.
He will admit that he didn't always feel that way, formerly believing the best way to learn was by doing. But after accidentally becoming the managing director of the Trust Center, Aulet can safely say startup skills can be taught.
"Great entrepreneurs know how to fish; they don't just catch one fish," he posited, pointing to big, one-time hits like Facebook and Oracle, started by young founders. Although those successes can come, Aulet, a former European basketball player, would argue, "It's like teaching basketball to everyone like you teach it to LeBron James."
"Doing" is key to learning entrepreneurship — an entrepreneur won't learn the necessary skills solely from a book. But neither will a doctor, and we wouldn't just tell an aspiring surgeon not to go to medical school.
Schools are evolving — admittedly some faster than others. But, the ever-changing economic landscape has pushed schools to come up with a value proposition and innovate. The Trust Center is a prime example, having made its accelerator program global this past summer, successfully launching 13 startups out of it.
At the time, Aulet said it best: "You, the students, yes, you can do this. You can change the world.”
And they can do it while they're in business school.
