We interrupt the regularly scheduled programming of this blog for the following announcement: I’m hiring.

In addition to all the other benefits, whomever I hire will get to ask me all the questions they want on a daily basis!  And if you do a good job for me, I’ll write you a heck of a recommendation letter for when you apply to HBS.

Whoever I hire will have the opportunity to prove their marketing skills by building on PBwiki’s existing reputation and millions of users, and adding their own special oomph.  He or she will be working with me on a daily basis as my right hand man or woman, and will have plenty of opportunities to shine.

PBwiki is located in San Mateo, halfway between Silicon Valley and San Francisco, and employees receive the usual baker’s dozen of perks, including all the free food they can eat, gym memberships to work off the excess pounds from eating that food, weekly massages, and a grand piano that mysteriously appeared in the company’s lobby one day.  We will pay for relocation.

Anyone you know who is interested should go here to apply:
http://pbwiki.com/content/jobs-openpositions

Here’s the full listing:

MARKETING MANAGER

If you love building, launching, and running creative marketing programs, we’re looking for you.

The Marketing Manager will take charge of our outbound marketing programs, including everything from SEO and SEM to event and guerilla marketing.  You’ll have some incredible assets at your disposal (the ability to put messages in from of PBwiki’s millions of users; lots of freedom and flexibility), and we’ll be expecting incredible results.
 
What kind of person are you?
You’re creative AND organized.  You love coming up with ideas and brainstorming, but you’re just as passionate about turning great ideas into concrete programs with measurable ROI.  You feel perfectly comfortable with the entire range of marketing channels and programs, from trade shows to AdWords, and everywhere in between.  You’re a team player, but you judge yourself and others on the results they deliver.

Key responsibilities:
* SEO, SEM, Email, and Web marketing
* Social media and awareness generation
* Trade show, user group, and event marketing
* Overseeing Marcomm production
* Helping to shape overall marketing strategy and approach
* Creating, monitoring, and improving tools to monitor marketing ROI
 
Qualifications:
* At least 2-3 years experience in product marketing, both online and offline
* Active participant in social media
* Techno-savvy, with experience working with developers
* Previous Marcomm and PR experience a plus
* Intrapreneurial, can-do attitude
* If you don’t subscribe to TechCrunch and Slashdot in your feed reader, this isn’t the job for you

Candidates should email their resume to jobs+marketing@pbwiki.com and write about three programs they’d love to launch for PBwiki.  We will pay for relocation.

I have had numerous positions and never seem to be able to call one my home with the exception of one company from 1981 to 1995.

Since this position I seem to have changed jobs every 3 years or less.

Is this a real reflection of the present job market? I always produce exceptional results so that has not been the issue.

A friend suggested that I am bored in my roles and need more challenge.

The Harvard MBA says:

The tough part about answering your question is that there are competing factors.

On the one hand, job-hopping is undoubtedly unattractive to employers.  I have been involved in a lot of hiring meetings in my career, and I have never heard anyone say, “Looks like Candidate X switches jobs every 18 months.  We’ve got to hire him!”

Nor is this a wrong-headed attitude.  Every employee takes time to ramp up to full productivity; the costs of hiring and training are high, and no employer wants to pay those costs more often than necessary.

On the other hand, if you truly find yourself in a bad job situation, getting out is the best solution.  The days of gritting out 20 years of service in a job you hate are largely over, and that’s a good thing.

In my own career, the longest I’ve ever spent at one company was 4.5 years; switching jobs every 4-5 years is generally accepted, especially in Silicon Valley, where 4-year vesting schedules offer a major economic incentive to hop at the 4-year mark.

Given that you produce excellent results (I’m taking your word on this), it sounds like you’re initiating the job hopping.  Your friend’s suggestion that you may be bored could very well be accurate.  If that’s the case, I will offer two suggestions:

1) You may need to change the types of jobs that you seek out.  Perhaps you’re the sort of person who needs a lot of change and variety in his life.  If that’s the case, you may want to opt for more of a professional services job, especially one like management consulting, where you might hop from industry to industry every 6 months.  You may also try being an independent consultant, so that your thirst for change will seem a strength, rather than a weakness.

2) You should also do some introspection, and figure out if you are approaching your work with the right mindset.  Positive psychology researchers have shown that those who believe that they’ll be happy if they find the right job are mistaken; there is no “right” job.  Those who hunger for something different may very well be better off figuring out how to reshape the way they perceive their work.  I recommend reading Sonja Lyubomirsky’s “The How of Happiness” for details and specific exercises.

As I said, my advice is somewhat contradictory, simply because I don’t know the exact details of your situation.  But I hope that I’ve provided enough food for thought to help you find some insight.

The Harvard MBA says:

I can’t tell you how many emails/questions/notes I’ve gotten about Philip Broughton’s new book, “Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School“.

I guess part of running a blog called “Ask The Harvard MBA” is being called upon to opine about all things HBS.

I freely admit that I haven’t read the book.  I’m not planning on enriching Mr. Broughton, though if he wants to send me a free review copy, I’ll be happy to post a follow-up.

What I will do is to address the specific criticisms of HBS listed in the Times Online review.  They are:

1) A student guide advises prospective students not to bring guitars, literature and history books, or cynicism.

VERDICT: Bullshit

Criticizing a school based on a random quote from a student publication is just silly.  As for the specific points, 1) HBS puts on a musical, complete with orchestra, every year.  2) Literature and history is a major part of courses such as “The Moral Leader” and “Business History”.  3) Cynicism and skepticism are just as important at HBS as anywhere else.  When I was there, I wrote editorials criticizing the administration for a variety of sins and I was far from alone.  At one point, our Editor-in-Chief and Publisher had to defy direct orders from the Dean not to cover certain topics.  We certainly weren’t simply swallowing whatever the school was selling.  You would think an experienced hack (an affectionate term Brits use for journalists) would look deeper.

2) The author is surprised by the number of earnest Mormons and former military men, whom he believes help create an oppressive atmosphere of “unquestioning obedience and creepy religiosity.”

VERDICT: Partially true.

HBS is run by Mormons.  Kim Clark, Steve Wheelwright, Clay Christiansen…all members of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.  The school is also full of military veterans, both on the faculty and in the student body.  But it certainly doesn’t create an atmosphere of unquestioning obedience and creepy religiosity.

There’s no question in my mind that the administration would prefer unquestioning obedience and eternal fealty to the altar of HBS.  The dirty secret of HBS, as with most schools, is that the MBA program is simply a means of generating alumni.  That’s where the real money and influence comes from.

We would often joke about how the administrator much preferred the tractable (and more lucrative) Executive Education program to dealing with MBA students.  It’s also true that the campus is frighteningly manicured to the point where the musical I helped write featured a scene with a sobbing Dean convening a meeting to discuss the unthinkable: The appearance of a dandelion on the campus.

But anyone who believes that MBA students are obedient and devout clearly doesn’t know how people actually think and act.

3) Students work on exercises that are filled with psychobabble like, “I do not take on the negative energy of the insecure…I stay centred…I try to model the message of integrity, growth and transformation.”

VERDICT: Partially true.

Yep, the school does have people do stuff like that.  But jeez, nobody but a complete tool would actually take it without a grain of salt.  And even psychobabble can hold a seed of truth.  What exactly is bad about avoiding insecurity, staying centered, and promoting integrity, growth, and transformation?

4) A student writes to the school to apologize for urinating on another student’s door.

VERDICT: Probably true, but what of it?

My guess is that the administration told him to apologize or face expulsion.  Given that choice, I’d do the same thing.  But urinating on another student’s door is pretty tame.  During one bachelor party, several of my classmates urinated on the doors of “The Golden Banana” strip club after the bouncers refused to accept our international friends because they didn’t have U.S. identification.  That resulted in a band of police cruisers chasing down our chartered bus.

5) HBS graduates go to the school to make boatloads of money, but delude themselves into believeing that their actions are morally good.  “Any notion that such jet-setting plutocrats are truly concerned about the rest of us, or the planet, or the future, is laughable.”

VERDICT: Partially true, but so what?

I went to HBS to make money.  So did most of my classmates.  No one has any illusions in that regard.  But I will quote Gordon Gekko and state that, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”

At this point in history, I think it’s pretty clear that Adam Smith was right, and that the invisible hand of capitalism is the best way to guide the allocation of resources.  Business in general, and HBS in particular, are the instantiation of capitalism, the greatest economic system ever devised.  (Cue patriotic music) We may not be Mother Teresa, but the function we perform has helped to lift billions out of poverty.  Capitalism has helped more people in India than Mother Teresa, and I see no reason to be ashamed of it.

Damned pinko commies.

The grand irony, of course, is that after writing his hit job of a book, Broughton is now using his book tour to pimp out his new podcasting company:

“Delves Broughton is finally putting his MBA skills to use. After flirting with an idea for a ‘very high end laundry firm’, he’s now setting up a cutting-edge podcast company with a friend. ‘It is a turbulent frontier world, and enormous fun to inhabit, whatever becomes of our venture.’”

Look, the bottom line is that HBS is what it is: The world’s most famous business school, a fun two years, and a great place to network and get a well-paying job.

Yes, many of the students are arrogant (my wife has commented that HBS polished my existing arrogance to new, shinier heights), yes the administration preaches conformity and tries to eliminate the messiness of life, and yes, we’re not necessarily saints.  But it’s silly for anyone to expect otherwise.

As for Mr. Broughton’s new book, an old saying seems apropos: “The lady doth protest too much.”

“So why did you cheat, Lila?” I asked.  Lila is an A student and a soon-to-be senior at Palo Alto High School.“To get a good grade,” she confessed.“How would your parents react if you told them?” (Both parents are graduates of a prestigious Ivy League university and both are high-earning professionals in Silicon Valley.)“They’d be shocked.”“Did you cheat in several classes or just one?”“A few,” she admitted, her warm brown eyes low and lost.“And do you remember anything that you learned in those classes?”  “No, not really… except maybe how to cheat.”What are the Lila’s of Silicon Valley telling us a about their world and the letter-grading system?  What has the need to get an “A” done to them?  Is it, in fact, the prime reason they cheat?  Are college admission offices really seeing then the truth on high school transcripts and SAT scores or are they often evaluating a carefully concocted lie?  If so, what are parents, schools and higher education doing to change the status quo?Questions like these have been tapping me on the shoulder ever since I read Denise Clark Pope’s book, “Doing School.”   Her book resonated with me, especially after I overheard another teen last year (also an A student and a top athlete) casually talking about how he’d cheated his way through various classes in high school that he thought were a waste of his time.  He and one of his college grad friends were rapping about how dumb you’d have to be not to cheat if a class was boring or you didn’t like the teacher.So, last month when Stanford Law School announced that they are doing away with the traditional A-F grading system (following the lead of other elite law schools like Yale and UC Berkeley), I decided to take a closer look at the letter grading system at the high school level in our community and even at the university level.   Innovative undergraduate programs atschools like MIT, Reed College in Oregon, Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington, and New College of Florida (NCF), as well asUC Santa Cruz,have also incorporated broader grading systems which include individualized performance evaluations, with the focus off grades and back on a more personalized approach toeach student’s learning experience.Will Stanford Law’s decision influence Stanford’s undergrad program to take the focus off grades?  Arethese ‘out-of-the-box’ approachesworking?  Are students really challenged and motivated?  Could they actually learn more and get more out of college without receiving or knowing what letter grade they were given by their teacher?Now that my own daughter is about to start Kindergarten, dangling her innocent feet into the icy cold waters of the American public educational system, I have finally decided to begin my quest to unearth the answers to some of these questions.   I am beginning by interviewing teens at Palo Alto High and Los Altos High, and even Stanford freshman.   I’d like to hear from them first.  What do they think about what Stanford Law has recently done to improve learning and take the focus off letter grades? What changes would they make at their own schools to improve how they’re graded and evaluated?  What would they tell their parents if they could about the pressure they’re under to academically achieve? What if they came clean about cheating, what would actually happen to them? Has cheating, in fact, reached epidemic proportions because of the need for the Almighty A? I recently spoke with author, Denise Clark Pope PhD, a leading researcher and lecturer on the subject of pressure to compete and achieve in high school.  Her book “Doing School,” How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, openly talks about how we have created a culture and an education system where kids are doing whatever it takes to get the grade and win the attention and the recognition of their parents and teachers, but at the cost of their own well-being and self-respect.  Dr. Pope is also a lecturer at Stanford University School of Education, where shefounded and directs the SOS: Stressed-Out Students project, a national research and intervention project for K-12 schools.Because her work has inspired me to explore the topic more closely, I wanted to ask Dr. Pope’s reaction to Stanford Law’s move to take the emphasis off grades and place it back on learning.“Do you think that the law school’s decision will truly impact or changestudents’overall learning experience?”“Students who are grade-oriented will most likely continue to try for the Honors or “H” status because that’s theirmindset, but many students just want to focus on the work instead of the grade,” she replied.“Will Stanford University follow suit and change their grading system?”“I know that a few folks have suggested doing what MIT has done – not grading first year students or at least not grading the first quarter of work.  The idea being that it is such a big transition from high school, not wanting to overload incoming freshman with grading anxiety but rather saying, Here, let’s get your feet wet first.”In the final pages of “Doing School,”Dr. Popespeaks about the need to listen to high school students before we can even begin to change or impact their education successfully.  If we don’t listen to teens and their ideas about how to improve their learning experience, how will we begin to understand how to reach each student emotionally?  And without reaching students emotionally, truly understanding what they care about, there is little hope for reigniting their passion for learning and discovery. There’s no telling how long cheating hasbeen going on in the classroom.  In 2005, a Duke University study revealed that 75% of all high school students cheat in the United States and if you include copying homework, it climbs to90%.   Last year, in Reagan McMahon’s article “Everybody Does It,” (SF Gate, September 9, 2007),Dr. Pope states that 80% of honors and advancedplacement students cheat on a regular basis because they have more to lose if they don’t cheat.So, how does Silicon Valley rate? Have we here in the privilegedbackyard of Stanford University done a better or a worse job at over-loading and stressing out our youth? What would students really say about cheating to get the grade when they aren’t being threatened or judged by an authoritative adult in their lives?  Dothey feel it violates their integrity or self-respect?  A little?  A lot?  Can they articulate that yet or does that come years later, after they’ve received their college diplomas by hook or by crook.  I hope to share my findings in the coming monthsLet’s step back a bit, though, to 1983.  Twenty-five years.  (Okay, that’s quite a few steps back, which would make me now… around … yeah, there’s the reason I never really embraced math.)It was a pivotal time, not just in my lifeand my education, but also for technology and the worldwe are today.  1983 was the year I would graduate high school, the year before my father would die, the year before Steve Jobs would presentto the world the first desktop computer – an amazing 9” screened, black and whiteApple Macintosh.  I wouldn’t know it yet, but I would do the same thing at the University of San Francisco that Steve Jobs did after his first semester at Reed College.I would leave college and begin to love learning all over again.Jobs would eventually become one of my heroes, a self-directed innovator who saw a vision of the future because of a profound love fordiscovery in the present.Twenty-five years ago when I was a senior in high school, it would have been me, instead of Lila, giving the same answers to those questions.  It’s no big secret – cheating in school and lying to your parents strolled hand in hand in my generation, too.  But it seemed, how should I say… much more sophomoric, especially when Ferris Bueller and Tom Cruise in Risky Business made lying to your parents and teachers look so fun and glamorous, particularly in your skivvies. Like Lila, though, I also had very academically successful parents.  The expectation in households like Lila’s and mine were set by our parent’s achievements - and withhigh achievements comes high expectations andinsurmountable pressuretocompete.However, in the Eighties, it was generally the kids who never did well (mostly “the jocks” in my high school) that were cheating off the kids who studied hard and always did well (“the geeks,” as it were).  Today, it is the smart kids who are leading the way, caught up in a broader spectrum of pressure from home to do well at everything – academics, sports, social-clubs, music, band… and the list/beat goes on. During the Eighties, teens fell into clearer categories than they do today, and it was the students mostly, not their parents, pushing for more extra-curricular activities.  Parents today know that leading universities want youth who are unique, students who stand out both academically and socially, and that’s why they’re pushing their children harder.  Is this healthy? Is it helping their kids?  Maybe… maybe not.  What would parents do differently if they knew how much their kids cheated to keep up?  What would parents say if they knew that cheating is now considered among their kids to be a very helpful, time-management tool?Eleven out of the twelve teens I’ve interviewed so far admitted to cheating or helping others cheat.  Each said that the number one reason they do it is because of pressure from their parents to get a good letter grade.  The second reason, they said, is because they don’t have enough time to study and cheating makes their life a lot easier and manageable.  The third reason is pressure from friends who may drop them socially if they don’t let them copy their homework or cheat off their test.Do they consider cheating to be wrong or a big deal?  Not really or at least not until they get caught.  But that almost never happens.  Why is that?  A seventeen year old from Los Altos High put it this way, “Because the people who do it are really smart and good at it.”I was particularly bad at cheating in high school, which gives you a fairly good idea of my academic skill-set, although, I did try… many times.  I was no different than any of the teens I’ve interviewed.  I just don’t remember cheating being ‘no big deal’ or ever casual.   What I remember was almost throwing up during my SAT exams, doubled-over in pain, thinking that my whole life and future teetered on the outcome of those English and math scores.  The fear and pressure that consumed me as I walked into that auditorium flapping with ‘Flock of Seagull’ haircuts came from parental pressure to succeed academically, but it also came from a strong desire to impress my parents and family to gain their respect and attention.  Yes – sad, ironic and true.Coming from a strong academic family, letter grades and SAT scores were everything (both my parents were educators, however neither of their parents went much past the 4^th grade in school).  Because my parents couldn’t afford private university for their eight children on a teacher’s salary, academic scholarships were expected.   So, the thought that I might just be an average student with a creative, artistic streak was not an idea that was easily entertained or accepted.  “Average” and “creative” were code words for “failure” – not just for me but also for my parents.  And talking about happiness without academic success was just not in my parent’s vocabulary or probably in any book or thesaurus they may have consulted on the subject.  Academic achievement meant better opportunities in their generation.  It meant better pay, better jobs, better houses, better appliances, better cars, better families and better children… and, of course, it still does.  However, being better doesn’t actually mean happier – not then and certainly not today.Had I just been able to make out the answers on Lawson’s test form (Lawson was my calculus-loving, former 3^rd grade boyfriend, who had a functioning car and offered to drive me to take the SATs) I would have whole-heartedly cheated that day.  Without a doubt, I would have cheated and lied my way into a bright and shiny new college education.  Fortunately for me, though, little Lawson turned out to be a 6’5 giant at seventeen, and his exceptionally long basketball arms blocked all the answers I so desperately wanted to call my own.Thanks to Lawson and his gifted arms, I didn’t get into Stanford like one of my older sisters who was awarded a full academic scholarship.  No, my path to learning and education would be different – maybe even more challenging and gratifying than studying at an elite university. (If you’d like to read more about Dida Gazoli’s research findings regarding the letter grading system in Silicon Valley and what teens are saying about it, plus “cheating to get the grade,” stay tunedfor next month’s column or contact Dida at www.didaink.com).

The Harvard MBA says:

The fascinating thing is that I came up with the concept of the “personal IPO” back in the 1990s, and later returned to it in this blog post about personal venture capital.

The short answer is that there is no formal program for making such investments.  But I think it could work.  The key with these personal investments is to provide enough money to allow the investee to create value, but not enough to satisfy them.

In my previous post, I suggested $50,000/year…living expenses for a single entrepreneur, but not enough to hamper his or her hunger.

What do you think, folks?  Any takers?

My question is, can I afford HBS with financial aid?

The Harvard MBA says:

Fortunately, U.S. banks will be happy to loan you as much money as you need (though you will have to pay them back eventually!).  Financial hardship should not be a barrier to attending or enjoying HBS.

The Harvard MBA says:

Great question, and probably very relevant to a lot of folks who’ve just gotten out of school as well.

The first thing to remember is that “Marketing Strategist” is not a typical job.  In some ways, marketing resembles the Army, with a very definite set of ranks:

• Associate
• Analyst
• Marketing Manager
• Director of Marketing
• Senior Director of Marketing
• VP Marketing
• Chief Marketing Officer

“Marketing Strategist” per se doesn’t really exist in most companies; strategy is generally set at the Director level and above, with input from folks throughout the organization.

Given your current level of marketing experience, your best bet is getting a job as a Marketing Manager, and using your enthusiasm for social media to become the unofficial social media guy for your company.

You might also be able to join a very early stage startup as the first non-engineering hire, since even a management consultant counts as a marketing expert when everyone else is a coder.

I think you’re doing all the right things to find a job by starting a focused blog and posting regularly.  The next step is to become a regular commenter on related blogs and embedding yourself into the community.  In the end, most jobs are found via friends, rather than formal job boards.

Keep up the good work!

I am keen to get a rounded experience of university in the US. What I want to know is what is the social life like at Harvard in particular?

Ancilliary question: Do you know if postgraduate students can join the so called “final clubs” such as Porcellian or AD at Harvard. Or can postgrad students even join fraternities?

A million thanks in advance!”

The Harvard MBA Says:

Now here’s a question after my own heart.  After all, if networking is one of the most important aspects of business school, the social life of the school is probably more important than the number of Nobel prizewinners on the faculty (though those help too!).

HBS offers a very rich social life, but it is very different from the experience of being an undergrad at an American university.  A quick look at demographics helps illustrate this:

• The average age of first-year HBS students is somewhere around 27, versus 18 for college freshmen.
• Women make up a little over 1/3 of the student body, which is very different from the typical college, where women make up the majority of students.
• 1/3 of the students are from countries other than the United States, a figure that is far higher than the typical college.

Rather than young adults trying to find their identities and figure out what they want to do with their lives, MBA programs features cosmopolitan men and women who are focused on accelerating their careers.

Both millieus feature plenty of partying, but that’s where the resemblance ends.  You’re not going to be spending late nights debating the meaning of life or trudging your way to the local frat party to score some illegal booze.  Instead, you’ll be hitting bars and clubs with your friends during schools, and planning posh treks to Bali and other global hot spots for your vacations.

Of course, not every HBS student opts for the party circuit.  There are plenty of married students who (like me) prefer a quiet dinner with other couples.  Though even us old married types try to make time to attend a few functions like Vegas road trips to act as steady wingmen for our single brethren.

Social activities tend to center around four different groups: Section, Study Group, Clubs, and Friends.

HBS’s 900 person class is divided into 11 sections, each designated with a number.  In HBS terms, I was in Section D, Class of 2000.  Because you spend your entire first year taking all your classes with the same 80 people, you tend to develop very strong bonds.  Your section is the equivalent of your freshman dorm…if your freshman dorm consisted of nothing but overachievers who were bent on global domination.

Study Groups are another tradition, though less formal.  Students self-organize into groups of 4-8 students that help each other prepare for classes.  Since HBS classes are graded primarily on class participation, being prepared is critical, especially if you receive the dreaded “cold call” from the professor to “open” the class by presenting your analysis of the case study.  It gets pretty quiet pretty quickly when the professor cold calls an unprepared, possibly hung-over student.  With an average of 13 cases per week, no one has time to prepare a full analysis of each (a full analysis including a recommended course of action with financial model as supporting evidence), hence the rise of the study groups.

Study groups meet every day, generally before the first morning class.  Again, because the group members see each other every day for an entire year, strong bonds develop.  I’ve heard of study groups who still do yearly reunions.

HBS is also full of clubs and activities, including the annual HBS musical.  While at HBS, I was the Co-President of the High Tech club, and one of the writers for the musical.  Unlike sections or study groups, clubs and activities generally bring together people with similar interests.  I’m still in close touch today with my fellow High Tech club officers, as well as my fellow writers.

Beyond these three structured social activities, HBS students also simply make friends.  There are folks like my friend Tony whom I simply enjoy spending time with, even though we never took a class together, studied together, or were in a club together.  Even at HBS, friendship without ulterior motive flourishes.

One thing that HBS does have in common with college is the fierce search for romantic companionship.

Thanks to the 2:1 gender ratio, female MBA students (the heterosexual ones at least) find themselves in a near-ideal dating environment, surrounded by accomplished, socially successful, high-earning-potential men.  A large number of my female classmates, far larger in proportion than my college contemporaries, end up marrying classmates.

But don’t feel bad for the poor male MBA students.  In the Boston area, Harvard MBAs are considered the best possible catch for young women, and the so-called Harvard effect holds sway over the rest of the world as well.  Trading on the HBS aura is known as “dropping the H-bomb,” and the HBSer on the prowl will find it an effective weapon on anyone from cocktail waitresses to Wellesley students to MBAs of lesser schools.

For example, early in the school year, the Wellesley girls actually put invitations to parties in the mailboxes of EVERY male HBS first-year.  The invitations include complimentary limo service to bring you to the campus in case you don’t have a car.  I kid you not.

I could also tell you stories about certain classmates of mine cutting a Kevin Rose-esque swath through the ranks of Columbia MBA students, but that I’ll save for another time.

The one drawback of the social whirl at HBS is the fact that the good life does end up being pretty expensive (Wellesley women nonwithstanding).  Someone has to pony up the bucks to pay for airfare and 4-star resorts, and that someone is generally Citibank’s loan department, which will be happy to loan you practically unlimited funds (they know you’ll be good for it someday).

As for your ancillary question, I’m pretty sure that Finals Clubs like the Porc are limited solely to undergrads.  I can tell you any HBS student who took it upon himself to do the equivalent of rushing an undergrad frat would be in for some serious abuse from the rest of us.  Not to worry.  While these secret societies encourage conspiracy theorists to prove that they rule the world through covert connections, HBSers are content to wield their power out in the open.

The Harvard MBA says:

I’m definitely a speed reader, but I’ve never taken any classes or underwent formal training.  The Chris Yeh speed reading course is essentially this:

• Starting at the age of 7 or 8, read as quickly as you can for 4-5 hours per day.
• Continue with the regimen until the age of 21.
• Occasionally measure your progress by participating in the March of Dimes reading competition (I think my record was 150 books in 30 days).

My speed varies depending on the reading material, but reaches a top speed of about 160 pages per hour for popular fiction.

My big tricks are:

1. Mentally highlight the important words and concepts
2. When it comes to fiction, focus on the dialogue–all that description just slows you down
3. When reading on the Internet, try to get into a rhythm.  When I’m blasting through feeds, I maintain a steady beat on the “Page Down” key

I don’t believe that I give up more than 5% in terms of comprehension; if I read slower, all that happens is that I have less time for other things.

The one drawback of speed-reading?  I have to take a lot of books with me when I fly.

If you had a choice between a fantasy basketball team for the next 5 years consisting of an index of the average NBA player, OR a team consisting of Kobe Bryant, which would you choose?

Similarly, given the choice between a stock market index fund, and having Warren Buffett invest on your behalf (by buying Berkshire Hathaway stock), which would you choose and why?”

The Harvard MBA says:

Nice try, but in fact basketball is not a zero-sum game.

Sure, the aggregate record of all NBA teams is always 1230-1230 (30 teams x 41-41), but you’re referring to stats, not wins.

The NBA’s lowest scoring game of all time ended up 19-18.  The highest-scoring game finished 184-182 in triple-OT.  Big difference.

At any rate, the two situations are not analogous.  In basketball, past performance is a great predictor of future results.  I can pick 5 all-stars and 5 scrubs, and I can guarantee with 100% certainty that Group A will outscore Group B over the subsequent 5 years.

In investing, I can pick the top 5 funds, based on performance, and pretty much guarantee that they won’t repeat their past glories.

Now, on to the specific question.  I would rather invest in an index fund than Berkshire Hathaway, at least for the next five years.  Why?  77 and 84.

Warren Buffett is 77 years old.  Partner Charlie Munger is 84.  Realistically, the chances that one of the other will die in the next 5 years is pretty good.  I love Warren and Charlie, but if one of them goes (especially Warren), Berkshire stock will take a major nosedive.