There was an article on CNet about the increase in MBAs coming back out to Silicon Valley to look for jobs with start-up as well as established technology companies. When I graduated from business school, one of my mentors told me that “MBA interest in a career path is a lagging indicator” and generally a sign that things are getting frothy. As someone who has gone to business school, I feel like it’s fair for me to at least poke fun at myself and others. I do think that seeing MBAs return to hunt for jobs in Silicon Valley is evidence that the technology sector is improving but is not quite the same doom indicator that it was last time around. A lot of the job seekers this time around were out in Silicon Valley or New York when the tech bubble crashed last time. I believe that many of these job seekers have those visions still wedged in the back of their minds.
Seeing scores of newly-minted MBAs raise substantial amounts of venture funding would be a more high quality doomsday signal. Plus, from what I hear, at the peak some of the elite schools on the East Coast were sending 20-40% of their classes into high technology, which is a far cry from what the statistics in this article suggest is happening today.