Does Silicon Valley Really Devalue MBAs?

LINKEDIN EMPLOYS ABOUT 60 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL GRADS

Indeed, a full 20% of Harvard Business School’s Class of 2015, up from just 12% three years ago, and a whopping 43% of the UC Berkeley-Haas’ MBA Class of 2014 went directly into technology.

That’s huge!

And as strong as these numbers are, they don’t include the large number of B-school graduates who will end up in technology after working a few years in banking or consulting.

To get a feel for how many MBAs are already in technology, one only need to play around with LinkedIn’s advanced search function (my second favorite LI function after Who’s Viewed Your Profile, aka “crack for narcissists”).

Of course LinkedIn profile information is self-reported by the user and may not be current. However, it’s pretty solid directional data.

Here are a few LI data nuggets on the prevalence of just Harvard Business School alums working at leading tech firms:

• LinkedIn itself employs about 60 HBS grads
• eBay: 31 HBS grads
• PayPal: about 22 HBS grads

These – and other – MBAs are not just the rank-and-file either.

17 OF THE TOP 48 FACEBOOK EXECUTIVES ALL HAVE MBA DEGREES

Check this out: according to LinkedIn, 17 of 48 Facebook executives (VP+) hold MBAs. That’s 35% of the executive team! (I learned how to do math like that in business school.) So while an MBA might not be necessary to get a job at the social media giant, it sure as hell isn’t going to hurt your chances of advancing once you’re in the door.

It puzzles me why so many important people in Silicon Valley would say that MBAs don’t matter when it is quite clear that they do. Maybe it’s just the prevailing ethos and to say otherwise would be impolitic. Or maybe they don’t want the engineers to feel less valuable by comparison. I don’t know.

But one thing’s certainly true: while one doesn’t need an MBA to be an entrepreneur, entrepreneurs need MBAs to scale their companies and to operate them efficiently as they grow.

Net-Net (awesome MBA term): It’s a great time to be an MBA in Silicon Valley. Even if very few tech leaders will say so.

Paul Ollinger is a writer, stand-up comedian and digital media veteran. He has an MBA from Dartmouth and worked at Facebook from 2007-2011. His first book, You Should Totally Get an MBA, comes out in 2016. Follow him on Twitter @Paul_Ollinger and LinkedIn.

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