About book What They Teach You At Harvard Business School: My Two Years Inside The Cauldron Of Capitalism (2005)
I enjoyed listening to this book so a caveat that this rating is for the audiobook version. Unlike many of the reviewers, I suppose it didn't even occur to me to want any juicy insider stories. I simply wanted a little glimpse inside and I thought it provided that quite nicely. The author sometimes summarises business concepts and I thought he did that quite in a plain and clear manner. And the observations had a fun British sense of humour about them. All in all I would say that it provided good company while I was running. This was a great book to give you a good overall perspective on Harvard Business School. One disclaimer I have to say though is that the author went to HBS in 2006 coming in as a former journalist from London at the age of 33 with a pregnant wife and 1 kid already so he has a much different persona than the typical 27 year old single former investment banker coming into HBS.He does a good job in walking you through his 2 years at HBS and it was truly an eye opener for everyone out there who may have thought that an HBS experience was a golden ticket to life. It is interesting to hear about how the classes were and the takeaways he got out of the case method discussions. Also interesting to hear about life at the school as it is still very much a social scene, given that the average age of the class was 27 years old, so people really do spend a lot of time at the school going out so makes sense how you would feel out of place if you are married. I was surprised of how entrepreneur oriented a great deal of the kids were as several attempted to form businesses while they were there which ultimately failed. Overall, think the best part of reading this book was that I did not feel like I have missed out on much from not attending HBS. In 2006, everyone seemed focus to get into banking, private equity, venture capital, or a hedge fund and was more than willing to sacrifice their personal lives in order to put the hours in for the money. I fully believe that by me going I would come out behind where I am now let alone in where I believe I will be 2 years from now in my career. I highly recommend reading this book for anyone as it is important for you to realize what the HBS experience really is all about, and you will quickly be able to tell if you are one who would benefit from this experience or not.
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Funny and easy to read, but also had some insightful observations about the Harvard MBA "mystique".
—5656
Slow, and I didn't get the point of the book.... Kind of felt like plodding through.
—PinkShyGirl
Wow... my MBA is looking pretty good next to Harvard.
—selenator
