why don't you stop being pu**y's and if you're as good as you think you are start a hedge fund right out of business school like Bill Ackman. That way you have no one to blame but yourself if you win or lose. It wasn't easy for Ackman, he took on MBIA by shorting it when he started out and they retaliated by trying to shut down his hedge fund. However intelligence and persistence paid out in the end for him. Maybe it will for you too - so if you have any kind of ideas, what do you have to lose?

I haven't done MBA so feel free to say that i'm talking shite. I'm still gathering information. From my research, MBA is mostly about bringing out the 'active' side of your personality. At the age of 28, one would assume that you have gained the right knowledge and skills before starting an MBA. Technies have (or are seen to have) 'passive' personalities especially at age of 28 or higher thus making it a very high risk hire. To switch from technie jobs into S&T or IB, MBA is probably the most useful thing that you can do if you're around 28.Whether it is worth the $200K depends on you. Personally, having $200K less in the long term will not change my life, however having $1m more will definitely change my life so its something I would be willing to do. I'm thinking about where I could be towards the end of my career if I did an MBA and got into S&T...a senior MD maybe head of trading earning bare $ I found it very useful to go to LBS open evenings, sample lectures etc and meet many current and ex-students.

QuoteOriginally posted by: albertmillswhy don't you stop being pu**y's and if you're as good as you think you are start a hedge fund right out of business school like Bill Ackman. That way you have no one to blame but yourself if you win or lose. It wasn't easy for Ackman, he took on MBIA by shorting it when he started out and they retaliated by trying to shut down his hedge fund. However intelligence and persistence paid out in the end for him. Maybe it will for you too - so if you have any kind of ideas, what do you have to lose?I wonder if Ackman were graduating now to a father working as a mid level accountant would find it so easy to get going.Rich Father + HBS in the 90s = success - WOW, never could have predicted that. Good on you Albert, very insightful.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ElysianEagleQuoteOriginally posted by: DevonFangsOK, but isn't it kinda ridiculous that the value of a degree is entirely based on the network it helps you build. It sounds odd, but I haven't heard a single person saying they actually learnt how to do this or that during their MBA. Please advise.that's been my experience as well. my ex-boss who did his MBA at NYU Stern flat out told me "it's completely worthless, don't do it unless you can get someone else to pay for it". the "someone else" in this case was the company i'm at that reimburses you for tuition (of course you still have to work full-time and pursue the MBA part-time).other than who you get to know, it's really just a stamp, something that companies can use to filter out candidates.DevonFangs - You are the only person asking what an MBA teaches one to do, and no one other than capafan2 is replying to that question as it teaches nothing concrete. Well not really nothing, but it is so close, let's call it epsilon.For instance, after an MBA you will know how to do "Discounted Cash Flows" for valuing a company. You will spends an entire semester doing this, something that could be taught to a 2nd grader in about 30 minutes, yet you will find that many of your classmates will be unable to do this basic arithmetic.The purpose of the MBA is to retrain your mind, to teach you that you will only make money if you get other people to do things for you.It is to get you from the slave mentality to the owner mentality. Most middle class people cannot make that jump. If you have a deeply ingrained work ethic, it is difficult to replace that by the shallow order-people-around ethic.. However that is what is needed to rise up in the world.The rick kids already know this, that is why they do Art History undergrad from Ivy League universities - they maximize their time to meet the leaders of their generation when in school. Networking for life is best done when you are in your teens and early twenties - those childhood / teen relationships last a lifetime and are in some sense purer than the monetarily inspired friendships formed in your late 20s / early 30s.But if you weren't brought up as a rich kid, then the MBA gives you a way to hobnob with the next generation of leaders and form shallow professional relationships with them.QuoteOriginally posted by: capafan2Exceptions are made of IIM's from India as a lot of them ended up in Top Univ doing a "second" MBA full time or part-time.That is also the reason why many IIM grads do a second MBA in the states - you cannot hobnob with American power elites if you do your MBA in India.

That, my friends, is unfortunately the cold hard truth.Instead of working hard to impress your boss and have a mediocre salary, can you inspire hundred other people to work hard for you and make a lot of money for you.

while arthurdent pretty much nails it on the head, i'll still venture that many of the kids of the people that have such a dim view of non-hard-sciency degrees will themselves likely go this route.

@Arthur/TJ,What you say is very true. But there is also another side to the whole story. Most MBA's will not even get close. One MD I know in a big IB followed the path similar to the one you mentioned. History Major in Harvard. But his Dad was a Wall Street hero too which makes the whole thing a family connection thing. That approach works for rich kids, the others will not even get a chance to play the game. Plus the stakes are too high to try that stunt for the rest of us. The rich kids have a different set of advantages which are un-available to the rest of us. And as TJ admitted in another post most MBA's will stagnate at $300k-$500k which is nothing great(the money is great but the achievement while good is not that unusual) and most capable people even in IT if they are enterprising stagnate in that region. In the end MBA or any other career choice is a very personal decision requiring a lot of introspection. A vast majority of the people will not put that introspection in with not so great consequences.

QuoteOriginally posted by: capafan2@Arthur/TJ,What you say is very true. But there is also another side to the whole story. Most MBA's will not even get close. One MD I know in a big IB followed the path similar to the one you mentioned. History Major in Harvard. But his Dad was a Wall Street hero too which makes the whole thing a family connection thing. That approach works for rich kids, the others will not even get a chance to play the game. Plus the stakes are too high to try that stunt for the rest of us. The rich kids have a different set of advantages which are un-available to the rest of us. And as TJ admitted in another post most MBA's will stagnate at $300k-$500k which is nothing great(the money is great but the achievement while good is not that unusual) and most capable people even in IT if they are enterprising stagnate in that region. In the end MBA or any other career choice is a very personal decision requiring a lot of introspection. A vast majority of the people will not put that introspection in with not so great consequences.If you are a New Yorker, being a Wall Street hotshot is a big status symbol. You would be surprised to see the amount of animosity towards banking on some of the West Coast campuses. All of us know that the only thing that never changes in finance is that you should follow your supervisor's orders without resistance and give up any sense of "freedom" that you might think you have.I got really interested in this MBA topic and spoke to some folks I know in the product management function at Google. Even though it pays low when compared to some banking jobs, the PMs at Google would drive trucks before they took up a 80-hr/week job in finance. I was also pointed to some online material about Google being the most sought-after post-MBA firm. I guess the idea is if you are making a very comfortable living in a creative job with 100k-200k, why would smart kids put up with very long hours, dull work, no job security and bad attitudes. Has anybody had the (mis)fortune of approaching VCs for funding? They only want to see engineers in founding teams! Their rationale is that they know enough about business to see that the business end is taken care of.

QuoteOriginally posted by: mrmisterQuoteOriginally posted by: capafan2@Arthur/TJ,What you say is very true. But there is also another side to the whole story. Most MBA's will not even get close. One MD I know in a big IB followed the path similar to the one you mentioned. History Major in Harvard. But his Dad was a Wall Street hero too which makes the whole thing a family connection thing. That approach works for rich kids, the others will not even get a chance to play the game. Plus the stakes are too high to try that stunt for the rest of us. The rich kids have a different set of advantages which are un-available to the rest of us. And as TJ admitted in another post most MBA's will stagnate at $300k-$500k which is nothing great(the money is great but the achievement while good is not that unusual) and most capable people even in IT if they are enterprising stagnate in that region. In the end MBA or any other career choice is a very personal decision requiring a lot of introspection. A vast majority of the people will not put that introspection in with not so great consequences.If you are a New Yorker, being a Wall Street hotshot is a big status symbol. You would be surprised to see the amount of animosity towards banking on some of the West Coast campuses. All of us know that the only thing that never changes in finance is that you should follow your supervisor's orders without resistance and give up any sense of "freedom" that you might think you have.I got really interested in this MBA topic and spoke to some folks I know in the product management function at Google. Even though it pays low when compared to some banking jobs, the PMs at Google would drive trucks before they took up a 80-hr/week job in finance. I was also pointed to some online material about Google being the most sought-after post-MBA firm. I guess the idea is if you are making a very comfortable living in a creative job with 100k-200k, why would smart kids put up with very long hours, dull work, no job security and bad attitudes. Has anybody had the (mis)fortune of approaching VCs for funding? They only want to see engineers in founding teams! Their rationale is that they know enough about business to see that the business end is taken care of.i'm inclined to believe that for true techies, the west coast is the way to go. i have a colleague who worked in the bay area for a bit at a search firm (won't name it), then did his MFE at a top school and is now working at my firm. to this day he raves about the work culture there and is always complaining abt how much working at IBs sucks (from an IT perspective). perhaps his comparison has merit after all. also, 100 - 200K on the west coast goes a lot farther than it does in NYC. so the NYC equivalent of 200K on the west coast would be more like 250 - 300K. that is a director (but not MD)-level salary at many large IBs, which means that most pure IT folks even in the NYC banking sector peak at around 150K. i'm not talking abt quant devs and algorithmic trading devs, because to me, they aren't "pure dev". they bring 2 roughly orthogonal skillsets to the table so their salaries are justifiably a bit higher (but i'll still venture that it isn't stratospheric, and the hours can be inhumane).

Get a feeling a resignation in this thread.Find it surprising as to why people donot get into meaningful jobs like academics/non profit if all end up stagnation at 300- 500k in a costly city like NY.

QuoteOriginally posted by: AbhiJGet a feeling a resignation in this thread.Find it surprising as to why people donot get into meaningful jobs like academics/non profit if all end up stagnation at 300- 500k in a costly city like NY.Because believe it or not, some people just don't like academics.

Know couple of guys who could easily be making north of 500k one joining politics to fight corruption and other becoming a freelance writer. I guess once you get used to making certain sum of money it's tough to imagine life without the bucks, whatever the other attractions might be.

QuoteOriginally posted by: AbhiJKnow couple of guys who could easily be making north of 500k one joining politics to fight corruption and other becoming a freelance writer. I guess once you get used to making certain sum of money it's tough to imagine life without the bucks, whatever the other attractions might be.I can guess who the politician is. I assume you know him well enough to believe he will never be corrupted as you can make a lot more than 500K in Indian politics . Jokes apart, it is not easy to make north of 500K for anyone. It takes a lot of luck (even born in a rich family which secures connections is luck). All of us Type A workers like to believe that Intelligence is what stands in between. But the more I look around me, there is less and less correlation between wealth and Intelligence.

QuoteOriginally posted by: capafan2QuoteOriginally posted by: AbhiJKnow couple of guys who could easily be making north of 500k one joining politics to fight corruption and other becoming a freelance writer. I guess once you get used to making certain sum of money it's tough to imagine life without the bucks, whatever the other attractions might be.I can guess who the politician is. I assume you know him well enough to believe he will never be corrupted as you can make a lot more than 500K in Indian politics . Jokes apart, it is not easy to make north of 500K for anyone. It takes a lot of luck (even born in a rich family which secures connections is luck). All of us Type A workers like to believe that Intelligence is what stands in between. But the more I look around me, there is less and less correlation between wealth and Intelligence.malcolm gladwell addresses this at length in his book 'outliers'. highly recommend it if you haven't read it already. he mentions a study done years ago on kids with the highest IQs and the finding was that they were no more successful as adults than any random sampling of the population. the thing that correlated best with success as an adult was in fact their background. those that came from well-to-do households as kids tended to be much better off than those that didn't.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ElysianEagleQuoteOriginally posted by: capafan2QuoteOriginally posted by: AbhiJKnow couple of guys who could easily be making north of 500k one joining politics to fight corruption and other becoming a freelance writer. I guess once you get used to making certain sum of money it's tough to imagine life without the bucks, whatever the other attractions might be.I can guess who the politician is. I assume you know him well enough to believe he will never be corrupted as you can make a lot more than 500K in Indian politics . Jokes apart, it is not easy to make north of 500K for anyone. It takes a lot of luck (even born in a rich family which secures connections is luck). All of us Type A workers like to believe that Intelligence is what stands in between. But the more I look around me, there is less and less correlation between wealth and Intelligence.malcolm gladwell addresses this at length in his book 'outliers'. highly recommend it if you haven't read it already. he mentions a study done years ago on kids with the highest IQs and the finding was that they were no more successful as adults than any random sampling of the population. the thing that correlated best with success as an adult was in fact their background. those that came from well-to-do households as kids tended to be much better off than those that didn't.Success defined how? Merely in monetary terms?