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Exploring the Startup Ecosystem in the United States through EFL

Nilesh Ramnani, CFA is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Strategy, Product Management, and Entrepreneurship. Prior to Stern, Nilesh had his own consulting firm and has also worked in Investment Banking and Private Equity. At Stern, he is a board member of Private Equity and Venture Capital Club; Business Analytics Club; Graduate Marketing Club and Adventure Club and enjoys traveling and exploring different cultures and cuisines.

I was standing in the queue for the most adventurous Velocicoaster ride at Universal Park Orlando during my spring break. I asked my wife – Are you scared? She said, “yes I am, but it will be so much fun! The excitement and a bit of fear makes this adventurous.” Once we were on the Velocicoaster, we were thrown upside down four times and all the moves were unexpected. The start-up world is no different. You just need to find your own balance of facing fear, uncertainty and enjoying the ride. You are pulled in different directions and you need to find your own path. 

Before joining Stern, I had experience working with many startups in India through my own consulting practice. But I wanted to get a deeper dive into the start-up ecosystem in the United States. That’s when I found the Endless Frontier Labs (EFL), taught by Professor Deepak Hegde. The course is a mix of lectures, working with a start-up and also meeting industry experts who mentor the companies in EFL. 

I was paired with OPTT health, a company that is trying to solve some of the biggest challenges in the mental health care space in the US and Canada. We read a lot about telehealth companies trying to make mental health accessible to everyone, but the facts are shocking. 55% of adults (28 million people) in the US with a mental illness do not receive treatment. This is partly because mental health treatment is highly subjective and labor-intensive, and treatment outcomes depend mainly on the skill of the clinician. We need efficiencies in the system to enable doctors to treat more patients and OPTT is trying to do this using a proprietary algorithm to capture and analyze patient data. It plans to transform the treatment of mental health using machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. 

I worked with founders Mohsen Omrani and Ali Omrani on the go to market strategy in the United States market. In our meetings with mentors, we identified a crucial goal: to develop a quantitative model that OPTT Health can use to effectively communicate its value proposition. I mapped out the patient journey and identified areas where OPTT can create value that could be quantified. Based on these findings, I developed a financial model to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for potential customers. OPTT plans to use this model to determine a suitable pricing strategy for the company, ensuring that the value they offer is commensurate with the price. My work will be used to communicate the value to all the stakeholders including customers, investors and partners.

Through EFL, I also learned a lot about other startups. We had multiple group sessions where we discussed the issues faced by EFL startups and brainstormed ideas to solve these problems. EFL provides a platform for students, mentors, and the EFL team, to discuss the problems startups are facing.

I think the EFL course gave me exactly what I was looking for. I got a flavor of the startup ecosystem in the United States and also learned frameworks to solve problems faced by startups.

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Career Resources & Recruiting

Zoish Pithawala is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Tech Product Management. Prior to Stern, Zoish worked as a Solutions Architect focused on startups interested in using cloud technologies. Post-MBA, she plans to move into a technical product management role specifically focused on data analytics. 

 

 

When I quit my job to go back to school, I was left a little nervous wondering what recruiting for a new role would be like. With the Tech MBA kicking off in May, it felt like there was barely any time before I had to start recruiting. Luckily, Stern has a ton of resources that helped me with my career development and recruiting process that made the whole process a lot easier.

Office of Career Development

The Office of Career Development is one of the first resources you’ll hear about when you start the program. They provide tools, events, and 1:1 meetings for any stage of the recruiting process. Here are some of the resources I found especially advantageous to me. 

  • Resume Reviews:  Before the program even began, we had access to a resume editing tool to help us start on our journey, followed up with some individualized feedback. This was a great starting point for me, because it got me into the mindset of what gaps I had in my resume that I wanted to fill throughout the year. Through the rest of the year, I scheduled appointments with the Careers Team team to continue editing my resume as I added more experiences. 
  • Recruiting Events/ Presentations: The Careers Team hosts several company recruiting presentations throughout the year. I signed up for the companies I was interested in applying to and it was a great way to hear more about the roles and find out about the recruiting process. My favorite event was the Tech Alumni Mock Interview where I got practice on how to interview for a technical product management position and got to network with  alumni. 
  • IGNITE: Over the summer, there are a few mandatory IGNITE sessions that help with general career development like working on your pitch, resume writing, and how to create a target list of companies. This really helped me get the ball rolling over the summer and I continue to utilize the provided workbook today.
  • 1:1 Appointments: This was the most valuable resource for me! I frequently scheduled 1:1 appointments with the Careers team to discuss more on my strategy and any questions I had about recruiting. The Careers Team even offers mock interviews that can help you practice interview questions.  I found everyone on the Careers team extremely helpful and I plan to have a few more mock interviews and offer negotiation strategy sessions before the end of the year!

Club Resources 

Outside of the social events, clubs can also help with your career development. As part of the Stern Technology Association (STA), I found their resources extremely helpful. They have consolidated resources including a handbook that has great notes on the types of interview questions, what to expect when interviewing, and tips for different tech companies.

Professional Opportunities

The Tech MBA has built-in professional opportunities as part of the curriculum. Over the summer, the Tech Immersion course gave us hands-on experience working with KPMG and in the fall, I got the opportunity to work with PayPal in Tech Solutions. These professional opportunities gave me a lot to showcase on my resume and helped me tailor my resume towards my career goal in product management. These professional opportunities also give me the chance to network and work with professionals in companies that I have always wanted to work for, like PayPal. 

Networking 

Networking is a big part of your life as an MBA student and for your recruiting process.  All of the resources I shared above involve networking with peers, alumni, and professionals. There are a variety of other ways that Stern helps you network. 

  • Networking events: There are a variety of networking events hosted through OCD, clubs, etc. throughout the year. These events range from alumni events to multi-school events that give you a great opportunity to meet new people.
  • Guest speakers: A majority of my classes at Stern have featured incredible guest speakers. These speakers range from experts in Blockchain, product managers at large tech companies, CEOs, founders, and more. Not only is it incredibly valuable to hear their insights and learn about their backgrounds, but you get the opportunity to connect with them and network. I have loved getting to connect with a lot of these speakers after the session!

As I continue to network and apply for jobs, I utilize these career resources frequently. These are just some of the career resources that I have utilized throughout this year as I recruit for a full-time job, and I know they will be immensely helpful for you if you end up at Stern!

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West Coast Immersion 2023

Divya Mehta is a current Tech MBA student at Stern. Within Stern, she is part of the Graduate Marketing Association and Business Analytics Club boards. Before starting her MBA, Divya has held various supply chain roles at Johnson & Johnson, Colgate-Palmolive, and Intel Corporation. She studied Industrial Engineering at Penn State University with minors in Product and Entrepreneurship. Post-MBA she is interested in pivoting from a cost-savings role to a revenue-generation role at a B2B company. 

 

Welcome to the Journey! 

One of the standout features of NYU’s Tech MBA is its embedded West Coast Immersion Course during our winter break.  The West Coast immersion is an integral part of our curriculum, as it gives us exposure to a wide range of companies and opportunities beyond the NYC ecosystem. My name is Divya, and I’m here to bring you along on my personal recap of the West Coast Immersion trip! 

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Students had the option to visit either Seattle, WA or Los Angeles, CA before meeting up in San Francisco.

As part of the West Coast Immersion Coast, we were able to lottery for our choice of either Los Angeles or Seattle; I chose Seattle  so that I could  tack on a week in Portland, OR prior! At the end of the trip, 16 of us traveled to Steamboat, CO to join Stern Adventure club on their annual ski trip. This led to a total of 4 weeks of travel for me! 

My luggage for 4 weeks of travel was #Worththeweight

As the official start date of the trip neared, I couldn’t help but feel the adrenaline rush as my classmates began to share their travel to Seattle from all parts of the world. 

 

Shortly after our group touched down in Seattle, we met up at Flatstick Brewing for some beer and bites. There were so many fun memories but in the interest of keeping this short, I’m sharing my top 5 highlights, in chronological order, from each leg of the immersion trip!

Seattle Highlights: 

  1. Microsoft
  2. Amazon 
  3. Class-bonding
  4. T-Mobile 
  5. Starbucks

1. At Microsoft we had the pleasure of hearing from Jeff Teper, President of Microsoft Collaborative Apps, and a thought leader in the product space. I loved hearing his insights and experiences around disruption, culture, and customer empathy at a large enterprise company. I was also particularly fascinated by the Industrial Metaverse portion covered by Lili Cheng, given my background in Supply Chain.

Group shot from our first company visit!

2. At Amazon we learned the importance of Customer Obsession, Collaboration, and what makes an MLP or “Most Lovable Product!” We were treated to a delicious breakfast and lunch with an exclusive tour of the Amazon Spheres in between. 

An Amazonian welcome and tour of the Spheres


3. The small but meaningful class-bonding moments with Professor Vasant Dhar – I loved being in a remote classroom together, having a whole charter bus to ourselves, and taking in the beautiful Mt. Rainier views! 

  

4. T-Mobile was perhaps my biggest surprise. We had a blast learning about their 5G portfolio through interactive demonstrations. Salim Koudri, Senior Vice President of Technology,  gave  an incredible talk on the wireless value chain, the future of 5G, and some fascinating business solutions. We learned about concepts such as “latency” through VR, and then ended our day at the employee lounge for a cocktail reception with pool, shuffleboard, and networking with senior team members. 

Classmates learning the challenges of “latency” through VR games

5. Similar to T-Mobile, another company visit that surprised me was Starbucks. As someone who comes from a background in supply chain, I had always known of Starbucks as a “supply chain” company. As an Industrial Engineer, I really “nerded out” on the fact that they have an entire center dedicated to optimizing the barista experience. It turns out product design plays a huge role in speed and ergonomics. 

After a hectic schedule in Seattle, we packed up our suitcases and made our way to San Francisco to meet up with the other half of our cohort! 

Excited to meet up with the rest of our classmates in the Bay Area

San Francisco Highlights: 

  1. Weekend 1
  2. Palantir
  3. Nvidia
  4. Calm CEO
  5. Google

1. Weekend 1 in the Bay consisted of reuniting with the second half of our cohort (after 4+ weeks of winter break), exploring the city, meeting some admitted students for brunch, and of course, a cohort trip to Napa Valley! This was our first chance to breathe after a hectic first week in Seattle. 

  

2. At Palantir, we got the true Silicon Valley start-up experience as we challenged each other to ping pong and foosball games while our speakers set up.

Classmates enjoying a good post-lunch stretch at Palantir

3. One common theme that has been stressed throughout our program is the importance of coffee chats. Because of the networking and coffee chats I’d arranged, two of my classmates and I were fortunate enough to be invited to a personal tour of Google’s new campus where we rode bikes, grabbed a delicious Mediterranean meal,  made our own ice cream sundaes, and chatted about the variety of opportunities at Google and beyond. 

Posing in front of the new Bay View building in Mountain View

4. Nvidia was incredible. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside but their building looked like it was straight out of a futuristic movie. Their demonstration of generative AI showed the power of simulations in driver safety, and digital twins in manufacturing plants. 

5. An amazing way to end our week was to have an intimate conversation with the CEO of Calm, David Ko. One of my favorite quotes from the NYU Alum was “It’s not how you lead going up, it’s how you lead when things are going down.” This was especially important to hear while the Tech industry was facing economic headwinds because it taught us the importance of resilience. 

Our classroom views were absolutely gorgeous on our last day

In conclusion, the West Coast Immersion trip was an incredible opportunity for the NYU Tech MBA cohort to broaden our horizons beyond the NYC ecosystem and gain insights from a diverse range of companies and industry leaders. From Microsoft to Amazon, T-Mobile, and Starbucks in Seattle, to Palantir, Nvidia, Calm, and Google in the bay area (and this isn’t even all of the companies we visited!), we had the chance to learn about disruptive technologies, customer obsession, product design, 5G, and AI. The trip also provided us with invaluable opportunities for class-bonding and networking with senior faculty. Overall, the West Coast Immersion was an unforgettable experience that allowed us to deepen our understanding of the tech industry and prepare us for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

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Demystifying Tech in the Tech MBA

Shriram HS is a current Tech MBA student specializing in strategy, marketing, and product management. He moved to New York City from Bengaluru, India. At Stern, he is the VP of Tech MBA at the Stern Technology Association. Prior to Stern, he worked at Cisco, leading product development for 5G and cloud networks. He holds a bachelor’s in electrical engineering and a master’s in computer engineering.

“Know what’s weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change. But pretty soon, everything’s different.“

-Bill Watterson, through the fabled comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.

That quote elegantly encapsulates the predominant theme of present-day reality, especially in business and technology: Disruption. It conveys a rather simple but sweeping idea that swift disruption is the new norm. What’s in vogue today is unlikely to be so in a few months. And it does not spare anything: technology, business models, or even entire firms. So how do you thrive in this new age?

Until a few years ago, the traditional MBA would set you up nicely for any target industry. But today, when you specifically want to pursue tech/tech-adjacent leadership roles:

  1. It has at most a peripheral focus on tech, which is now a primary driver of this disruption 
  2. It has a high time cost of two years

When I began exploring business schools, I had strict considerations:

  • Its program had to build on or complement my tech background
  • It mustn’t be longer than a year
  • It had to be welcoming of international students

Any tradeoff here would severely affect its value to me. As you’d expect, only a micro list of options fulfilled all these criteria. Yet, I insisted on assessing the details under the hood of each option, and that showed why the Stern Tech MBA experience stands out in this new age.

I’ll start with oft-asked sets of questions I’ve come across:

What exactly is the Tech MBA? Is it an executive program? Is it a joint degree? Is it a specialization?

It is none of those. I’d dub it an accelerated MBA focusing on technology.

Is it for someone with a tech background? Is it only for someone who wants to move to the tech industry?

It could be for anyone, with no binding restrictions on either prior background or outcome. In fact, its chief tenet is flexibility, which I’ll expand on in further detail below. I found ample preparatory content within the course for folks who didn’t work with tech before. As for outcomes, its structure allows you to specialize in any of Stern’s 27 specializations. The latest program reports would help you note this diversity, both in roles as well as industries. Given that any product or service in any industry could have a substantial digital component, the Tech MBA’s literally designed with that flexibility. Here’s precisely how.

My good friend and classmate John Bennion shared his specifics to facilitate this collation to give you a clear view of this program’s flexibility. For quick context, he worked at the US Air Force, leading product management before coming to Stern.

Core Classes

The business core comprises all foundational MBA classes at 2x the pace. Among that, a subset (strategy, entrepreneurship) is specifically tech-focused. On the other hand, the tech core comprises grad-level classes on data, modern tech stacks, and DevOps. Through these, you’d have everything you need to manage tech operations, understand systems architecture, or even build your own application. While I waived those classes in which I had proficiency, John added more electives in this space, taking advantage of both Courant (NYU’s Institute for Mathematical Science) and Steinhardt (NYU’s School of Culture, Education, and Human Development).

Electives (Selected Sample)

One highlight of tech management coursework I must list here is innovation strategy taught by Prof. Melissa Schilling. Many business school classes embody some combination of traditional/layered concepts, case studies, and professional practice. However, this class is a fine example of how primary research and years of teaching have resulted in a distinctively compelling study. Her single coherent strategic framework for innovation management seamlessly decoded any and every example brought up in class.

Experiential Learning

A fun aspect here is the near-weekly sessions hosted by alumni and visiting business leaders as a built-in part of this course. What makes it fun is their remarkably candid spirit while sharing their incredible experiences. For our cohort, these ranged from cutting-edge tech, such as pre-release 5G solutions from Verizon, to high-impact initiatives involving predictive AI at Lyft.

Another memorable class I took this fall was the Consulting Lab, engaging with J&J’s self-care division for branding and innovation. Starting out, I had no expertise in the function or the industry. But over the semester, the 10x learning in this class prodded me to advanced levels. On its concluding day, our client’s leaders commended my team, asking us to present our recommendations further to J&J’s senior global leadership. In no small part, it is a reflection of Prof. Fran Gormley, whose mere preparation for every meeting astonished me. As a result of this experience, not only did I add new skills, such as go-to-market strategy, to my repertoire, but I also feel inspirited to take on new challenges. Such felicitous experiences help you develop a refined perspective that immensely boosts your range, which is key to this new age. And no other place is primed for better exposure to this ecosystem, embracing Silicon Alley, Wall Street, and a multitude of marvels in this city that never sleeps.

 

 

 

 

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The Tech MBA vs. the Two-Year MBA

Zoish Pithawala is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Tech Product Management. Prior to Stern, Zoish worked as a Solutions Architect focused on startups interested in using cloud technologies. Post-MBA, she plans to move into a technical product management role specifically focused on data analytics. 

 

 

 

 

When you say MBA, most people typically think of a traditional two year program, however there is a rising popularity in more specialized, accelerated programs like the Tech MBA. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to what program makes more sense for you, but there are some key differences to keep in mind as you evaluate these options. 

Curriculum 

NYU Stern’s Andre Koo Tech MBA program is a one year (May – May), 52 credit program. The Two Year Full-time MBA program runs over the span of two years (September – May) and students earn 60 credits to graduate. Both programs have the same selection of courses for electives, but with the Two Year MBA, you have the opportunity to take more elective classes and experiential courses since you have more credits to earn and more time. The core curriculum in the Tech MBA includes classes like Foundations of Networks and Mobile Systems and DevOps and Software Engineering, which are not typically offered in the Full Time MBA program. Both programs give students the opportunity to select up to 3 specializations from a list of over 25 options. The Tech MBA curriculum is catered towards specializations like Entrepreneurship and Innovation or Technical Product Management, however students can specialize in any of the available options.

For me personally, I felt like the curriculum in the Tech MBA fit my needs perfectly. There’s a great balance between the technical classes with the business core classes to give a good overview of everything. There are also more than enough elective credits where I felt like I could branch out and try electives that were really interesting to me. Some of the classes I found to be really interesting as part of the curriculum were Leadership, Tech Solutions, and Tech Product Management.

Class Profile

NYU Stern has a diverse student population throughout all their programs, but there are some differences in the class profile between the Tech MBA and Two Year MBA. The biggest difference is the size of the class. The Tech MBA has a smaller cohort of around 50 students, whereas the Two Year Full-time MBA has a class size of around 330 students. Amongst these students, the Tech MBA tends to have a higher average for years of work experience, with a majority of students coming from a STEM background. In contrast, the majority of students in the Two Year MBA have a background in business and prior work experience in various industries.

I love having a smaller cohort because it gives me the opportunity to really connect with everyone in the program and get to know each other really well. I find it’s also really valuable to have classmates with similar interests and backgrounds so we can work on projects together and discuss recruiting strategies for similar roles.

Internships 

The Two Year MBA gives students the opportunity for a summer internship in between their first and second year. This can be very beneficial for students pivoting to a new industry or students looking to gain work experience. Many prospective students choose to do an MBA program to gain new skills, and summer internships provide them with the opportunity to apply what they have learned. For most students, a full-time job offer is the ultimate goal of the MBA program and a good summer internship can often lead to a return offer with the company. Since the Tech MBA is an accelerated program, there is no time for a summer internship, but the valuable experiential course offerings throughout the year can help students build work experience through company project partnerships.

Personally, I enjoyed the Tech Solutions experiential course that is part of the Tech MBA curriculum. This gave me an opportunity to work with a large tech company on a semester-long project. This project helped me develop skills that would be incredibly useful for my future career and acted as an internship for my resume. 

Return on Investment 

MBA programs can be quite expensive, so everyone wants to maximize their investment. When looking at the numbers, the Tech MBA program has a lower cost of tuition compared to the Two Year MBA . Another large part of the equation is the amount of time you spend in the MBA program in lieu of working and earning a salary. While you will have a summer internship to make up some of the cost, you will be out of the workforce for two years with the Two Year MBA, whereas you are only out of the workforce for one year with the Tech MBA. 

With the tech industry changing so rapidly, it was really important to me to only be out of the workforce for one year. I wanted to be able to jump back into the workforce without feeling like I missed out. This way I would be getting the value of an MBA program without having to pause my career for too long.

There are a variety of different factors that play into the decision to apply to a specific MBA program and, for me, these were some of the most important factors when deciding on the Tech MBA. The ROI of a one year accelerated program aligned perfectly with my career goals and I valued having a smaller cohort with a background that aligned with the Tech industry. In the end, both the Tech MBA and the Two Year MBA are amazing programs, so it really comes down to what makes the most sense for you!

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Benefits of a Tech MBA in NYC

Aafiya Jamal is currently an MBA Candidate in the Tech MBA Program at the NYU Stern School of Business. She recently moved to New York City from Dallas, Texas. Prior to Stern, Aafiya worked in technology consulting and supported clients in the financial services space, from traditional, global banking institutions to FinTech companies. Outside of the classroom, Aafiya serves as one of the Cohort Leaders for the Tech MBA and is involved in the Stern Technology Association and Stern Women in Business. 

As you explore your business school options, you may find yourself wondering whether New York City is the right place for you – especially if you’re very interested in pursuing a career in technology and torn between Stern and options on the West Coast. Trust me, I’ve been in your exact shoes and can tell you what drew me to NYC:

Breadth of Professional Opportunities

  • New York City offers a broader range of professional opportunities, which holds especially true for tech. Companies in any industry or domain, from financial services to fashion, require technically fluent individuals; what differentiates New York City over the West Coast is the pure breath and scale of these opportunities. Given that a majority of firms are either based in or have a major presence in New York City, this lends itself to even more opportunities at your disposal – far more than the West Coast can offer. For example, I had the opportunity this semester to engage in a client project as part of the Tech Solutions course, where I partnered with Roku to build a solution to better leverage product analytics data to support the company’s ad-tech strategy. Roku sits at the intersection of media and entertainment and technology, while the project gave me exposure to the advertising and product management domains – an opportunity I would not have had without Stern. 
Stern not only offered us the opportunity to work alongside Roku this semester, but also spend time with our project sponsor, in-person, in the New York City office!

Overlap of Existing Network

  • There is no doubt that Stern’s brand is very strong; however, there is a certain degree of comfort associated with reaching out to a familiar professional connection rather than a pure cold call (which can feel transactional in nature). Prior to Stern, I worked in consulting, and New York City is where my prior employer is based. As a result, I have a number of professional mentors and connections within the city, which enables me to keep up with trends in the workforce and broader market. These existing relationships, coupled with my Stern MBA, open doors to additional professional connections and employment opportunities in technology. It is likely that you, too, have personal and professional connections in the city, and I highly recommend that you capitalize on this.

Culture of New York City

  • Finally, New York City is unlike any other place in the world. As cliché as this sounds, I have never been around such ambitious, gifted, and hard-working people – both at Stern, as well as in the broader city. Engaging in this kind of environment pushes me to hustle and expand outside of my comfort zone in a way that no other business school could have. New York is arguably the most exciting place to live, and I’ve tried to make the most of my time here, from exploring incredible and diverse cuisine, to picnicking in Central Park, to attending sports games to celebrating the holiday season – all with my cohort. While one year is certainly a decent amount of time to experience the city, I hope that your chapter here extends beyond the length of the program. 

    Despite the busy schedule of the summer semester, we always made time to picnic throughout various parks in New York City! Central Park is cliche, but certainly a personal favorite!
Celebrating Friendsgiving with the cohort was definitely one of the highlights of my holiday season.
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Preparing for a Rapidly Changing Industry

Eugenio Prati is an MBA Candidate in the Tech MBA Program. He moved to New York City from Ann Arbor, MI. Prior to Stern, Eugenio worked as a R&D Program Manager in the automotive industry. His team was responsible for leading new vehicle development from digital prototypes through to mass production. Outside the classroom, Eugenio is an avid runner and a member of the NYU Cycling Club.

Deciding to pursue an MBA can be a scary process. Initially I agonized over when it would be most strategic to quit my job to return to school. Later, I spent months drowning in MBA info sessions and marketing material desperately trying to understand the differences between schools and programs. I drove everyone around me crazy. One week I would tell them about the program I was most excited about and the following week I would tell them about a different program that was now atop my MBA list. The process was maddening, but once I chose NYU’s Tech MBA, I never looked back – and here’s why.

The world is changing and so should MBAs

Working in the automotive industry, the rise of EVs, autonomous vehicles, and car sharing, was a constant reminder of tech’s ability to drive change in any and every industry. From the pharmaceutical industry to financial services, the entire world is being shaped by technologies like cloud computing, machine learning, 5G, blockchain… The leaders of tomorrow will need to have more than business acumen. They will need to understand these technologies and their potential in order to make the strategic decisions their organizations expect from them. By combining tech and business fundamentals into a one year MBA, NYU Stern’s Tech MBA is tailor made for these changing times.

Best parts of the experience and curriculum

Our cohort is composed of people with and without tech experience from all over the world. The differing professional backgrounds provide insights into how to bridge the gap between those fluent in tech and those fluent in business/strategy. The international backgrounds provide insights into the differing levels of infrastructure, development, and tech adoption around the world. Combined, the eclectic group makes for invaluable debates and discussions. 

The experiential learning within the curriculum, Tech Immersion and Solutions, includes company visits on both the East and West Coasts, guest speakers from Google, Uber, Amazon, BCG, Skillshare, and others, as well as semester long group projects with companies such as Waze, Pfizer, KPMG, Roku, PayPal… This hands-on experience provides clarity on the direction Tech is headed in and the nature of MBA roles within it in ways that no lecture or Google search ever could. For example, while partnering with Pfizer, we got a first hand glimpse of how they think about digital innovation and the roadblocks they face when deploying innovations in a tightly regulated industry.

Finally, the curriculum pairs all the business fundamentals one expects from an MBA, with all the tech fundamentals one could want. Courses like Dealing with Data, Data Science for Business, and Foundations of Networks, gave us the SQL, Python, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript overview needed to collaborate with SW Engineers, Data Scientists, and Designers. Courses like Digital Currency and Blockchains are teaching us about the history of currency and the technology underpinning the future of finance. The list goes on…

Who would I recommend the Tech MBA to?

If you are excited about the future, fascinated by the technologies shaping the world around us, and hoping to make an impact, the Tech MBA is for you.

Be prepared to work. This is a one year program but it is a full MBA. Your summer will be intense, but if you grit your teeth you’ll get through it and you’ll be one step closer to having the skills you need to thrive in these changing times.

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Company Visits & Beyond

Christy Kim is a MBA candidate at NYU Stern’s Andre Koo Tech MBA program, specializing in Business Analytics and Product Management. Prior to Stern, she worked at Deloitte Consulting, driving large-scale data and analytics transformations for clients across various industries. She additionally brings a background in product marketing, alliances, and tech sales and graduated from Duke University.

As a prospective candidate, you have two options:

  1. MBA experience with a summer internship (traditional 2-year program)
  2. MBA experience with multiple in-semester projects for top companies (welcome to our world!)

If I were presented today with the same options above, I would still choose option B in a heartbeat. Here are the 5 reasons why I believe our experiential learning curriculum provides above and beyond what can be gained through a summer internship alone:

1. GUARANTEED ‘INTERNSHIPS’ WITH TOP COMPANIES – and no recruiting or interviews required! Our 2-year MBA counterparts spend their first year recruiting for their summer internships; however, we fortunately had the following in-semester project opportunities land in our laps as part of our experiential learning courses:

A Dream Team: Pfizer Group A!
  • ‘Tech Immersion’ (Summer): Pfizer, KPMG
  • ‘Tech Solutions’ (Fall): 13 companies across various industries and of all sizes – including Waze, IKEA, PayPal, and Roku
  • [Optional] ‘Endless Frontier Labs’ (Fall & Spring): In place of ‘Tech Solutions’, you have the opportunity to take this course for hands-on work with Life Sciences, Digital Tech and Deep Tech startups

Through the above, some students have even found full-time employment opportunities with their respective companies!

2. BOOST YOUR LINKEDIN/RESUME. Through our experiential learning projects we act as consultants to the companies listed above. This is outstanding real world work experience which helps build our skills and our resume. We can also share our success during the recruiting process.

3. LEARN, APPLY, MAXIMIZE. The beauty of our experiential learning curriculum is that the course lessons are directly aligned to our project expectations and deliverables. For example, we had the following interactive sessions over the summer to help with our client deliverable preparations: 

In addition, we also had the opportunity to apply our learnings from our core courses (e.g. Entrepreneurship, Strategy) to our projects as well. This chronological, methodological yet practical approach to learning is one that I have yet to experience in my undergraduate years or professional life.

4. FAIL SAFE, LEARN FAST – a key, unique benefit of the experiential learning experience. With formal summer internships, there may be less opportunity for interns to ‘fail safe’ as their individual return offers are on the line. Through the Tech MBA program, our experiential learning curriculum allows us to:

  • Consult for top companies with a focus on innovation, experimentation, and learning (shoutout to our professor, J.P. Eggers, for always ensuring that our client project direction stayed on course for learning maximization!)
  • Receive continuous direction and feedback from our clients and project leadership (e.g. we had review/feedback sessions every 3-4 weeks)
  • Collaborate and lead in a small group setting with our classmates (e.g. my group maintained rotating leaders on a weekly basis)

    On-site visit and guest speaker session at Google!
Myself and Divya Mehta’s mock pitch for Goldman Sachs Accelerate!

5. TIME TO EXPLORE (& CONFIRM). The summer ‘Tech Immersion’ course served to be a great kickoff to the exploration of my post-MBA career path. I had planned to use this time in the MBA to confirm my continued career in tech consulting or explore other paths (specifically product management) that may be a good fit with my long-term career goals. The course not only  helped re-confirm my continued passion for client services (i.e. Pfizer project), but also provided a great introduction/sneak peek into the world of product management. I plan to build on these experiences and continue the exploration through the rest of the program; I am excited to see what the future holds for not only myself, but also for our entire cohort!

 

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Moore’s Law & the Tech MBA

Nicholas Imbriglia is a Tech MBA candidate specializing in Tech Product Management and Sustainable Business & Innovation. Prior to Stern, Nicholas worked as an engineer and engineering manager at companies such as Siemens, athenahealth, and Intel. He is passionate about technology’s ability to improve lives and, upon graduation, plans to return to the tech workforce to help deliver novel solutions with a positive impact for society.

Moore’s Law (admittedly, more of an observation than a law of nature…) states that the number of transistors that can be fit onto a microprocessor doubles about every two years. Every 18 months, if we’re being technical. And we ARE being technical. This is the Tech MBA, after all! But nitpicking aside, Mr. Gordon Moore’s famous doctrine is meant to illustrate just how fast technology can progress in a short period of time.

I didn’t want to play catch up

It was this thought that was going through my head as I considered my options for business school. After over 10 years of working in technical roles, ranging from semiconductor development to healthcare SAAS products, the prospect of going back to school for two years seemed excessive… extravagant, even. Especially for someone old enough to remember using floppy disks and playing with tamagotchis (look them up). And with the way things move in tech, I wondered if I wouldn’t be falling behind while getting my MBA. Could I afford to be out of the tech scene, not to mention without a salary, for such a length of time? Would I be playing catch up when I returned? As someone who planned on going straight back to the tech industry after business school, there were parts of me that wondered if it was worth it, both from a financial and a developmental point of view. 

Beyond the standard

That’s where the Stern Tech MBA really shone through for me. I’ll admit, when I first started researching NYU Stern, I didn’t even know they had a focused, one year MBA program. When I found information about it on the Stern website, I recall thinking “huh, that’s interesting,” and quickly brushing it aside. At first blush, it seemed too different. It deviated too much from what I considered the “standard business school” experience. But as I went through the application process (at Stern and elsewhere) and the reality of two years out of the workforce hit me, I realized I didn’t want the standard. In fact, I wanted a program catered more towards the tech industry, with an immersive curriculum, a quicker turnaround, and a superior ROI. And that’s exactly what Stern’s Tech MBA offered. When the moment of truth came on my Stern application, I selected the one year program and never looked back.

Staying in the game

And, in many ways, it’s not just the shorter program length that ensures you are “back in the industry” quicker. If anything, the Tech MBA curriculum ensures you are at the cutting edge of it. Regular visits to tech offices (Google, Uber, and Pfizer to name a few) and guest speakers from a range of tech fields (fintech, healthcare, smart cities, Web3, etc.) guarantee you have your finger firmly on the pulse of the tech scene in New York. NYU also has a history of offering classes that focus on the newest trends in technology and business. Many of my classmates are taking electives on blockchain and extended reality. I myself am enrolled in a renewable energy markets course.

So, with all that in mind, I was able to rest easy with my decision to enroll in the Stern Tech MBA. The focused experience has been an enlightening one so far and our cohort has been having a truly wonderful time. The irony of it all may be that, come graduation in May, we won’t want it to end. But when we wrap up our one year and enter back out into the wider working world, we will do so armed with new tools and insights, ready to supercharge our careers after a fraction of the time of a traditional business school offering. After all, Moore’s Law waits for no one.

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Immersion Programming in the Tech MBA

Kaitlyn Murdock is a Tech MBA candidate, specializing in Healthcare & Strategy. Prior to Stern, she worked at Deloitte, supporting strategy and analytics engagements for Life Sciences & Health Care clients. Kaitlyn is passionate about improving care outcomes for patients with technology and data. 

 

 

 

The Tech MBA is an incredible opportunity that packs all the classes a traditional 2-year student would take into 12 months. When evaluating MBA programs, one major reservation I had about the Tech MBA is the lack of a summer internship. However, the curriculum and programming is designed in a way that exposes students to many companies around New York City, setting us up to build our network and transition into a post MBA role. One of the hallmark classes of the program is the NYC Tech Immersion course, an all-day, once a week class during the summer. The NYC Tech Immersion consists of two main parts: 

  1. A real-life consulting project for a New York-based company, and
  2. Guest speakers and company site visits 

In today’s post, I’ll focus on the latter. Over the summer, our class heard from product managers and professionals in Digital Health, FinTech, EduTech, and more, and had the opportunity to visit the offices of Google and Uber. 

NYC Tech Landscape

In our very first session, professor J.P. Eggers gave an overview of the New York tech scene. He explained how a successful startup ecosystem requires strong talent (universities), desirable employers (to retain that talent), and sources of funding. Over the last decade, New York’s tech and start-up scene has boomed. It’s a very exciting time to attend school in such an active ecosystem. Hearing from guest speakers like Andrew Chang and Christophe Gillet helped me better understand what New York has to offer and how to break into the start-up scene.

Understanding Tech Trends

By speaking with experts in the industry, we got a glimpse into which emerging technologies businesses really care about. Given the technology landscape changes daily, it’s important to stay current and be able to speak to technology trends in interviews. Joshua Ness from Verizon’s 5G Labs explained the history and importance of 5G-enabled distributed computing and its relation to Web3 technologies. As technology progresses, public policy does too; in another session we had Mike Posner and Paul Barrett from the Center for Business and Human Rights speak about ethics and the responsibilities of a tech company to protect its users.

Networking & Company Culture

Each guest speaker offered a valuable chance to connect with someone in the industry. In addition to visiting Google and Uber, we had guests from Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Pinterest, Skillshare, and BCG to name a few. Each guest was willing to chat with students to offer advice and be a resource in the future. These sessions also provided a ‘peek behind the curtain’, giving our class a better understanding of the operations and culture of each business. 

Drawing Connections 

In hindsight, perhaps the most valuable part of our Tech Immersion programming was the ability to draw connections with our other summer classes. We went through a real-life marketing case for Skillshare’s rebranding, and applied what we learned in Entrepreneurship to give a mock pitch to a speaker from Goldman Sachs’ incubator, GS Accelerate. Fitz Maro, a specialist in Design Technology at Amazon, taught us how to make better decisions as a leader, reinforcing what we learned in our Leadership course. We also had the opportunity to utilize the skills we developed in our Strategy course to a case on Uber’s product expansion. Making these connections across courses enriches the MBA experience and helps us appreciate the value of what we learn.

I LOVED our NYC Tech Immersion class. Many of my peers connected with our speakers on a personal and professional level. For me personally, our session with Dr. Sarah Zweifach, AliveCor product manager, illuminated that joining a mid-size digital health startup could be an exciting career path. I’m currently pursuing part-time internships in this space. 

This class was a fantastic way to get to know New York’s tech landscape and is just one of many reasons to pursue the Tech MBA at Stern!