What do you guys think about an MBA degree?

[Not Mike]

I think this "donkey" shit is way overstated.

With respect to an MBA, it can be a very valuable tool. I'm actually somewhat interested in pursuing it, but I don't really want to spend the money. If my company would foot the bill, I would do it without question. Getting an MBA from Kellogg or Booth is excellent on the resume and you can make great connections, and this helps you climb towards being a "big donkey"...

That said, I'm in my mid-30s, have an FSA, and a good career in consulting. I wouldn't be getting the MBA to "learn", I would be doing it to network and enhance my marketability (and pay). A 23-year old getting an MBA? What value are you adding? You are, in my mind, less marketable because you don't know diddly shit about work, but you want to be paid 6 figures.

We are ALL donkeys. Sheba is a donkey (see the thread from a few months back where his client required him to work round the clock the get a deliverable done). Yeah, he charged abig money to do the work, but he was still that client's bitch. He might be bigger than a Big Donkey, but he's still a donkey. There are very few people in the world that are not "donkeys" (however it is being defined). What's his name, the Facebook guy, is not a donkey.

You want to make a lot of money? Come up with an idea like Facebook, or else work your ass off, making good connections, change jobs a few times, and climb those ladders, Mario.

[Keep It Real, Yo]

Originally Posted by ShebaPoe

So if you want to throw barrels, you've got to figure out which business problems you can solve, and get your solutions to the people with the problems outside the structure of the existing problem-solving methodology.

It doesn't just have to be corporate problems. I know a girl who manages a network of babysitters and makes like $3000 a week. You just need to be alert enough to see where someone has a need, big or small, and find a way to meet it.

Then you get barrels and a queen.

Though if you go that route you better be able to manage anxiety and stress.

[Jasper07734]

Originally Posted by Not Mike

I think this "donkey" shit is way overstated.

I still don't completely understand what a "donkey" is suppsoed to be, or if it's meant to be just a joking term of endearment or a serious denigrating label.

[ShebaPoe]

Originally Posted by Not Mike

We are ALL donkeys. Sheba is a donkey (see the thread from a few months back where his client required him to work round the clock the get a deliverable done). Yeah, he charged abig money to do the work, but he was still that client's bitch. He might be bigger than a Big Donkey, but he's still a donkey. There are very few people in the world that are not "donkeys" (however it is being defined). What's his name, the Facebook guy, is not a donkey.

You want to make a lot of money? Come up with an idea like Facebook, or else work your ass off, making good connections, change jobs a few times, and climb those ladders, Mario.

You may want to check my sig. That shit is official. I'm an ape now. DMX can explain it to you:

Originally Posted by DMX

Think you holdin' weight? then you...haven't met the apes

Anyway, responding to clients (customers) is not what defines a donkey. Responding to internal pressures is the definition of being a donkey. Responding to a person because someone took ink, a printer, and visio and made a chart with their name above yours, that's some hee-haw shit right there.

However, you make some good points. I will attempt to expand on them and possibly fail. If you wish to be successful in corporate business, there are two things that will help you above all else. In order, they are:

1. relationships
2. skills

Every actuary with a credential has a market-recognized skill. It saddens me that in many careers, one must put their real ability and intellect into a pre-packaged skills box. The extent to which one must do this may have something to do with what size donkey they are...my research is incomplete. But you earn less money than a private equity associate because you lack relationships.

You have stated your case for relationships, and made the point that this is what an MBA is all about. And, as some have already alluded to, the top biz schools give you the best relationships, not the best skills. every single actuarizoid I met this past weekend can work in private equity. The only thing they don't have is relationships.

Just don't make the mistake of thinking you will ever get anywhere by being, you know, competent. For lots of reasons, corporations may actually be incapable of measuring competence. (can a less competent person measure a more competent person? Will they admit to as much? There are some issues here). Therefore one must default to market measures of competence, but all the market can really do at a high level is measure the value of pre-packaged skills boxes (FCAS, JD, ASA, MBA, etc) and as has already been established, the skills box often indicates very little of the abilities of the person inside of it.

So the corporate market may actually be worthless at measuring the value of individuals. That's kind of a bummer, but it's true. However, customers can determine the value of what an individual is doing pretty well. This line gets blurred when selling to a "customer" at a corporation; again that is usually two skills boxes talking to each other and little else. Selling to end users is how to get a true indication of your ability in business. It is in fact the only way, and it is interesting that most regulatory efforts discourage this in favor of bigness.

When you figure out how to sell to end users, you'll get your barrels and a queen.

[Keep It Real, Yo]

Originally Posted by ShebaPoe

You have stated your case for relationships, and made the point that this is what an MBA is all about. And, as some have already alluded to, the top biz schools give you the best relationships, not the best skills. every single actuarizoid I met this past weekend can work in private equity. The only thing they don't have is relationships.

Isn't working in private equity just being a different kind of donkey? But if more money and more dynamic work then

Anyway, I could see Sheba as a good seller. He can make his ideas sound great (not saying they aren't, they are just well framed), and really listens when someone is talking.

I can sell if I believe in the product, which is why the only thing I have been able to succesfully sell are my services.

[ShebaPoe]

Private equity is assuredly donkey work for all but the owners of the firm. (Like any business.) In my previous thread on the topic (post 64) I stated this:

If you wish to be successful in corporate business, there are two things that will help you above all else. In order, they are:

1. relationships
2. skills

In the language of the realm, "corporate business" refers to donkeyhood. I should have been clearer when introducing new terminology. Among corporate business, private equity is the top of the pile; they sit on the board level often with no experience whatsoever in the actual business. One wonders how it is possible. Yet it is, and it is testimony to the dominance of relationships over skills in importance for corporate employment.

So my point about "everyone I met this weekend could work in private equity" really refers to the fact that it is the absence of relationships, not the absence of skills and certainly not the absence of intelligence that keeps talented people away from the highest levels of corporate business. Such is the life of the Equus africanus asinus


The idea that a corporation cannot measure competence is still under development. But with reliance on skills (i.e "how many exams do you have?), intellect is reduced to credential-seeking in the name of "efficiency" when in fact none may be realized.

[The Drunken Actuary]

Originally Posted by ShebaPoe

OK.

If you want to stop being a donkey, you just stop being a donkey. If going to work makes you feel like a donkey, then stop going to work.

Then why do you still argue with, and call people donkeys, if they like their jobs, are good at them, and are well paid for doing them?

[The Drunken Actuary]

Originally Posted by ShebaPoe

You want to throw barrels? That's a bit of a different animal. But is is basically this:

Being in business creates problems that have to be solved. Whatever you want to do, that's applicable. Want to be an insurance company? Well, then your core business activity is to sell policies, which means you have to price policies, design policies market and distribute policies...and that is like 1.5% of an insurance company.

Most established businesses have already figured out how to solve these problems and gotten so good at their way (which may not be the best or even any good) of solving them, that they have reduced the staff to donkeys and Big Donkeys. This is the only reason an MBA has value.

So if you want to throw barrels, you've got to figure out which business problems you can solve, and get your solutions to the people with the problems outside the structure of the existing problem-solving methodology.

It doesn't just have to be corporate problems. I know a girl who manages a network of babysitters and makes like $3000 a week. You just need to be alert enough to see where someone has a need, big or small, and find a way to meet it.

Then you get barrels and a queen.

This is your advice on how to become a barrel thrower? Find a product people need and sell it? You can do better than that! An 8th grader starting a lawn mowing business knows that much.

[Keep It Real, Yo]

Originally Posted by The Drunken Actuary

This is your advice on how to become a barrel thrower? Find a product people need and sell it? You can do better than that! An 8th grader starting a lawn mowing business knows that much.

A barrel thrower can organize and sell an organization. I'm not sure what to call (in Sheba speak) an entrepreneur that isn't quite a barrel thrower.

[ADoubleDot]

donkey and proud, imo