Four years out, I graduated with my MBA from Stanford four years ago and I'm going to tell you if I think business school was worth it for me. And I'm making this video because I actually got on a conversation a few days ago where I was telling them I didn't think business school was worth it for them. So four years out, I'm going to reflect on a bunch of different categories of the business school experience. The first being the class work, which is that a lot of people dug on the class work and not really being that much of the class work. And I disagree with this. I actually think over time it's only gotten more relevant. I was actually at an alumni dinner with one of the managing partners of DE Shaw, uh, who said that the class work is more relevant, the older that you get. I would say on the leadership and soft side of the classes, that is intensely relevant to me today and is only becoming more relevant. I think about things I learned in those specific classes on a daily basis. And then on the hard skill side, some of it was relevant. I had a finance background going into business school, but because I'm in an industry specifically venture capital that is not taught at an undergraduate business school, I learned a ton from those specific classes that has been immensely helpful to my career because I work in that industry and I wouldn't have learned it otherwise. Career-wise, to be clear, I would not have my job unless I went to that business school because I was recruited out of that business school by a headhunter. The halo effect of my career from going there is immense. I recognize that I only have my career today because I went to that business school. Financially, it has made a lot of sense for me even though I still have six figures on my student loans because I have a low interest rate, so I'm dragging out the payments on it. One really important thing about business school is that the career reports often understate the compensation. So if you look at any of these career reports, they're typically all the same because they have a standard that they all follow. If you work in startups, they don't report equity. And so if you work in finance, they don't report things like carried interest. And so, depending on what job you're going into, it's probably understating your income. Sometimes by a lot. The other thing financially is that you get a lot of comp benchmarks from your classmates constantly for the rest of your life, right? Like we talk about money pretty openly and so it's not just the time when you're getting your first job at a business school because that's also probably not the job you're going to make the most money throughout your career. You know, every class has some wrinkles. I graduated in 2022, so we'll see where people's outcomes end up depending on what kind of industry they win in. When we were graduating, there was a lot of frothy startups in 2022, so I don't see a lot of people that have had better financial outcomes. But these lumps exist in every class, just depending on where the economy is at any given time. The last thing that's really interesting is that we invest in our classmates and we also get financial advice from them. And so as finances get more complicated as you get older, this is really invaluable support as you're building your portfolio of finances for the rest of your life. Now, personally, I would say the majority of my friendships are from business school. Not because I didn't meet people elsewhere, but friends that I met through my business school friends, that together makes up the majority. I live in New York, so a lot of my network is here. I don't think that would be true if I moved to like a non-coastal elite city. But, you know, I think the other really important thing about these friendships, especially the ones that I went to business school with is that you can talk about literally anything with them. I mean, we have opened up to each other so much, part of this is because Stanford really primes you to do that with the curriculum. But, you know, there's pretty much no topic that's off limits and then there's no resources that are off limits either. So whether you're talking about infertility or taking care of aging parents or financial troubles, I mean, this is a group that's biased to action. So not only are they primed to help you in those emotional states, but also to figure out how to get out of it, make the most of it, you know, lend a caring ear. That has been I think the most important thing that will carry me for the rest of my life. Now, I don't think business school is worth it for everybody. I'm just sharing my experience. If you're taking out hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans at like an 8% interest rate and the career that you'll have on the other side of business school is not going to get you the right payoff, that's a really hard thing for me to recommend. And I'm not making any blanket recommendations. I'm just sharing my experience, which is very unique one based off my own circumstances. The last thing is I hate talking about business school on social media because there's this whole niche of business school influencers. I'm over that. I'm too old to be doing that. I'm just sharing this because someone else asked me too and I was on a panel for Stanford admissions like a few weeks ago.
