Interview, Fireside Chat
How Should Business Schools Prepare Students for Startups? – Jeff Bussgang and Michael Seibel
- Business schools are expected to increase the enrollment ratio of students with engineering backgrounds or coding capabilities to address the scarcity of technical co-founders, potentially through mandates enforcing a 50-50 engineer-to-non-engineer split in specific courses.
- Curricula are predicted to shift toward teaching analytical and coding skills specifically to managers of technical companies rather than producing coders, though immediate technical proficiency among current MBA students remains critically low, with examples citing only 4 to 5 coding-capable students out of a class of 100.
- The physical integration of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences with the business school across the Charles River is forecasted to enhance social engagement and cross-pollination with engineers during 2019 and 2020.
- Advanced "400-level" classes are anticipated to be necessary to attract top talent, replacing a current model that may coddle students by allowing risk-free experimentation without the immediate financial and employment incentives found in venture capital environments.
- The lack of active industry practitioners in the classroom is identified as a significant risk, as educators who have been out of the startup ecosystem for five years are considered outdated regarding current models, particularly those successful 10 to 20 years ago.
- Geographic concentration of founders in only three to five global cities creates a recruitment challenge for non-top-tier business schools, which may struggle to generate the necessary fluidity for students to learn from current entrepreneurs.
- Top-five business schools are expected to yield higher long-term returns for graduates over a 10 to 20-year horizon due to enhanced networks and skill sets, even if the immediate ROI is lower compared to the short-term benefits of spending two years at an early-stage startup in the Bay Area.
- For non-technical professionals located outside top-five startup cities, attending non-top-five business schools is predicted to be less beneficial than working at an early-stage company in a startup city.
- Entrepreneurs managing companies growing at 20% to 60% annually with uncertain potential to reach a $10 billion valuation are expected to benefit significantly from taking two years to attend a top-five business school.
- The current educational model faces structural limitations in teaching core YC tenets or creating billion-dollar startups, as it is primarily designed for pedagogical experiences rather than high-growth venture outcomes.
- Initiatives such as "HBS Coders" are emerging, but the overall proportion of students with actual technical proficiency remains low, prompting questions about the availability of similar programs in other MBA institutions.