Opinion: Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship and the MBA

Everywhere I turn these days, it seems, I encounter the word “entrepreneurship.”It isn’t hard to see why. We live in a highly digital era,and the rise of celebrity entrepreneurs such as Tesla’s Elon Musk, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey have inspired a whole new generation to chase The Next Big Thing. Some primary schools are even introducing coding classes to give students a head start at a young age. But can entrepreneurship really be taught? Sadly, business schools have faced skepticism from some critics who say the M.B.A. degree just doesn’t amount to much in this area. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, “A Smart Investor would Skip the M.B.A.,” author Dale Stephens argues that the money spent on a business degree would be better spent on specialized training, relocation expenses and networking. Employers would rather hire individuals who have actually tried to build a business, he contends, rather than simply studying how to build one. Perhaps entrepreneurship cannot be taught, but Mr. Stephens misses the point. True, many of the