Ahead of the Curve : Two Years at Harvard Business School

Two years in the cauldron of capitalism-"horrifying and very funny" (The Wall Street Journal)In this candid and entertaining insider's look at the most influential school in global business, Philip Delves Broughton draws on his crack reporting skills to describe his madcap years at Harvard Business School. Ahead of the Curve recounts the most edifying and surprising lessons learned in the quest for an MBA, from the ingenious chicanery of leveraging and the unlikely pleasures of accounting, to the antics of the "booze luge" and other, less savory trappings of student culture. Published during the one hundredth anniversary of Harvard Business School, this is the unflinching truth about life in the trenches of an iconic American institution. In the century since its founding, Harvard BusinessSchool has become the single most influential institution inglobal business. Twenty percent of the CEOs of Fortune 500companies are HBS graduates, as are many of our savviestentrepreneurs (e. g. , Michael Bloomberg) and canniest felons(e. g. , Jeffrey Skilling). The top investment banks and brokeragehouses routinely send their brightest young stars to HBS togroom them for future power. To these people and many others,a Harvard MBA is a golden ticket to the Olympian heights ofAmerican business. In 2004, Philip Delves Broughton abandoned a postas Paris bureau chief of the London Daily Telegraph to join ninehundred other would-be tycoons on HBS’s plush campus. Overthe next two years, he and his classmates would be inundatedwith the best—and the rest—of American business culture thatHBS epitomizes. The core of the school’s curriculum is the“case”—an analysis of a real business situation from which thestudents must, with a professor’s guidance, tease lessons. DelvesBroughton studied more than five hundred cases and recountsthe most revelatory ones here. He also learns the surprisingpleasures of accounting, the allure of “beta,” the ingenious chicaneryof leveraging, and innumerable other hidden workingsof the business world, all of which he limns with a wry clarityreminiscent of Liar’s Poker. He also exposes the less savory trappingsof b-school culture, from the “booze luge” to the pandemicobsession with PowerPoint to the specter of depression thatstalks too many overburdened students. With acute and oftenuproarious candor, he assesses the school’s success at teachingthe traits it extols as most important in business—leadership,decisiveness, ethical behavior, work/life balance. Published during the one hundredth anniversaryof Harvard Business School, Ahead of the Curve offers a richlydetailed and revealing you-are-there account of the institutionthat has, for good or ill, made American business what it istoday. An assessment of the teaching methods used by Harvard Business School to promote students into the elite ranks of the business world reveals how the university's curriculum focuses on analyses of actual business scenarios that teach sophisticated strategies in such areas as accounting, beta, and leveraging. 50,000 first printing. Published during the 100th anniversary of Harvard Business School, "Ahead of the Curve" offers a richly detailed and revealing you-are-there account of the institution that has, for good or ill, made American business what it is today