Prologue Notes

Question 1

What holds people back from learning more about business?

Answer 1

1. Business Angst (feeling you know nothing about business)
2. Certification and qualification (the thought that business is best left to the experts)
3. Impostor syndrome
   - to avoid this you need to learn a few simple concepts

Question 2

What will help you deal with some of the feelings that are holding you back?

Answer 2

Knowing that you don’t need to know it all and that there are a few simple concepts that make up the bulk of the essential knowledge.

Question 3

What is the best way to learn the basics of Business according to Josh?

Answer 3

Mental Models. Mental Models are solid frameworks you can rely on in business to help you make decisions as you go along in business. They are concepts that represent your understanding of how things work.

Question 4

What does Charlie Munger use to assess business for viability?

Answer 4

Latiswork of mental models.

Question 5

What is the point of Charlie’s Mungers system?

Answer 5

To apply fundamental business principles to making decisions about business to create mental models so that you can take the thinking out of already solved aspects of business.

(Continue working on this definition)

Question 6

How does Josh define what a business is?

Answer 6

Creates or produces something that other people want or need. At a price they are willing to pay. In a way that satisfies the particular need and creates enough revenue for the owners to continue operation.

Question 7

What are the two additional factors business rely on are what?

Answer 7

People and systems

Question 8

What is the business definition of systems?

Answer 8

Systems are the invisible structures that hold a business together at its core. At its core a business is a number of processes that can be reliably repeated to product a particular result.

Question 9

What is the point of understanding systems?

Answer 9

By understanding how other complex systems work it is possible to improve existing systems.

Question 10

What are three of the biggest problems with business schools?

Answer 10

1. So expensive you must mortgage your life to pay for it.
2. MBA Programs teach out of date, useless and even damaging concepts to their students still.
   - when you come out of your MBA you do not actually have a working knowledge of how a business works
3. MBA Programs do not guarantee you to be a high paying job when you are done or if you will actually be a good manager of people.

Question 11

What is the average debt of a undergraduate degree graduate?

Answer 11

$22,500

Question 12

What do the top MBA Programs in the US cost per year?

Answer 12

$43,000 - $53000/year and does not include fees or living expenses. $300,000 total for top degrees (Harvard)

Question 13

What is the average amount of money collected by an MBA graduate in their career?

Answer 13

$2.3 Million

Question 14

What did the study “Less Success Then Meets The Eye” find when studying years of data regarding the graduates of business school?

Answer 14

They asked “If MBA training is useful for business school students the

Question 15

Christien Shraga of the Wardon MBA

Answer 15

10 Year Net Present Value of an MBA as -$53,000
(Pre MBA salary of $85,000 and post of $115,000)
used business school technique to prove that business schools are no good.

Question 16

What were the first MBA programs designed to do?

Answer 16

Make business me more scientific in their approach to business in order improve the efficiency of existing operations.

Question 17

What was marketing’s original intention?

Answer 17

Get additional store distribution for physical product and keep factory production lines busy.