Just looking at Onex: We hire almost entirely at the most bottom level and bring them through a nine-year training program. We're probably 70/30 today not requiring an MBA.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Interestingly, a good undergraduate program does a lot of what an MBA does. I think a really good undergraduate program and some work experience is just about the equal of an MBA.
We have a training period; we have certain guidelines and structure. You can't hire talented people and stifle them. That's not the way it works anymore.
What I have against M.B.A.s is the assumption that you come out of a two-year program probably never having been a manager - at least for full-time younger people M.B.A. programs - and assume you are ready to manage.
Many training programs and often schools focus on just a skill or a kind of work competency. That's only half the equation.
There's a final exam in venture every four to six years. The scary thing is you need to get an 'A' in every discipline. You need to be on generational planning, need to be on great deal flow, need be on great outcomes, you need to be on great company building.
I was going to get a degree in economics and be a teacher. But I couldn't afford to pay for the education. So I just got the MBA and not the doctorate. I loved it at Bain, and I've been there ever since.
We should have A-levels in vocational subjects.
As entrepreneurs, we often get pressured into hiring an industry executive. While it's good to hire people with experience, it can also be a stumbling block because they think about the business the same way everyone else does.
One goes through school, college, medical school and one's internship learning little or nothing about goodness but a good deal about success.
There was a point in the late '90s where all the graduating M.B.A.'s wanted to start companies in Silicon Valley, and for the most part they were not actually qualified to do it.
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