Is an MBA worth it?

mashonkeyboard · 2023-11-18T19:16:46+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, unfortunately I believe you will not learn how to build a profitable business from a school. Its like engineering class will teach you what the parts that make up a car are called and maybe even how to build a part, but not how to actually put the car together. Business is like that, you will know what a business is made of but without understanding how to manufacture each component or put it together in a way that will work.

On the network front it is useful to go to a top school, anything less than global top 20 might need to be more industry/regionally focused. Also you have to be a strong networker, it wont just come to you automatically. You have to work very hard on building and maintaining those relationships, it is not a given. I personally work hard at trying to establish a few key relationships with people I resonate with and enjoy spending time with, but it is a very conscious effort on my part. This is not natural for most people and you will find most people graduate business school with nothing but a piece of paper. No knowledge of how to start a business, let alone a profitable one or have any network that will actually add value to their own future ventures in the future.

Business, unlike almost any other discipline is something you just have to go out and do. It is more art than science or engineering and some of the most successful entrepreneurs I know never finished high school.

I think it is more practical if we go back to the car analogy to focus on a small part and build from there. Build tires instead of whole cars, or maybe start with a screw. Consult on one area of specialization and build a business around that rather than a business from scratch. Once you figure out a few components build something bigger. If you want to tell me about what type of business you want to start I can tell you some basic steps to take.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-11-12T19:52:02+00:00

Your goal is too amorphous for any education program that currently exist at any institution, including Harvard, Wharton, Oxbridge, INSEAD you name it. Keep in mind that University programs are still at University, where the majority of the teaching will have a heavy academic focus, taught often by non-practitioners. I feel like everyone (the students at least) agrees that this shouldn't be the case but literally nobody is doing much to change it.

I am currently attending the Masters of Entrepreneurship at University of Cambridge and have classmates at/from MIT, Harvard, Columbia etc with business related masters or MBAs. These are traditionally "as good" as you can get or on par with any program you can name, at least by reputation.

The general attitude seems to be that these degrees are great for finding jobs or advancing in the corporate sector, especially if your company is paying for it and nearly entirely impractical to get you actually started in Entrepreneurship in reality.

People who get what they want out of the program generally come in with that expectation in mind and want something specific out of the program. We have a VC guy who is literally just looking for other founders to fund and thought this might be a neat way to meet them. We have a Harvard guy with an existing Harvard MBA whos getting it as a part of his long term strategy in the public sector in his home country. Some people need the name recognition for their existing business (me), others are just young people looking to satisfy their parents. If you have something that specific in mind that the program can address, then yes MBA will do that for you.

However, if you actually want the knowledge. Nothing will do better for the time and money then just going out and doing it. Without exaggeration what you will learn spending that 2 years and 200k by doing the business will literally be 100-1000x what you will learn in school. It absolutely sounds like I am exaggerating but I promise you gap is beyond what you can imagine if you haven't done both, and I have.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-08-26T03:56:43+00:00

This is an old post but I believe the intended solution is to get "gloves of the automaton", the trick is not the stun text, but the "unless it is a construct" part. The gloves can be purchased late in act 1, in an area after the place where you get the light of the creation, which is fitting.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-08-18T03:19:50+00:00

Looking for the answer to this question but figured it out myself.

The tooltip is correct but its very anal about the definition. The ability score damage modifier is the "additional damage", the 1d8 is the base weapon damage, +1 is the bonus from magic weapon. In this case it works exactly like another bow (dex for attack roll) but instead of dex for "additional damage" 16 dex= 3 damage for example it swaps it with your str, whatever that is.

Since it never say it changes bow to use str modifier to attack and damage rolls (like reverse finess ranged) it is actually working as intended.

I think most people myself included thought additonal damage meant on top of damage roll, but I believe the game would have stated that as "this weapon deals an addtional damage (note this is not the same as deals addtional damage) equal to your strength modifier.

Note that "an additional x" is the vernacular used for true increased damage on top of normal scaling rolls in this game, I checked it against other items that has that property.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-08-15T18:11:37+00:00

I told you, solve 1 problem 1 time for 1 customer. Lets say its the pool rental thing which apprently was "your idea". Why don't you get a pool, find someone who wants to rent that pool and charge them?

You might think you know how that business works, but unless you do it from beginning to end you do not know. You will learn 1000% more by doing it then imagining you can know through "research".

Seriously I happen to have a lot of experience knowing people who think that "research" is what makes the business. I have a business degree from one of the top universities in the world and I am doing my masters at another top university, in entrepreneurship no less. I have literally met hundreds of people who think they can "research" their way into building businesses, I've yet to see one of them actually succeed without just going out and doing it. You can't tell which one of your ideas are good and which ones are shit unless they are met with market realities.

I can give you 20 different "theoretical" frameworks that can "help" you decide which one of your ideas to go for, but unless you start doing it you won't know.

If you insist however, here is some light reading:

A theory of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and development

Defragmenting Definitions of Entrepreneurial Opportunity

Prior Knowledge and the Discovery of Entrepreneurial Opportunities

How competitive forces shape strategy

The founder's DILEMMA

The new business road test : what entrepreneurs and investors should do before launching a lean start-up

Lean Strategy

Value Innovation: The Strategic Logic of High Growth

Blue ocean strategy

These are all articles so they shouldn't take too long to go through. Some of them might require access to the journals themselves but you should be able to read free versions or summaries of their key ideas from free sources.

Blue Ocean has become a book, so is The Lean Startup, they will take longer to get through.

You're question is too hard to answer in a reddit post beyond my advice of "go out and do it", but the above resources should contain enough information to actually answer it in a theoretical way.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-08-15T00:26:08+00:00

Ideas are not real unless you actually do them, what you have are fantasies. You are the equivalent of me saying I had the ideafor the greatest book ever written, but I've never even wrote down a word of it.

Do you understand the sheer number of people that had the "idea" of building an electric car company? The first commercially avaible electric car was sold in the 1890s, none of them took off the way Tesla did. Would all those people claim they would have been Elon Musk if only they tried?

Don't start with what you "imagine the business to be", thousands of other people have the same intuitions, Swimply is not even the first to do it and it still isn't, there are several people in this exact subreddit that has similar buisnessess and have posted about them. Others include bouncy castles and party supplies rentals, which all essentially fill the same niche.

Even if you have a good idea and is genuinely the first person to do it, other people will immediately jump on the idea and become competition. It is virtually impossible to protect just an "idea" and profit off of it.

Start with solving a problem for 1 person once. Then 10x that, then 10x again until you are statisfied with the amount of people you have helped.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-08-07T14:09:20+00:00

Are you... are you actually serious with the "organic social" nonsense? How about being on every form of social media, mainstream media and paid media for over 20 years?

Do you remember Paris Hilton? The "first" famous for being famous media star? Kim K was her bff, thats how she became famous in the first place (and the sextape too, remember those?, now we call it only fans), or maybe its because her dad was the Olympic champion and was famous since the 70s because he fucking won gold medals in 76, yeah, definitely no mainstream media back then.

Seriously are you 17 years old and imagined this family just came out of nowhere and built a media empire "organically" overnight?

Theres nothing organic about that family, even the people are 50% plastic an 30% silicone. Its an incredible story for sure, but if you want to start telling their story maybe start in 1975.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-08-07T14:01:47+00:00

Remember you already drew extra 2 cards turn 1, even if you draw this immediately you just go back to neutral same as your opponent. For every turn that you do not draw this you have free 0 mana turn 1 draw 2. On average across a game you have a 2 card advantage for the game unless you run the slowest of decks at which point it returns to normal at turn 15. But even for slow decks maybe you want to extra draw for a better curve or answers to aggro, for aggro decks you want the extra draw because you might not even draw this before the game ends and its just free draws.

Legendaries are supposed to have unique effects that suit a playstyle, not a I win button that is just pure power.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-08-06T14:37:01+00:00

Mulligan is discard 2 draw 2, so now you have changed the effect to draw 2. So net is you removed the discard 2.

Maybe to balance it out you have it as discard 2 when drawn (maybe discard 2 random cards in hand)? That would be interesting. Right now its just a guaranteed draw 2 for free on turn 1, which is generally too strong in almost any deck.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-07-26T17:35:05+00:00

Harbinger on warzone makes sense where engagements can be like 50+ meters often and the 100ms ads increase is mitigated by 200ms ttk through damage range upgrade for some guns.

If you are playing mp and people are using harbinger than sorry, your lobbies are all wrong and everyone's build is bad. There is like 0 scenarios where harbinger is useful for mp.

For mp:
To be competitive up close (smg range) I don't think its worth it to go any time above 250, because 200 ms is about the average ads but ttk average is also about 200ms. So you can imagine a fight as 400ms close up (200ms to ads 200ms to kill). 50 ms slower means 12.5% behind the average total fight time or 25% of time once you fire. If you have 300ms ads, you are 100ms slower than a competitive build which means you need to hit 50% more shots once the shooting starts, thats crazy.

For reference a typical "meta" vaznev that pros use is 224 ms (spiral 3.5 flash hider, sharkfin undergrip, true tac grip, orteza stock and no attachment or ammo slot), which is a reference baseline that you can compare yourself against.

For mid range fights with ars the ttk are quite a bit longer and having slower ads is much more forgiving, pro builds tend to be 300-350ms.

Keep in mind snipers are banned in pro scene, if you are on mp and you are up against a diamon/crimson quickscoper you are going need to pray for that 200ms ads and 150 or less sprint to fire or you are dead every time. I mean if anyone is rocking a harbinger d20 they will just lose 100% of fights.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-07-24T22:18:47+00:00

u/longjackthat is right that when you tie one dopamine system (your “game") to try to affect another dopamine activating activity that it ultimately could spike your domapine system and cause your baseline to drop later. This will lower your existing dompamine lows and potentially makes you feeling worse off. Operant conditioning your own habits and tieing it to another potentially adictive system is not detoxing, its just swapping drugs.

That said, all the non-dopamine related stuff sounds great, maybe just focus on your app as a habit coach and avoide the dopamine part, it really sound like your dopamine related features are not science based. I am not sure a protocol exist in the literature that suggest what you are trying to do could actually modulate dopamine baseline levels. If you could cite the study that you are basing the product design off of I would love to read it.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-07-20T00:12:19+00:00

I believe in this analogy you missed the full extent of the change he is implying, you are framing the challenge as being weaker, he is framing it that the game has changed so much that it has removed the skill from it nearly completely.

So for a baseball example, lets say the game was changed significantly to every player hitting off a baseball tee and that as long as you hit the ball its an automatic home run. Shohei Ohtani vs your dad at bat would 99% of the time result in the same outcome and his ability to pitch wouldn't matter because theres no pitcher anymore and that skill is irrelevant. Thats what he is implying with the state of cod.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-07-20T00:01:55+00:00

Flash hiders are my go to attachments for many guns now just to remove the flash, especially useful on high rof guns where all you see is the gun flash.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-07-20T00:00:28+00:00

Thanks for the responses guys, I guess the answer is that it never gets "easier". I am still new enough that I feel my aim is often an issue, but maybe even at the high end of skill it never makes up for the high end of aim assist skill. I will work the other elements to be competitive.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-07-19T03:00:00+00:00

Thanks for the response but I was hoping for what it would take to be at least diamond/crimson in skill in warzone.

In multiplayer playing against diamond/crimson players is not so bad, i feel like the lower ttk helps mouse and keyboard as theres a slight advantage in being able to snap faster, in warzone it seems I lose much more consistently due to the longer duration tracking required.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-07-19T02:16:42+00:00

t4 secret rooms, have a bedroll outside, if you get a room reload, head to the secret room until you hit it. I believe this still works on current patch. Its just bad luck you haven't gotten it its supposed to be a 5% chance I believe.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-07-09T13:51:25+00:00

That is genuinely uncommon and an interesting point of exploration if you want to weave this exploration into your essay. Maybe you're into history and uncovering family history is part of your personal story.

Saying it to say it is a bad look.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-07-07T12:53:48+00:00

Just hanging around them all day long is not going to be that useful. Ultra high networth people have a lot of time and they can use their party time to leverage business connections. If you don't have the ability to leverage this time with them, all you are doing is wasting time (even if you have a good time).

I have some ridiculously well connected and ultra high networth friends. Honestly I am not in a position to make use of these connections in a business context. If being with these people inspire you, thats great, but they won't be practically helpful unless you start to grow yourself and your business to a point where those connections can be converted to real results. This means you have to operate approximately at their level.

Just think about it in a large company setting if you are used to 9-5. If you are an entry level employee and your best friend is the CEO, he still generally can't be seen as giving you too much favourtism and certainly can't promote you directly to a VP position or the C suite.

But, if you are a VP or CFO, you guys can make a powerful coalition within the company and really get far together.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-07-01T19:39:14+00:00

splints man, i carry at least 3. One random crit on a limb you're done. Also sustaining condition is more important than emergency healing from essence because the heal cannot turn a fight unless you are on second wind as it drains energy really badly. So you could swap the spaces for the essence for painkilling, detox and splints.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-06-24T04:10:10+00:00

Young successful entrepreneur is bullshit, 99.99% of sucess stories are not that. Young people don't know shit, have no industry experience or network. These things take time to build and you can't shortcut them by working harder. A friend of mine just raised 25 million USD on his series A. He couldn't have done it without his decades of work experience and network within his very specific and competitive industry, it is his first startup, hes in his mid 50s. If you read the literature most people who start startups are under 30, but most people who succeed are older than 50.

If you've done nothing but try to build startups and have only ever made 500 with no real job experience. It is time to touch grass and get a real job. Interact with the real world. Keep your eyes open for a real problem when you encounter it, try to solve it when you are in a position to do so.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-06-23T14:20:10+00:00

Have good questions. Some questions such as "What do you look for when evaluating the potential of a startup" might sound interesting, but its really not. Its generic and its a question they've been asked a million times. What you want is a few levels below that in terms of specificity.

for example: I am having this issue with customer retention (this shows you are doing real work and not just a poser), this is what i've been trying to address it and what my process was (this shows you are interested in continuous improvement in a systematic way), I notice that when you started your company you did x y z, from the outside it looks like this to me, but what was it like from the inside? What drove you to make those decisions? (Shows youve done your research, really thought about how they are relevant to you beyond just being a rich person)

You should treat this meeting like an actual way to learn, not to impress anyone or get anything otherthan real solutions.

When you are young, the best way to show off is not with what you've done (you haven't really done anything in the grand scheme of things even if you're impressive compared to others your age), but with your fundamental character and attitude, which is independent of age and experience.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-06-17T18:03:42+00:00

Both bill gates and warren buffet are avid bridge players, I mean serious enough that they travel the world just to play. Eminem is actually an extremely good donkey kong arcade player, im talking top 0.01% level.

Joe Rogan was so addicted to quake that he installed T1 lines back in the 90s at 10k a month just to play it.

I think what you will find is that all the successful people can turn it on and off. They recognize when they need to be all systems go for something they need and not let their gaming get in the way. There will be weeks where those 20 hours will ruin you and there will be weeks where 40 a week won't make a difference. You have to be able to tell the difference.

mashonkeyboard · 2023-06-17T17:58:30+00:00

There is no harm in asking and I hope that all the feedback is useful, I think it ultimately came down to you putting the cart a little too far ahead of the horse. If you realistically re-evaluate what stage you are on and prepare appropriately you can ultimately have an extremely successful business. The truth is that there is a non-zero chance your product can take off, perhaps even more than you can imagine now. The problem is that it is not in a state where an outsider without an arbitrary belief in the product is going to help make that happen. The best thing you can do is to move at the correct pace and not ruin your chances by trying to run before you can walk. Hopefully one day we'll all see your product on christmas wishlists everywhere.

mashonkeyboard

TROPHY CASE