That's about as false a dichotomy as I've ever seen.
You could spend that $120K in much more productive ways than either of these two, besides, when you're of the age to go in to studying usually that money is given to you as a debt with a purpose to spend it on your education so you'll be in a position to pay it back later.
If the return-on-investment in startups would be better than the return-on-investment of student loans you can bet that banks would be a lot more willing to borrow money to start-ups. At best this will teach you a thing or two about investing and leave you in debt to the tune of $120K. You'll be working for a bank the rest of your life.
If you are in the position of spending the money on a startup spend it on your own first, build a success large enough that you no longer lose any sleep over losing a 100K+ and then become an investor in other peoples companies.
Another example of the importance of timing your submissions.
In some senses this isn't a "problem" as such, but I'd like to see some way of better consolidation of the same item submitted over and over. The existence of the existing duplication detection shows that it is, in some sense, an issue, but better duplicate detection would be, well, better.
In particular, it would be nice not to have the discussion spread over multiple items. Either the same thing gets said over and over, or important and interesting points are made that get missed.
I had two of the best years of my life at B School. I met lifelong friends, learned a ton, and got to push the reset button on my life.
But business school is a bit of a scam, and the willing victims are the students. They sell glamor and wealth on Wall Street and throughout corporate America. "You'll be making half a mil in 5 years, what's $160k in debt?" Everyone is going to be a master of the universe. Except it doesn't work that way, even if you play by all the rules. Even at Harvard, Stanford, and Penn. Correlation is not causation.
Would I do it again? Hell yeah. But I was fortunate enough to go to a highly ranked public school for a fraction of that. I find it incredibly hard to believe that Stanford is worth 3-4x what I paid at Texas.
BUT... blowing $120k on angel investments seems like a very, very poor substitute for the B School experience. Yes, spend a crap ton of money educating yourself outside of school, but don't piss it away on angel investments. Spend it trying to do something.
while that's a great idea in principle, in practice, no one's going to lend you $120k to invest in startups. If you've got the cash and you're looking to pay out of pocket, it's a nice idea. but to my knowledge the gov't doesn't over low interest loans for education-via-angel-investing.
This does not get you the two primary benefits of attending a top tier school: 1) the social proof that comes with a credential like an MBA from Stanford or 2) the instant network of friends and alums.
(Furthermore, the other comments about accredited investors is spot on. And lastly, imagine somebody told you they did this and lost it all, would you hire that guy? No, you'd think he's nuts.)
As an angel you are invited to many events where you can connect with other angels and networks.
Even better it's not a future network that will grow over the time as previous students get at better places and positions, it's an already active network of more senior people and you'll meet them as homologue not in a student/professor relationship.
You can probably get a better network by loosing 120k. May be you could choose the right categories of startups to meet the category of people you are the most eager to meet ?
The accredited investor stuff is pretty US centric, so even if it is spot on it does not apply to everybody, but the advice is simply bad even without that.
Sounds like a case of the blind leading the blind. If you figure you may need an MBA, it doesn't seem you'd be best suited to coaching startups, since that is part of the aim of angel investing. If they all turn out to be dud, then you're not really getting a complete picture. Perhaps it'd be quicker, cheaper and easier to study some existing successful and non-successful startups.
Furthermore, his suggestion to go out and deliberately lose say $5,000 on gambling just doesn't seem like sound business advice to me. Though if anyone does want to throw away $5,000 I'd be happy to talk to them, heh.
The main message of this article is the importance of investing in yourself. Ferriss chose to do that through Angel Investing and the knowledge he would gain as an advisor. Going to an expensive MBA program isn't the only way to do it.
I'd love to be angel investor. I'd love to spend $120K doing 12 deals at $10K each. Guess what? I'm not accredited. Also guess what? I can't get loans to go become an angel investor. So I'm going to business school instead. (OK, not really, but this is really fatuous.)
Also, if you're going to B school to learn, you're kinda doing it wrong. Everyone here who's smart/disciplined enough to be an autodidact to learn new languages and frameworks is smart enough to learn B school skills from books as well. You go to B school for the social proof, the networking, the recruiting (if you're a top-tier full-time program), and, yes, the fun.
I took a slightly more conservative approach: I wandered from cafe to cafe in SF for a year, coworking with other entrepreneurs, working on my own ideas while advising theirs, and eventually starting my own business.
Additionally, I started a DIY-MBA group of about 6 entrepreneurs that invites successful business people to brunch to pick their brain.
I've spent way less than $120k, and now I have a pretty solid business, and an even more solid network.
Try The Success Manual method - It goes one step ahead of Personal MBA manifesto - Quotes and summaries from greatest business books and more - http://thesuccessmanual.bighow.com
To be an accredited investor and make angel investments legally, you need an annual income of $200k or a net worth of $1M. (ref: http://www.sec.gov/answers/accred.htm )
I dare say, if you have the means to become an accredited investor, you might not need an MBA to teach you how to make money.
[+] [-] jacquesm|15 years ago|reply
You could spend that $120K in much more productive ways than either of these two, besides, when you're of the age to go in to studying usually that money is given to you as a debt with a purpose to spend it on your education so you'll be in a position to pay it back later.
If the return-on-investment in startups would be better than the return-on-investment of student loans you can bet that banks would be a lot more willing to borrow money to start-ups. At best this will teach you a thing or two about investing and leave you in debt to the tune of $120K. You'll be working for a bank the rest of your life.
If you are in the position of spending the money on a startup spend it on your own first, build a success large enough that you no longer lose any sleep over losing a 100K+ and then become an investor in other peoples companies.
Terrible advice this article.
[+] [-] rmc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RiderOfGiraffes|15 years ago|reply
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1472622
but it garnered one upvote and no comments, and 6 days ago here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1470665
where it got around 50 upvotes and 14 comments.
Another example of the importance of timing your submissions. In some senses this isn't a "problem" as such, but I'd like to see some way of better consolidation of the same item submitted over and over. The existence of the existing duplication detection shows that it is, in some sense, an issue, but better duplicate detection would be, well, better.
In particular, it would be nice not to have the discussion spread over multiple items. Either the same thing gets said over and over, or important and interesting points are made that get missed.
[+] [-] priv_acy|15 years ago|reply
But business school is a bit of a scam, and the willing victims are the students. They sell glamor and wealth on Wall Street and throughout corporate America. "You'll be making half a mil in 5 years, what's $160k in debt?" Everyone is going to be a master of the universe. Except it doesn't work that way, even if you play by all the rules. Even at Harvard, Stanford, and Penn. Correlation is not causation.
Would I do it again? Hell yeah. But I was fortunate enough to go to a highly ranked public school for a fraction of that. I find it incredibly hard to believe that Stanford is worth 3-4x what I paid at Texas.
BUT... blowing $120k on angel investments seems like a very, very poor substitute for the B School experience. Yes, spend a crap ton of money educating yourself outside of school, but don't piss it away on angel investments. Spend it trying to do something.
[+] [-] dkuchar|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mukyu|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kljensen|15 years ago|reply
(Furthermore, the other comments about accredited investors is spot on. And lastly, imagine somebody told you they did this and lost it all, would you hire that guy? No, you'd think he's nuts.)
[+] [-] ecaradec|15 years ago|reply
Even better it's not a future network that will grow over the time as previous students get at better places and positions, it's an already active network of more senior people and you'll meet them as homologue not in a student/professor relationship.
You can probably get a better network by loosing 120k. May be you could choose the right categories of startups to meet the category of people you are the most eager to meet ?
[+] [-] jacquesm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeza|15 years ago|reply
Furthermore, his suggestion to go out and deliberately lose say $5,000 on gambling just doesn't seem like sound business advice to me. Though if anyone does want to throw away $5,000 I'd be happy to talk to them, heh.
[+] [-] joshkaufman|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cstuder|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zacharyz|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sachinag|15 years ago|reply
Also, if you're going to B school to learn, you're kinda doing it wrong. Everyone here who's smart/disciplined enough to be an autodidact to learn new languages and frameworks is smart enough to learn B school skills from books as well. You go to B school for the social proof, the networking, the recruiting (if you're a top-tier full-time program), and, yes, the fun.
[+] [-] davidw|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelfairley|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rms|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|15 years ago|reply
On the other hand, if you want a cosy job in a nice company that does something that relates to physical production, an MBA would be suitable.
[+] [-] oscardelben|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kadavy|15 years ago|reply
Additionally, I started a DIY-MBA group of about 6 entrepreneurs that invites successful business people to brunch to pick their brain.
I've spent way less than $120k, and now I have a pretty solid business, and an even more solid network.
[+] [-] igorgue|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pramit|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamelgringo|15 years ago|reply
I dare say, if you have the means to become an accredited investor, you might not need an MBA to teach you how to make money.
[+] [-] known|15 years ago|reply