Thanks to this flattering post from my friend Penelope, a lot of new folks have been stopping by “Ask The Harvard MBA.”

You’ve asked so many questions that I’ll break my usual practice of answering one question per week and try to knock out a bunch of quick answers.  Onward and downward!

“I am sorry for being rude, but if you are a Harvard MBA, how come your website uses corny clipart and ice cream pastels? When I came here, I immediately thought I was in the wrong place!”

The Harvard MBA says:

I strive for a playful, retro feel for the site.  Since my goal is to entertain and edify, I feel like an overly serious look would send the wrong message.

Also, if I used the Harvard logo, my alma mater would unleash a phalanx of lawyers.  I’ve already been sued for $100 million dollars, and I’m not keen to repeat the experience.

“Can I ask you about your own investment portfolio?  What are your favorite investment choices?”

The Harvard MBA says:

I have a Jekyll and Hyde investment portfolio.  Most of my money is invested based on the advice that I give to everyone who asks: A broadly diversified portfolio of low-expense ratio, low-turnover no-load mutual funds.  My personal asset allocation is 95% equities/5% fixed income; 60% domestic and 40% overseas.

The crazy portion of my portfolio consists of angel investments in individual startups.  Here, I’m betting money that I can afford to lose with the hopes of getting lucky.

There is at least one CS professor at Stanford who is now set for life because Larry Page and Sergey Brin needed $4,000 to buy some servers, and he happened to have his checkbook with him that day.  It’s unlike that I’ll ever be that lucky, but I’m pretty confident that I’ll get a good long-term return on my investments, though the beta (risk) is through the roof.

“I’m a fourth year Mechanical Engineering student, who desperately needs a new laptop!  However - there are so many brands and options and numbers thrown around, I really don’t know what I want or need.  Can you recommend 2 of the best brands and give me some basic guidelines as to what capabilities I should be looking for?  The laptop will serve school and personal purposes. 

PS - Neat blog; what a great idea!”

The Harvard MBA says:

While I may not be a laptop expert, I am an expert cheapskate.  Unless you’re going to be running heavy-duty number crunching on your laptop, pretty much any laptop will do.  My advice is to keep an eye on Slickdeals.net, and buy whatever laptop the active community members rate as a good deal.

For example, I recently saw a Dell laptop with Intel Core Duo processors on sale for under $500.  I don’t know how good that is, but I do know that I’m still running just fine on my 2002-era laptop, and it probably has 1/10th the processing power.

Just make sure that you don’t buy a laptop with Vista.  Since Vista’s release, I have yet to speak to a single person who likes the new OS.

If money is no object, go for a Mac.  They’re that much better.

“I’m a 30 yr old male, working in software dev in NYC for a large media/finance corporation.  I graduated from an ivy school 8 yrs back, bounced around a bit during the rocky dot.com bubble burst, and ended up where I am because I wanted a stable gig with a large company.   I’ve been here 4 years now, got a couple modest promotions; but it really doesn’t provide much fulfillment.  I’m not into corporate politics and mentality and climbing the ranks over the long term isn’t really a goal.  Salary is decent, but I’m not getting rich and it’s just a slow climb in the rat race.

I used to be really driven by inspiring technology projects, entrepreneurship, and the fast paced style of smaller companies.  So my question is that I feel very stuck in this corporate sludge and am wondering if you have advice on how to make a lifestyle change to get back into the technology/startup/entrepreneurship environment (steps to take, paths to investigate, bold actions to take)?  I’m not really looking to go back to school, I’m more a hands on person.  I’d love to move to silicon valley but am hesitant to do that w/o a job there, and that is difficult to get from nyc.  The big names there haven’t bitten much on my apps, and I have the traditional fears of giving up my stability of course.”

The Harvard MBA says:

Quit your job tomorrow and move out to Silicon Valley.

The bottom line is that your fears of corporate sludge are justified, and if you stay much longer in a situation where you’re uninspired and unfulfilled, you may develop bad habits that you won’t be able to break.

Look, you’re in a good position.  You’ve got a great education, solid experience, and you’re still young and flexible enough to take risks.  I’m going to assume that you’re unmarried and don’t have a sick parent that needs you for physical and financial support (usually the folks who have spouses and obligations mention that fact in their query).  If not now, when?

While there is definitely trepidation about the macroeconomic situation, Silicon Valley continues to hire like mad, and it is still a seller’s market for talent.  Yes, there’s a risk that the bubble will burst, and that you’ll end up unemployed in two years.  But how big is that downside?  You weren’t getting promoted at your corporate job, so you can always go back and not have lost out much.  And if the economy goes in the toilet, it’s quite possible that your solid, stable, established company would decide that the best way to ride out the story would be to downsize your ass anyways.

I hear a lot of people say, “I want to find a job before I move.”  It took one of my friends THREE YEARS to finally make the move to Silicon Valley.

Don’t give yourself the chance to make excuses or procrastinate.  And if you do follow my advice, let me know, and I’ll personally take you to one of the many startup events that occurs practically every night and make introductions for you.  How’s that for mentorship, eh?