- Manoj Bhargava, the billionaire who founded 5-hour Energy, said the best place to learn about management is not business school, but rather from your mom. Other business leaders agree parenting can have a positive impact on leadership development.
There’s undoubtedly something to be said about dedicating time and money to an education. But one successful businessman said you may actually have all the wisdom you need at home—and for free.
Manoj Bhargava, the 72-year-old billionaire founder of 5-hour Energy, said you can learn more about managing a business from your mom than earning an MBA.
“The best place to learn management is from your mom,” Bhargava said on his new podcast, Business of Everything, published Feb. 27. “She has a budget. She has unruly employees she can’t fire—24/7. That’s really hard and that’s more management experience than any MBA professor.”
Liz Wiseman and Bethany Cianciolo also wrote in a 2017 Fortune commentary article they’ve found parents to be the best managers.
“In my research studying the best business managers, I, too, have noticed an interesting crossover—their leadership profile is remarkably similar to that of great parents,” they wrote. “Both set high expectations, offer stretch challenges, and give people space to think and act independently, but still hold others accountable.”
Bhargava is worth an estimated $4 billion, but also pledged to give away 99% of his net worth, according to a documentary about him called Billions in Change.
“The most expensive hobby I have is to give money away to do things which are going to benefit the bottom third,” Bhargava said on the podcast.
How Bhargava amassed his fortune
Bhargava took a non-traditional route to reach the top of the corporate ladder. In 1972, he dropped out of Princeton University after his freshman year and spent the subsequent 12 years traveling to and from monasteries in India, where he was born.
Bhargava then returned to the U.S. and joined his parents’ plastic-injection manufacturing company, which ultimately launched him into his entrepreneurial journey. In 1990, he purchased an outdoor-furniture parts store and sold a plastic-materials company in 2006.
His big break, though, was when he created Living Essentials and launched 5-hour Energy in 2003. Retail sales grew to $1 billion by 2012, and in the years following Bhargava created venture-capital companies and a private-equity fund.
Is getting an MBA worth it?
While Bhargava has a point that moms are a wealth of knowledge—and has the success to show for it—there are clear benefits in pursuing an MBA degree. Plus, MBA grads made up nearly 40% of C-suite executives on the 2022 Fortune 1000 list, according to proprietary research by Fortune.
Going to business school has proven to be an effective method for intensive networking and can land grads a much bigger paycheck than they went in with.
Still, the upfront cost of earning an MBA can be expensive. In-person programs at top schools can cost more than $100,000 per year, and it’s nearly impossible to work while completing a full-time MBA program. Online MBA programs have grown in popularity in the post-pandemic era because of their flexibility and lower cost.
Some studies have shown having an MBA still pays off.
“Generally, taking out a loan is worth it, because your earnings far exceed the debt payments,” Martin Van Der Werf, the director of editorial and education policy at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, told CNBC. “If you earn the degree and then are able to get a good job, it is generally worth it.”
