Bad information example from the Harvard Business School.....
Some have criticized elite universities as not really making much difference to their students. Critics say the "name" schools just have a good rep, and so they can attract and select the best, and the students later do well in life because they would have anyway. Here is proof that HBS must really be educating its students. Assuming the student author of this page did finish and graduate and go on to do well. Though I have not done my due diligence on that question. The fact that he started out with these notions means that Harvard is not being excessively selective. Anyway, on to our example...
wasat.hbs.edu
Ths link will take you to the Venture Capital and Principal Investment Club, a student organization of the Harvard Business School. Among the gems of "bad investing information" you will learn the following:
The "sell-side" is so named because they "sell" services. [No, the buy-side are the institutions who represent investors with money to "buy" deals, and the "sell-side" is so named because they represent the issuers or "sellers" of securities.]
"An investment bank will handle the legal, tax, and accounting affairs of the transaction" [No, lawyers and accountants handle these affairs, not the investment bank. The investment bank finds the buyers. THAT is why they are called the sell side.]
A hedge fund is an entity that takes bets on market fluctuations. [no, a hedge fund is defined by the number and qualifications of the investors, and its freedom to operate. What the hedge fund does can vary widely, and does not necessarily include bets on market fluctuations.]
"Traders: ... divisions within sell-side companies...that control and invest huge sums of money into public markets, taking bets on market fluctuations. [No, that would be principal trading, not to be confused with agency trading. But more to the point, this description does not quite capture the essence of the situation.]
And then there is this gem. Is it wrong? Well not exactly. But as Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up.
"Pension fund money must be invested to help its value grow over time."
Thank you, Harvard Business School
The page is attributed to Ben Dubin, last modified 10/6/96.
Another clue that it is a bit old, it explains that in a bridge financing, just before an IPO, the company is typically profitable. I guess this was true before the Internet .com era.
As I said I'm not making this stuff up:
wasat.hbs.edu
PS. After posting the above, I asked Jeeves if he ever heard of Mr. Dubin. Jeeves pointed me to a site that confirms that Mr. Dubin did indeed graduate from HBS. Here is an excerpt from his site:
====================
Dubin & Associates, Inc. is a concise team of technical and business oriented individuals striving to
leverage their advanced knowledge in the Internet and client/server domains. Performing work on a
contract basis, tasks may range from strategic design to complete development and implementation,
remote or onsite. Payment term via fixed bid and hourly or equity partnership.
The principal and owner of Dubin & Associates, Inc. is Ben Dubin. With more than a thirteen years of
technical development and business experience in Silicon Valley, he holds degrees and in Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. <i/>
==========================
the link follows:
dubin.com
So he did not end up going into the venture capital industry. |
