This is an unnecessary smear on MBAs. There are bad ones out there, and there are plenty of good ones. Just like with any other degree.
Your points are completely sound, and I agree, but it's time we ended the knee-jerk hatred of those three letters. There are YC-backed startups with MBAs at the helm, and there is an increasing number of engineers with MBAs or dual degrees.
"MBA" is not a job title; it's a degree. I think the term you're looking for is "finance" or "Corp Dev," which is more of a specific job role that often fields MBAs to fill it. Their job is to get the most favorable terms possible in a deal, but not at the expense of the deal itself. So yes, go into a deal with a finance or corp dev person with your eyes wide open -- but they lose more than they gain if they develop a reputation for completely screwing people over again and again. It pays to know what their incentives are, how their firm makes money, and what your alternatives are to a deal with them (and often, your alternatives involve deals with other finance types).
What you enumerate are MBA specializations. The core of every MBA course is about optimization and modeling. There is no argument what to do when you can sell something at price P or 100*P, no matter what kind of MBA you have.
There is a mindset associated with it. It's a personal failure if you miss an opportunity to make more money as an MBA.
Do you have an MBA? Do you know the motivations of every single MBA in the world?
It's not a big leap to assume that MBA students sign up to make more money and have more power. Why don't you tell me what exactly are MBAs after?
MBAs are there to make money, same as every other profession. Do you work for free?
You should just apologise instead of defending yourself.
I am simply arguing the MBA programs teach a certain mindset. Just like being a doctor, an engineer or an arts person are different mindsets. The difference is the guy with the MBA brings value by identifying and taking every opportunity to make money, while an engineer's focus is to build things. An MBA is typically held accountable for missing opportunities like that. And I would be really happy to read what's your take on how an MBA brings value.
Nice one with the sweeping and insulting generalisation. How dare you say that.
Whatever numbers you have in your valuation I need to know how you got them to decide if it makes sense.
(Edit: You may be from the UK, so it's a little different than US. I was speaking for the US case here.)
But I realize that your point is that you'd prefer due diligence and transparency on terms before using a site like WeFunder. The thing is, most investments at that stage don't have that much due diligence beyond market size, team, and traction. I think this is where you're misunderstanding.
I am a YC W13 founder and I just raised a 'seed' round. Our investors signed the paperwork as a 'seed' round. We raised >$500k.
- how much money they want to raise. Say $500k.
- how much equity they're prepared to give up. Say 10%.
--> and there you have it. $5m valuation!
There are also enough quality investors out there who use signals other than hand-wavy financial reports that you could be spending your time to get.
Yes, because MBA's have a monopoly on unethical behavior.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/freekvermeulen/2010/11/22/does-a...
It will take a couple of spectacular failures for people to reevaluate current crowd funding model.
You must make sure the valuation is fair, this means - check the valuation report, check the reputation of the company who did the valuation report, sanity check it, look for signs of bullshit.
Keep in mind, even if the founders have solid reputation there may be some unethical MBA behind the scenes who can act without founders understanding exactly what he is doing.