This isn't a great list--it's a lot of fluff, and self-help books masquerading as business content.
There are basically two skills you really need to hone in an MBA. The first are the hard skills/knowledge on finance, accounting, (basic) stats, and (basic) economics. The second is being able to assess and analyze business models, from both strategic and operational angles. The former can be learned in MOOCs, while the latter is best approached with case studies, ideally discussed as a group. I'd honestly suggest trying to start a business/entrepreneurs book club with ~12-20 people to try to replicate that experience over reading books on your own.
What are some good publicly-accessible collections of case studies if someone wanted to start a discussion club? Someone once told me that part of the value proposition of the best business schools is the library of case studies that they amass (and sell). Is that true?
MBA programs are also often predicated on predicting the next y years based on the past x years.
This is increasingly hard for mbas to do or stay ahead of because how things are done in business isn’t the same, and changing faster than mbas are updated and taught.
Like anything it not what your education makes of you, it’s what you make of your education.
I agree some of these are fluff. However many here are great to have basic knowledge of for specific scenarios one may run into and then know where to dig deeper when needed.
Agree though to marry being a ferocious reader / learner with being a do’er is the way to go. Personally I did not grow up with an opportunity to develop an intuition about business and self-motivated action. Has taken a lot of work to move that direction over the years.
As someone who got a long ago MBA (and has also worked as an engineer), a few comments.
That's a lot of books. I'm not sure it's more total reading than I did in an MBA program but it's certainly more books than I read.
I'm not sure the best way to replicate case study discussions--which is a big part of most actual MBA programs and is probably at least somewhat important. (Also projects as opposed to just reading.)
Seems very light on finance and accounting. Honestly accounting doesn't need a lot--the main lesson is things are this way because the financial accounting standards board says it is--but the equivalent of core Finance 101 is probably necessary even if you're not going to be primarily a finance person. What I didn't have in B-school but would want today is a deeper dive into VC/startup/etc. term sheets and the like.
There's no real operations on that list. Probably don't really need real operations research but some basic manufacturing lingo and concepts would be useful.
I'd probably look for a basic Marketing 101 sort of book/course in addition to UX and things along those lines.
I'll stop there but I'd probably encourage more reading along the lines of what's actually used in MBA programs and looking at ways/materials that are closer to case studies and learning by doing.
> I'm not sure the best way to replicate case study discussions--which is a big part of most actual MBA programs and is probably at least somewhat important. (Also projects as opposed to just reading.)
As someone who did an MBA twenty years ago, I think this is a really important point
The value for me wasn’t the reading, it’s the discussion the exploration of different (sometime opposed) viewpoints and understanding the differences between them
Talking to friends who’ve done other Masters degrees one of the key things we all agree on is they taught us how to “think better” and not sure you’ll get that from reading a bunch of books
The author missed the Fred Wilson's MBA Mondays Archive [1] which personally was a great resource in the quest for my "business success" (whatever it means). There is a more organized and illustrated edition here [2]. BTW, I always return to some articles such as "Commission Plans" for Sales [3].
Regarding books:
- Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew Grove (Intel) [4]. It is always in my "pocket". It is real experience with pain points from a top CEO, not an academic exercise.
- Other books that are not focused on business but are more "epistemological". For example, "How Life Imitates Chess" by Garry Kasparov [5]. I don't know who created this title for the book though. Many autobiographies, in general, or good business biographies such as "Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire" [6].
The author does acknowledge this in thier linked post, but I think it's worth pointing out. They are in the UK, where MBAs are not as credentialized. DIY MBAs are low value.
You can get a BS in Business Administration, or even a minor in it, and have more knowledge and experience than from reading these books. Guess what? Even with those credentials, they will not help you. "I have an MBA from [prestigious school]" are the magic words. The hiring managers don't care about lesser credentials or actual knowledge.
It’s very likely this person doesn’t care about the credentials but rather just wants to gain the knowledge to do something themselves.
I more or less did this for years by reading a ton of books + many years of HN / articles / interviews / videos + startup weekend events + tried starting things + coding hobby for years + enterprise consulting work, and now I’m fairly well equipped to co-lead the company that I do.
The first 5+ years of doing this I debated attempting to go to a prestigious school for an MBA, primary reason (95%) was for the networking opportunity (meeting great likeminded or driven people), (0% because I would’ve been able to tell people I had an MBA from somewhere for job purposes, the snobbery from that would have been a detriment often instead I believe), and 5% for the education which I think has value but when it’s free and I had the motivation there was no reason to pay $100ks for that. At this point this company is doing fairly well so although I would love to meet more driven and likeminded people, I’m not sure it the best path to do so anymore for me.
A classic case of Goodhart's law. If your metric is convincing a (rather bad) hiring manager, why even bother? And once you've convinced them, what do you do?
MBAs are low value...depending on perspective. Around these parts, they are deemed very value, or at least in low regard. Look at Boeing as exhibit A.
If you're an engineering company that allows MBAs to make the decisions, you won't be a good engineering company for long. At that point, you become the dead carcass that the MBAs point to as to what their purpose is.
You make a great suggestion. Not that B-schools get everything right or that they're on the cutting edge but, to the degree curricula and lectures are online, I'd probably lean that way more than bestselling business titles. (Which, truth be told, often have a chapter or two that distills down a lot of the key content. In some cases, they're worth the lengthier read to reinforce the key content but often they're not.)
His list begins with The 10 Day MBA which is an excellent book I recommend highly. It gives a brief overview constituting 90+% of what you need to know. The other books on his list, many of which I have read and enjoyed myself, “merely” give greater detail on the material covered by T10DMBA (except macroeconomics which is rarely MBA-relevant anyway).
The book is humorous, but quite serious about the material.
It's probably useful to know something about the various macroeconomic theories so you can at least nod knowledgeably :-) But it's not that useful practically. Traditional micro is worth knowing. I was also lucky enough to take a behavioral economics course (before it was called that) and a somewhat related pricing strategy course.
I was going to give the list of readings I had for my MBA which I finished last year, but my comment was too long to be posted here.
I read a lot. Probably at least 10x more than what is listed in this DIY MBA list. However, the reading was probably only 10% of the actual effort that went into my MBA. There were a lot of projects, group projects and case studies to do, as well as real-life consultancy work, and meetings... with other students, and with real companies. And then... there was also lectures, about 8 hours a week worth of lectures, and then annoying interactive activities I had to complete each week, which were designed to prove that I was indeed actually doing the readings. Some courses wouldn't let you progress to the next week of readings etc, unless you completed the interactive activities, which would then unlock the next week's coursework. Other courses would just take a percentage off your final grade for every activity that was missed.
A list of readings is just kind of not really the same experience, even if it contains a bit of the same knowledge. It's also about how you take the knowledge and implement it in real-life situations.
As a previous M7 FTMBA student who dropped out halfway through to do a startup, the real MBA is starting a company. Venture, cash flow/lifestyle or otherwise.
There have been a few companies advertising something like this (e.g., oneday.io) where you build a startup and earn an accredited professional MBA along the way.
You can't get the MBA experience reading books alone. People expect MBAs to be able to communicate effectively, present themselves confidently, and to be able to manage projects. Every MBA program I know requires students to complete projects to apply concepts, often working with other students and real businesses. A DIY MBA experience would involve a lot of consulting with businesses to help solve their challenges.
There's some element of basic accounting/finance/operations/marketing/etc. that you can get pretty quickly. But, as you say, it's not the equivalent of going through a longer interactive program than reading a few books.
PersonalMBA really is a my go-to reference because it is very comprehensive and extremely accessible online. First 5 chapters tackle the strategy behind the '5 parts of every business'
1) Value Creation 2) Marketing 3) Sales 4) Value Delivery 5) Finance
The next 6 Chapters deal with the tactics involved in executing that strategy. 6) The human mind 7) Working With Yourself 8) Working With Others 9) Understanding Systems 10) Analyzing Systems 11) Improving Systems
Been running my startup for 7 years, not a unicorn but fairly successful. Can honestly say I’ve not made it through a single one of these books. Certainly have tried and have got a few nuggets, but nothing has compared to learning this stuff first hand, on the job. Sure having passable knowledge of this list is useful, but you’re going to hire in people/consultants/external providers to do almost every module on this list for you at some point, you’ll learn from them firsthand. You don’t need to read this list to get a business off the ground and by the time you do you’ll need to surround yourself with these specialists in some form pretty quickly.
This list is long on fluff and extremely short on any hard technical skills such as corporate finance and valuation.
If you're interested in seeing if finance is for you, I highly suggest reading Investment Valuation by Aswath Damodaran. Highly respected professor and most of his stuff is free on his website as well.
The problem with long reading lists is that it forces you closer to a box-checking mentality. That's dangerous for learning because people aren't computers---we don't read a book, ingest all the information, go onto another one, and then end with the sum total of the information as useable knowledge.
We need context. That's why the order of books, selections from books, and the discussion around books is so much more important than the books themselves, at least if your goal is true understanding.
This list is a good start, but if it is to help someone learn, it should be more than a list.
"The problem with long reading lists is that it forces you closer to a box-checking mentality."
Most MBAs are checkboxes so someone can get a higher paying job. Most people do not care about the theory, nor are they really concerned with being a good leader outside of their ego.
Munger recommended 6 intro textbooks that every businessman should know: one each in psychology, accounting, microeconomics, evolution, math and physics.
(1) In finance, there is portfolio expectation and variance in the efficient frontier, e.g., by Harry Markowitz. For more, there is modern portfolio theory. Also might look at the Black-Scholes work. And there is more.
(2) Might want some of the math of optimization, e.g., linear programming, quadratic programming, integer linear programming, dynamic programming.
(3) Some people would suggest some statistics -- random variables, expectation, variance, convergence of random variables, central limit theorem, model fitting (regression), hypothesis testing (Neyman-Pearson, non-parametric and resampling), experimental design.
(4) More generally, might just visit the Web sites of some MBA programs, get the list of courses and, when available, the texts, class notes, and references.
The references in the collection of this original post, what fraction are references of courses in MBA programs?
Listening to our podcast episodes on Business Books & Co. won't quite get you as much as reading the actual books, but it will follow a sort of 80/20 rule in that I think our episodes cover 80% of the major points in each book. Here are the episodes we've done on books in that list based on the categories the author ascribed:
We also have 30+ more episodes... many are book summaries/discussions but about 1/3 of recent episodes are author interviews. You can find all of our content for free on your podcast player of choice here: https://pnc.st/s/business-books
Ah, the book Hooked + the aspiring MBA... A match made in heaven. And probably more responsible for regrettable product decisions than any other combination in modern history.
Schooling should ground one in fundamentals, to some degree.
Maybe target fundamental principles instead of recent opinion if you have the time to learn and want to tranform your thinking for a lifetime?
Both MBA and medical schools are instead practice programs, where case studies exercise knowledge and principles you learned deeply or crammed. If you crammed, you get good at diagnosing and become primary care or first-line specialist. If you learned deeply, you can do M&A or be a researcher or nth-line specialist - likely some combination - or you flame out for lack of political skills or interest in the small niche available. Because they are practical, they produce a large stream of knowledge, for every business or medical case, that outsiders can enjoy and get familiar with. But the knowledge wouldn't qualify them to take on responsibility. That requires a series of validation steps where you handle increasing responsibility. So DIY MD/MBA won't get you in any door.
For business fundamentals, I would recommend reading transaction cost economics to understand the value of e.g., "disruption" or operations research in business. Marketing or product management is just hunting or bearing fruit; they make you a useful tool. TCE answers the real questions: what makes some companies huge or other markets scattered? It's grounding for strategic decision-making.
The problem with reading "winners" is the huge survivorship bias, and autobiographies are inevitably biased towards showing the author in a good light.
Shout out to Four Steps to the Epiphany, since the act of actually researching and validating business ideas, then developing a sales pipelines touches on the majority of things that are important for early stage startups. Add in some books on leadership, HR and accounting if your product takes off.
[+] [-] amb23|2 years ago|reply
There are basically two skills you really need to hone in an MBA. The first are the hard skills/knowledge on finance, accounting, (basic) stats, and (basic) economics. The second is being able to assess and analyze business models, from both strategic and operational angles. The former can be learned in MOOCs, while the latter is best approached with case studies, ideally discussed as a group. I'd honestly suggest trying to start a business/entrepreneurs book club with ~12-20 people to try to replicate that experience over reading books on your own.
[+] [-] minimalist|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hnthrowaway0328|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j45|2 years ago|reply
MBA programs are also often predicated on predicting the next y years based on the past x years.
This is increasingly hard for mbas to do or stay ahead of because how things are done in business isn’t the same, and changing faster than mbas are updated and taught.
Like anything it not what your education makes of you, it’s what you make of your education.
[+] [-] aik|2 years ago|reply
Agree though to marry being a ferocious reader / learner with being a do’er is the way to go. Personally I did not grow up with an opportunity to develop an intuition about business and self-motivated action. Has taken a lot of work to move that direction over the years.
[+] [-] mi_lk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gavinray|2 years ago|reply
I've spent a decade in startups, and pitch decks along with projections are more or less riding-the-edge-of-grifting fluff.
If it were possible to accurately forecast cost and revenue, then everyone would start a profitable business, right?
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ghaff|2 years ago|reply
That's a lot of books. I'm not sure it's more total reading than I did in an MBA program but it's certainly more books than I read.
I'm not sure the best way to replicate case study discussions--which is a big part of most actual MBA programs and is probably at least somewhat important. (Also projects as opposed to just reading.)
Seems very light on finance and accounting. Honestly accounting doesn't need a lot--the main lesson is things are this way because the financial accounting standards board says it is--but the equivalent of core Finance 101 is probably necessary even if you're not going to be primarily a finance person. What I didn't have in B-school but would want today is a deeper dive into VC/startup/etc. term sheets and the like.
There's no real operations on that list. Probably don't really need real operations research but some basic manufacturing lingo and concepts would be useful.
I'd probably look for a basic Marketing 101 sort of book/course in addition to UX and things along those lines.
I'll stop there but I'd probably encourage more reading along the lines of what's actually used in MBA programs and looking at ways/materials that are closer to case studies and learning by doing.
[+] [-] dkjaudyeqooe|2 years ago|reply
When teaching yourself you need multiple sources as a stand in for things being explained different ways by a teacher or through discussions.
A fair metric is about 3 books where you'd otherwise use 1 in class.
[+] [-] youngtaff|2 years ago|reply
As someone who did an MBA twenty years ago, I think this is a really important point
The value for me wasn’t the reading, it’s the discussion the exploration of different (sometime opposed) viewpoints and understanding the differences between them
Talking to friends who’ve done other Masters degrees one of the key things we all agree on is they taught us how to “think better” and not sure you’ll get that from reading a bunch of books
[+] [-] wslh|2 years ago|reply
Regarding books: - Only the Paranoid Survive by Andrew Grove (Intel) [4]. It is always in my "pocket". It is real experience with pain points from a top CEO, not an academic exercise.
- Other books that are not focused on business but are more "epistemological". For example, "How Life Imitates Chess" by Garry Kasparov [5]. I don't know who created this title for the book though. Many autobiographies, in general, or good business biographies such as "Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire" [6].
[1] https://avc.com/category/mba-mondays/
[2] https://mba-mondays-illustrated.com/
[3] https://avc.com/2010/08/commission-plans/
[4] https://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Exploit-Challen...
[5] https://www.amazon.com/How-Life-Imitates-Chess-Boardroom/dp/...
[6] https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Making-Microsoft-Empire/dp...
[+] [-] giantg2|2 years ago|reply
You can get a BS in Business Administration, or even a minor in it, and have more knowledge and experience than from reading these books. Guess what? Even with those credentials, they will not help you. "I have an MBA from [prestigious school]" are the magic words. The hiring managers don't care about lesser credentials or actual knowledge.
[+] [-] aik|2 years ago|reply
I more or less did this for years by reading a ton of books + many years of HN / articles / interviews / videos + startup weekend events + tried starting things + coding hobby for years + enterprise consulting work, and now I’m fairly well equipped to co-lead the company that I do.
The first 5+ years of doing this I debated attempting to go to a prestigious school for an MBA, primary reason (95%) was for the networking opportunity (meeting great likeminded or driven people), (0% because I would’ve been able to tell people I had an MBA from somewhere for job purposes, the snobbery from that would have been a detriment often instead I believe), and 5% for the education which I think has value but when it’s free and I had the motivation there was no reason to pay $100ks for that. At this point this company is doing fairly well so although I would love to meet more driven and likeminded people, I’m not sure it the best path to do so anymore for me.
[+] [-] satellite2|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dylan604|2 years ago|reply
MBAs are low value...depending on perspective. Around these parts, they are deemed very value, or at least in low regard. Look at Boeing as exhibit A.
If you're an engineering company that allows MBAs to make the decisions, you won't be a good engineering company for long. At that point, you become the dead carcass that the MBAs point to as to what their purpose is.
[+] [-] shay_ker|2 years ago|reply
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/15-401-finance-theory-i-fall-200...
The lectures are well structured. Class questions are good.
And best of all... these lectures were done during the 2008 financial crisis, so you see how people react in real time. Fascinating.
[+] [-] ghaff|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|2 years ago|reply
The book is humorous, but quite serious about the material.
[+] [-] ghaff|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dotancohen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Quinzel|2 years ago|reply
I read a lot. Probably at least 10x more than what is listed in this DIY MBA list. However, the reading was probably only 10% of the actual effort that went into my MBA. There were a lot of projects, group projects and case studies to do, as well as real-life consultancy work, and meetings... with other students, and with real companies. And then... there was also lectures, about 8 hours a week worth of lectures, and then annoying interactive activities I had to complete each week, which were designed to prove that I was indeed actually doing the readings. Some courses wouldn't let you progress to the next week of readings etc, unless you completed the interactive activities, which would then unlock the next week's coursework. Other courses would just take a percentage off your final grade for every activity that was missed.
A list of readings is just kind of not really the same experience, even if it contains a bit of the same knowledge. It's also about how you take the knowledge and implement it in real-life situations.
[+] [-] Frogeman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] techwizrd|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimmar|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justajot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richardboegli|2 years ago|reply
I've given it as a gift to other friends.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/B...
[+] [-] afryer|2 years ago|reply
1) Value Creation 2) Marketing 3) Sales 4) Value Delivery 5) Finance
The next 6 Chapters deal with the tactics involved in executing that strategy. 6) The human mind 7) Working With Yourself 8) Working With Others 9) Understanding Systems 10) Analyzing Systems 11) Improving Systems
Then If you REALLY wanted to dive deeper, you can read the 99 business books he built the personalmba from: https://personalmba.com/best-business-books/
Josh Kaufman created something great here.
[+] [-] realusername|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j45|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rimeice|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kwar13|2 years ago|reply
If you're interested in seeing if finance is for you, I highly suggest reading Investment Valuation by Aswath Damodaran. Highly respected professor and most of his stuff is free on his website as well.
[+] [-] loughnane|2 years ago|reply
The problem with long reading lists is that it forces you closer to a box-checking mentality. That's dangerous for learning because people aren't computers---we don't read a book, ingest all the information, go onto another one, and then end with the sum total of the information as useable knowledge.
We need context. That's why the order of books, selections from books, and the discussion around books is so much more important than the books themselves, at least if your goal is true understanding.
This list is a good start, but if it is to help someone learn, it should be more than a list.
[+] [-] giantg2|2 years ago|reply
Most MBAs are checkboxes so someone can get a higher paying job. Most people do not care about the theory, nor are they really concerned with being a good leader outside of their ego.
[+] [-] ipnon|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graycat|2 years ago|reply
(2) Might want some of the math of optimization, e.g., linear programming, quadratic programming, integer linear programming, dynamic programming.
(3) Some people would suggest some statistics -- random variables, expectation, variance, convergence of random variables, central limit theorem, model fitting (regression), hypothesis testing (Neyman-Pearson, non-parametric and resampling), experimental design.
(4) More generally, might just visit the Web sites of some MBA programs, get the list of courses and, when available, the texts, class notes, and references.
The references in the collection of this original post, what fraction are references of courses in MBA programs?
[+] [-] WoodenChair|2 years ago|reply
Product, Design & Marketing
- S4E2 The Lean Startup by Eric Ries https://pnc.st/s/business-books/5d9f9531/the-lean-startup
Organisational Behaviour, Management & Communication
- S1E1 High Output Management by Andy Grove https://pnc.st/s/business-books/095f226633d34496/high-output...
- S3E4 The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz https://pnc.st/s/business-books/1067de4d/the-hard-thing-abou...
- S3E7 Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss (author interview) https://pnc.st/s/business-books/920fe358/never-split-the-dif...
Creativity & Getting Stuff Done
- S2E2 Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull https://pnc.st/s/business-books/6e3f927715094617/creativity-...
We also have 30+ more episodes... many are book summaries/discussions but about 1/3 of recent episodes are author interviews. You can find all of our content for free on your podcast player of choice here: https://pnc.st/s/business-books
[+] [-] Ozzie_osman|2 years ago|reply
Signed, An MBA who read Hooked
[+] [-] w10-1|2 years ago|reply
Maybe target fundamental principles instead of recent opinion if you have the time to learn and want to tranform your thinking for a lifetime?
Both MBA and medical schools are instead practice programs, where case studies exercise knowledge and principles you learned deeply or crammed. If you crammed, you get good at diagnosing and become primary care or first-line specialist. If you learned deeply, you can do M&A or be a researcher or nth-line specialist - likely some combination - or you flame out for lack of political skills or interest in the small niche available. Because they are practical, they produce a large stream of knowledge, for every business or medical case, that outsiders can enjoy and get familiar with. But the knowledge wouldn't qualify them to take on responsibility. That requires a series of validation steps where you handle increasing responsibility. So DIY MD/MBA won't get you in any door.
For business fundamentals, I would recommend reading transaction cost economics to understand the value of e.g., "disruption" or operations research in business. Marketing or product management is just hunting or bearing fruit; they make you a useful tool. TCE answers the real questions: what makes some companies huge or other markets scattered? It's grounding for strategic decision-making.
[+] [-] silexia|2 years ago|reply
Sam Walton - this is easily the best. Solid gold nuggets of wisdom every page.
Henry Ford - strong business, science, and tech ideas. Plus his biography of his good friend Thomas Edison is great.
Larry Ellison - pretty solid.
Richard Branson - okay autobiographies, probably too many though.
[+] [-] graemep|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nprateem|2 years ago|reply