In the ranking of the world's hundred best-performing CEOs published by Harvard Business Review in 2019, sixty had no MBA. Among them were the top two: Jensen Huang, of Nvidia, who studied electrical engineering at Oregon State with a master's in engineering from Stanford, and Marc Benioff, of Salesforce.
That number has circulated ever since as proof that an MBA is useless. It doesn't prove that, and it's worth understanding why before basing your own education decisions on it.
What the data says, and what it doesn't
These are a hundred people, chosen for the performance of the company they run. That's a list, not a study. Three obvious limitations:
- The denominator is missing. To know whether an MBA helps, you'd need to compare the proportion of MBAs among the top hundred with the proportion among all CEOs. Without that, sixty percent is neither high nor low, it's just a number.
- Survivorship bias again. The list only includes those who made it. Those who got an MBA and didn't make it, and those who didn't get one and also didn't make it, are left out on both sides.
- Founders don't follow the same path. The ranking rewarded long tenure, which favors founders, and founders rarely stop mid-career to get an MBA.
What usually decides things for real
Looking at career paths instead of the diploma, more mundane and more consistent factors emerge: real depth in something before managing everything, enough time in the role to understand the product, the ability to decide with incomplete information, and the willingness to sustain an expensive bet for years before it pays off.
None of that is exclusive to people with or without an MBA. And much of it is learned on the job, not in a classroom.
So when is an MBA worth it
It solves three specific problems well: giving finance and operations vocabulary to someone who came from a technical field, opening up a network of contacts you wouldn't have otherwise, and serving as a credential in markets where credentials are the entry filter, like consulting and banking.
It solves one problem poorly: substituting for operating experience. Someone who has never had results under their own responsibility doesn't become a manager just by studying management.
The useful question isn't "do I need an MBA," it's what gap do I have, and what's the cheapest way to close it. It's the same distinction between studying and learning we covered in is studying worth it, and it matters even more now that the analytical part of management work is being automated — which changes the market value of each skill, as we discussed in career in decline.
Frequently asked questions
Do CEOs need an MBA?
Not necessarily. In Harvard Business Review's 2019 ranking of the hundred best-performing CEOs, sixty had no MBA, including the top two. But that's a list, not a study: without comparing it to the share of MBAs among all CEOs, the number doesn't prove the degree helps or hurts.
Does Jensen Huang have an MBA?
No. Nvidia's CEO holds a degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University and a master's in electrical engineering from Stanford, which he completed while working. Both degrees are in engineering, not business.
When is an MBA worth it?
It works well for giving people from technical backgrounds a grounding in finance and operations vocabulary, for opening up a network that's hard to build any other way, and as a credential in markets where it's a gatekeeping filter, like consulting and banking. It works poorly as a substitute for actual operating experience.