How Harvard Business School Helped Me - Jay Kotak

Nikhil Kamath - Co-founder of Zerodha, True Beacon and Gruhas

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[rgg]

If you carefully check out how many "normal people" actually got to the HBS of the world, you'll find its very few. The majority come from tremendously privileged families who ofcourse are serious students. Your family and wealth determines your entry to HBS.

[ShreyasRamesh]

Harvard - family business
Stanford - Entrepreneurship
Wharton - Finance and Consulting
(input from a Wharton MBA)

[djankovski]

Except the Unacademy founder, I felt the rest of the panel was just being very agreeable to Jay Kotak. Maybe they don't want to piss him off because of who he is. People will have huge loans to pay after they complete their Harvard MBA. The only option for them is to get a high paying job.

[lazyleopard]

People shitting on Gaurav while he's the one talking most sense here. You don't need a 100k mba to become an entrepreneur, or anything related to entrepreneurship at all. If you check the bilionaires list today rarely few hold an MBA and even amongst those who hold one, most would be in finance. (Irony is there are 4 people sitting on the table, out of these, 3 don't have an MBA and one does, the one who did an MBA works in finance and the 3 who didn't are "entrepreneurs" lol)

You go to these B-schools to eventually end up in finance (like Gaurav said), or tech/consulting (like Uday said) or sales and climb the ladder to eventually become partner (if finance) or an exec in F500 companies. There's nothing "entrepreneurial" about those job profiles. This is how majority of B-school cohort is gonna end up with, and in indian cohort which goes abroad, I'd say it would be even higher %. There are also other jobs like corp dev / corp fin and climate tech which some people take. Some people do take entrepreneurship but most people DO NOT become entrepreneurs, that's my point.

Now going to B-school does have its perk as an entrepreneur, mainly the network. You get easy access to VCs, potential cofounders or even joing some else's startup. But you can literally do all that if you don't go to a B-school, you'd just have to hustle more. Otoh you are trading off 2 years for a degree which could've been used to grow your startup, so its a trade off to think about

Bottom line is, if you really want to be an entrepreneur B-school is just a good "step" which can easily be skipped. Otoh, no matter how good B-school you might get into its no guarantee that you'll be a better entrepreneur than one who didn't do an MBA. Best entrepreneurial experience that you can get is by actually being an entrepreneur, these case studies are good exercises and thought provoking but nothing like an actual "case" that your startup might be struggling with, solve that and that is the best learning experince.

I'm no way shitting on B-schools or an MBA but people who do an MBA try to glorify it like no other. Its amazing and can be worth it if you want to leapfrog career ladders and have a brilliant network but its not a big deal if you don't get one as long as you hustle and keep learning. I know guys who rejected HSW because they were already doing great at their jobs and I've seen entrepreneurs who have made it big while these top MBA grads struggle, it all depends on the individual.

[yuvromu]

Jay is what a proper SoBo Aur South Delhi elite kid is. Unacademy guy is more in touch with reality of India. No problem with with both but jay was not able to justify HBS and its benefits apart from diversity and what a child artist who has grown up would say about Disney case study. Great fun listening to elites and new generation entrepreneurs who would decided India’s policy in 10-20 yrs from now.

[namanbhayani]

Jay wasn't able to justify why it's good to be in HBS if the ultimate goal is Entrepreneurship, as noted by other panelists, they ddnt go to HBS but are successful entrepreneurs.

All in all, I feel, HBS is for privileged folks who have their life sorted out and looking to have more networks and connections.

[utsavasharma]

Did Ronnie Screwvala do anything in this interview apart from shitting on Gaurav?

[fasttwitch]

Jay is what HBS is all about : beating round the bush 😂

[Akshaycatch]

80 %of Harvard students are legacy or family made a donation types..would b very interesting to know jay s application process

[fallens]

I think gaurav is right every institute has a single purpose to develop the ability of thinking but every institute today is just a stepping stone for a better job. A better job basically gives one a better lifestyle. Maybe HBS is able to create that environment to promote thinking that's cool but essentially it might have a little better percentage than the global average for any premium institute whether IIT OR IIM for creating job creators rather than job seekers. But largely HBS too is a way for people to become a high-level executives at some place rather than being entrepreneurial.

[mahtabsoin]

For anyone not a "wealthy" or "legacy" applicant, don't discount the admissions committee's way of selecting based on pre-decided numbers of every demographic and background. On one hand, it lends well (in theory) to the case model. On the other hand, it also means that admissions are not merit based. Just like any other business school, HBS is a prestigious talent pool for potential recruiters. The signalling value is why people go to HBS and spend a bomb to do so (unless of course, you score one of the many identity politics based scholarships).

[AyushAgrawalFollowHeart]

I was just hearing my Dad complain about my work to my mom. And watching this video made me feel. It’s just okay man! No need to worry. I should stay on my own path and not be worried of my father’s expectations. Coz at the end, it would all seem noise. And what would really count is how good of a person I have been on my way to achieve material growth.

[SandipanSarkarchannel]

I went to Harvard because my dad is a billionaire and he could bribe to get me in through the gates 😅

[harishacharya]

Hi Nikhil,
Its been a pleasure following these episodes. I like everything in these episodes. the structure, the guests, the thought provoking topics, the ideas, the debates, the right to disagree, the simplicity, the duration and yes the anchor.
I can't sit through more than 3-5 mts of debates on the tv channels but this is a completely different ball game and am enjoying it. This was much needed in our ecosystem.
Hope this run continues for ever and this becomes a mainstream platform for people to exchange ideas.
This reminds me a lot about the debates in the past where there was complete respect for each other's ideas but people did not shy away from fighting each others point of view.

[Paaaaaaaaaaal]

More than Harvard, daddy's money helped him, even to marry a forner miss india.

[AyushAgrawalFollowHeart]

I like how harvard is equated to a good catalyst at the end. I think every organisation and university could aspire to be this idea of a catalyst.

[mp]

Junior kotak showed what harward did to him as nithin was pretty straightforward and jr kotak was over diplomatic.. Moreover jr kotak look like he went to HBS without any specific objective.. What a waste

[mayankimt]

This guy would struggle to get 95pc in CAT but thanks to Dad he goes HBS.

[shivamagarwal]

Harvard picks students who are already doing well. They take cream crowd from diverse fields and adds up their name and sells their name to the world.

[achiranshugarg]

Nikhil, you are building an interesting gold mine. I think we Indians need such perspectives, in fact it exposes ‘holier than thou’ entrepreneurs.