Going to a two-year, in-person MBA program has long been a rite of passage for young professionals in finance, tech, and consulting. It’s a time to learn, develop ideas—and most of all, to network.
But one tech billionaire says nothing compares to just jumping right into entrepreneurship, and getting an MBA isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be. When asked by podcaster Codie Sanchez if people should get an MBA, Joe Liemandt promptly said “no.”
“That’s an easy one for me,” said the Trilogy Software and ESW Capital founder. “There’s nothing on the business knowledge that you’re going to come out of there that is a fraction of what you would get from building your own thing for that two years.”
To be sure, Liemandt isn’t much of an academic—rather someone who values real-life experience. He attended Stanford University for undergrad, but dropped out to start Trilogy Software in 1989, which quickly became a major player in enterprise software, focused on product configuration and sales automation.
At its peak, Trilogy achieved annual revenues around $120 million and launched successful spinoffs including pcorder.com, which went public during the dot-com boom. A few years later, Liemandt switched his focus to ESW Capital, which specializes in buying struggling software companies and turning them into profitable businesses.
Liemandt was so dedicated to learning on the job, in fact, the company established Trilogy University, an intensive training boot camp for new hires, which inspired similar programs at tech giants Google and Facebook.
The difference between MBA grads and entrepreneurs
Liemandt defined the difference he sees between those who choose to pursue a two-year MBA program and those who go straight into building their own companies.
“Entrepreneurs believe they’re going to change the world, no matter what everybody else thinks,” he said. “Here’s your problem as an MBA: You’re going to look at the spreadsheet and you’re going to say, ‘that cell doesn’t work, so the spreadsheet doesn’t [work]. So I’m not going to do this idea, right, because you’re just looking at it and analyzing.”
On the flip side, however, Liemandt argued entrepreneurs look more creatively at problem solving.
“An entrepreneur looks at that cell and says, ‘I will change that cell. I will make that work,’” he said. “If you’re going to be a builder and an entrepreneur, you’re gonna go change reality. That is what you do.”
Is getting an MBA worth it?
Like the rising cost of undergraduate programs, MBA programs have also gotten more expensive—particularly if you’re looking at the top business school programs in the country.
The total cost for a two-year program at Harvard Business School could set you back about $250,000 (including tuition and other costs). But the median base salary for 2025 HBS MBA grads was $184,500, plus a $30,000 signing bonus. That’s about three times the U.S. overall median full-time salary.
Meanwhile, an MBA is the go-to degree for about 40% of Fortune 1000 executives.
“When making pivots that often need to be made as a business leader, it’s those soft skills that help motivate people to be agile and flexible in taking on challenges they may feel are slightly beyond their current capabilities,” Joy Jones, CEO of the Graduate Management Admission Council, previously told Fortune.
Of course, plenty of successful businesspeople made it all the way to the top without an MBA degree—or even an undergraduate degree. Apple founder Steve Jobs, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Dell founder Michael Dell, and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg are all college dropouts—and each are megabillionaires today.
“Truth be told, I never graduated from college. This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation,” Jobs said at the 2005 Stanford commencement ceremony. “It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.”