[deltapoint]

Do you think there could be an MBA program that teaches relevant things to what start ups do? and what would it teach?

I feel in some ways part of what Y Combinator does is like an extremely condensed business school that is relevant to start ups.

YC "spend[s] much more time teaching founders how to pitch their startups, and how to close a deal once they've generated interest." YC also invites speakers to share their knowledge http://ycombinator.com/w9speakers.html

I think the ultimate educational experience for a future start up entrepreneur would combine what Ars Digita University taught (programming) http://www.aduni.org/, web design, the relevant aspects of business, a bit of elementary worldly wisdom http://ycombinator.com/munger.html, and to top it all off the school would require the students to work on a start up as a side project.

[pg]

Startups are one of those things that are best learned by doing, so YC pretty much already is what you're talking about. We've tried to make it the optimal way to learn about startups. But YC is structurally so different from a university that I don't think they'd be able to evolve very far in this direction.

There's a discontinuity between investment firms and schools. We've taken the investment firm and made it a lot like a school, in much the same way that seals became a lot like fishes. But as with seals and fishes, there is an unbridgeable gap despite the surface similarities.

[jlees]

Something like http://www.founderinstitute.com/ seems useful to me - that plus a degree in computer science and design plus a term in Y Combinator.

(there are alternatives to Founder Institute that don't seem quite so MBA-ey, too)