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Does an MBA vs. MS. vs. other degree matter for entrepreneurs?

I have a BSEE and MSEE from Stanford, and practiced for several years as an engineer and technical manager, primarily in the semiconductor industry.  When it came time to move toward the business side of the tech industry as an entrepreneur, and subsequently as a venture capitalist, I weighed the various options of MBA vs. MS degree vs. no degree at all.  Brad Feld’s blog post today on the same subject prompted me to reflect on the question.

For myself, I chose to get an MS in Engineering Management at Stanford (it’s now called the Management Science and Engineering department).  In part this was because it was more time-efficient (Stanford has a joint graduate program between Electrical Engineering and MS&E).  In large part it was the opportunity to work as a research assistant with Tom Byers in building the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.  In retrospect, though, the real reason I did it was that it was the path for which I had the most passion, and from which I could see myself being fulfilled for the rest of my career.  I just didn’t have the same passion for the MBA route.

Now, several of my colleagues at Flywheel have MBAs and while I rib them about its worth all the time, the truth is that they found it very helpful and fulfilling.  And, in fact, the content of all of these types of programs is fairly similar, regardless of the acronym.  So I don’t think there’s any single answer.

In fact, in my opinion…the right answer varies for each individual.  In my entrepreneurship lectures and courses, I start with the well-known definition of entrepreneurship proposed by Howard Stevenson at Harvard: “Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to the resources currently under control.”  In other words, figure out what opportunity you want to pursue, and only then, worry about what resources you need to be successful in that pursuit.

Most people who ask the question of which degree program will advance their career the most are inadvertently signaling that they don’t yet know what opportunity they want to pursue.  Deciding what degree to get, or whether any degree makes sense at all, is a pointless question until you have decided what opportunity to pursue - i.e., what path you want to follow in life.  It’s okay not to know, of course, and in that case, any path at all will get you there.  Just don’t sweat the choice so much.  The energy spent deciding which type of degree is the right one should instead be spent figuring out what path in life will be the most fulfilling.  Which gets me to my real point…

When it comes time to fund entrepreneurs, I can certainly tell you that I don’t pay attention to what advanced degrees (if any) the entrepreneur has.  I pay attention to where their passion lies, and what their past actions (e.g. career choices) tell me about that passion.  Entrepreneurship is too hard, and too risky, to pursue if one doesn’t have passion for the effort that transcends simple risk/reward economics.  Inevitably during the entrepreneurial process, a point will come when the logical, intellectual, well-reasoned decision is to go do something else.  Equally inevitably, the entrepreneurs who are successful in the long-term are those who kept going when economic logic said to stop.  Their pursuit of their passion and their seeking of fulfillment beyond the logical economic choice kept them going.

Passion is not a replacement for logic, and skill, and industry experience, and all of that.  An MBA, or an MS, or any other learning experience certainly contributes to all of that.  But all of those other things are necessary but not sufficient.  Successful entrepreneurs have an additional drive that just keeps them going.  Don’t sacrifice the effort to discover, and fulfill, your passion in life because you think a few letters that signify an advanced degree will get you there instead.

Posted 04-02-2006, 07:52 pm, by Trevor Loy    Comments 0