And so I still continue to enjoy that. That part of academia is, is working with young people. But I think the other thing is there's just a huge amount of value in a business PhD.
Acquiring Minds
The Flywheel of Buying Businesses in a Single Region
Excerpts · 289 segments · ~1:21:50 long
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I mean, I think, you know, I was at a board meeting yesterday and they're teasing me, you know, piled higher and deeper and Dr. Doug and, you know, these kind of, you know, business schools are irrelevant and professors are irrelevant, and I think there, there might be some truth to that.
But I also think that if we think differently about what that degree can offer in terms of how it changes how you think and how you approach problems and how you can draw on best practice in science. I mean, there's a reason why Adam Grant is the number one podcast probably in the, in the world or Focus on Business. He's a, he's a PhD.
Uh, and so I, I think, I think for some good reasons, PhDs have gotten a bad rap, but I think there's a ton of value in that, in that degree. And I, I think it should be more like an MD. You know, MDs are out practicing surgeries.
They're teaching surgeons, future surgeons, how to do surgeries, and they might be doing research and innovation about better ways to do surgery. I think that's a much more compelling, you know, vision of what a PhD should be than somebody who's, you know, locked up writing a bunch of papers and, and not really engaging or doing anything in, in the real world. Yeah, yeah, no, you you certainly…
And boy do I do I imagine that it gets old hearing business types tease you about, about being in academia. Business types love to beat up on, on professors.
Those who can't. What is it? Those who can't do teachers. Boy, that's got to be charming when you hear that all the time, of course you are doing. So that's, that's your retort.
That's, you know, I think we're, we're hopefully doing, we're hopefully doing in a way that's, that's better than they can do. And so the, you know, the. I, I enjoy in some ways the, the teasing and the, the ribbing about, about that and I, and I think it's, you know, in some ways it's well earned.
But hopefully I'm forging a path for others to, you know, consider when they join a business school or, or get a PhD that they think more broadly about what that means as a career rather than, than a typical, you know, lock myself away and, and publish for the rest of my life. So.
Yeah. Yeah, well, Doug, I in some ways feel an affinity for this. I share the sensitivity about it because as a podcaster talking about and frankly educating, but not having bought a business myself, you know, I, I could could be accused of the same.
There's a fundamental thing here about, you know, doing and explaining, you know, that you need both of these abilities and, you know, yes, you know, you don't need to get the theory of the golf swing to be great at golf. You don't need to go to, you don't need to get the theory of the golf swing to go hit great golf balls.
But, you know, the understanding some of the physics and the mechanics and, and best practice, I don't think that we should just throw the baby out with a bath water and say, well, that's science. And, and the things we strive for in terms of understanding. Expanding understanding is, is irrelevant.
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