Silicon Valley Himalayan Expedition

Should I do my MBA?

I received a note from a prospective student asking about whether he should attend the JD-MBA program at the University of Toronto.  He indicated he had strong leanings to be an Internet entrepreneur.  My basic advice was that if he knew he would one day start a company, he should go do it now.

To be clear, I confirmed that U of T was as good a university as any to attend for the program.  The law school has new great leadership and had the benefit of a great Dean for the last ten years, who is now the Provost of Penn.  I also believe the MBA program's leadership under Roger Martin has the potential to put the program among the top 10 of North American programs in the next five years.

I'm glad I did the JD-MBA program, but I also believe I might be better off if I had just started a company instead.  It would have saved a few jokes too.  Last week I was in a conversation in which a person made fun of lawyers, and then asked if I was a lawyer.  "Yes" I said.   That's never that funny, but when he later made fun of MBAs, I have to admit we all had a pretty good chuckle when he asked that too.

Both events got me thinking about internet companies and education.  I decided to take a quick look into the education of the leaders of the top ten internet properties.  Here's what I found:

Yahoo!:  Terry Semel holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Long Island University and an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from Emerson.

MSN-Microsoft:  Steve Berkowitz received a Bachelor of Arts degree from State University of New York at Albany.

Time Warner Network:  Jonathan Miller – I couldn't locate any education.  He either never went to school or is a graduate of a JD-MBA program.

Google - Eric Schmidt has a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University, and a master's and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California-Berkeley.

eBay - Meg Whitman received a Bachelor of Economics from Princeton University and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School

Ask - Jim Lanzone received his BA from U.C.L.A. and isn't shy about acknolwedging his JD/MBA from Emory University.

Amazon - Jeff Bezos graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University in 1986.

Myspace - Chris DeWolfe has a B.A. degree in Finance from the University of Washington and an MBA from the University of Southern California, where he had dual concentrations in Marketing and Entrepreneurial studies.

New York Times Digital - Martin Nisenholtz received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School of Communication

Verizon Communications - Ivan Seidenberg earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from City University of New York and a master's degree in business administration and marketing from Pace

The conclusion is mixed then, but you get the strong feeling that the MBA isn't going to give any Internet entrepreneur much of an edge.

Get 'er done

Last week I overheard our office mate Marcus talking about getting things done.  He took charge to implement a really cool thing we did for our Cinco de Mayo party - the Mozes jukebox.  Anyone at the party (or anyone in the world for that matter) could pick the next song by sending an SMS to Mozes.  This thing could take on a bit of its own life when we write about it on the Mozes blog.

I also saw he or someone else had written "Get 'er done" on a whiteboard above one of our team member's desks. 

Procastination is the persistent enemy of every well-intentioned startup and every well-intentioned entrepreneur.  There are a lot of obstacles to building a company and many of them are out of your control.   But procastination is one of those very big obstacles that is fully within your control, and if you don't beat it down every time it rears its head, you are increasing your likelihood of failure by a multiple each time.

I know I am failing as an entreprenuer when there are steps I could take to advance the business and I don't take them.  I'm not talking about the times whenI am too busy or when I am placing priority on another item.  Prioritization is an art that sometimes I believe I have fully mastered (I haven't).  I am talking about those times - on average at least 5 hours or more per week - that any individual has, regardless of how busy he or she claims to be, to take action on an item that deserves action, and choosing not to take it.   Learning that bad choices come in the form of very bad excuses is a lesson that you won't understand until it is too late.

If you want to know the secret to having a shot at making a start-up successful, it is that the entrpreneur and the team get things done.  They take action on a piece of the product that they know needs fixing.  They watch numbers closely and take corrective action when they don't add up as planned.  They make 10 sales calls a day to close those really important first few deals.  They respond to follow up information requests from investors quickly.  In other words, they get 'er done.