The Post-MBA World Is No Place for Old Ideas

Thomas L. Friedman's latest book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, has led the New York Times Business Book Bestseller's List much of the summer. His challenge -- to CEO's and MBA students alike -- is to wake up and smell the outsourced coffee.

by Gabby Hyman
gabby.hyman@MBA-business-schools.com
MBA-Business-Schools Book Reviewer

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman, hardcover; 496 pages, by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

Thomas L. Friedman’s latest book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, is simply must-reading for business leaders, all people with MBA degrees, and anyone considering business school. Friedman is modern-day Columbus with an economic historian’s pedigree, out to destroy your misconceptions of the way the world does business and to ferry you to the landscape of contemporary realities.

Through September, Friedman’s book led the prestigious New York Times’ Business Book Bestseller’s List for a reason: he is dead-set on delivering a wake-up call to anyone who will listen: our antiquated perspective of the business world will end in widespread failure. The book has sold over two million copies since July.

Friedman’s Brave New Business World

Long-held barriers to entry into the world marketplace are dying, Friedman says, along with the perceptions that were wrongfully there in the first place. Nearly 30 years ago, Bill Gates warned Friedman of the digital flattening of international boundaries, saying that he’d rather take his chances being “a genius” born in China than an ordinary person hailing from Poughkeepsie. Friedman wants you to know that given today’s level playing field, technology makes it possible for anyone to become an MBA from Anytown, Planet Earth.

What MBA Degree Seekers Need to Hear about Irreversible Trends and Realities

Friedman, a New York Times columnist, first sounded the warning call on globalization in 1996 with publication of The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999; ISBN 0-374-18552-2). Since then, he has traveled the world extensively in examination of trends and outcomes. Now, in The World Is Flat, Friedman declares with the tone of a world explorer debunking old myths that the dot-com collapse forever transformed the business world. The dot-com bust lead to cost cutting, which led to outsourcing, which led to wiring up the planet. Wal-Mart alone, Friedman explains, imported $18 billion in Chinese goods from 5,000 manufacturers just last year. MBA degree students should perk up their ears at Friedman’s global business war cry. After all, analyzing the impact of globalization on twenty-first century business practices is a core component of the best MBA programs.

About Thomas Friedman

Friedman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner for his commentary with the New York Times. He served as Times bureau chief in Beirut and Jerusalem. Friedman received his B.A. in Mediterranean studies from Brandeis University in 1975 and a Master of Philosophy degree in Modern Middle East studies from Oxford in 1978. His writings on foreign policy and economics have been published in 27 languages.

About the Author

Gabby Hyman has created online strategies and written content for Fortune 500 companies including eToys, GoTo.com, Siebel Systems, Microsoft Encarta, Avaya, and Nissan UK.

Posted on October 17, 2006 at 9:41 AM

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