For example, I wear clothes I buy at trendy shops because I don't care much about clothing. If someone wants to create a trend around clothing, I'll happily and blindly follow.

I think small groups have more collective wisdom than an individual.

As you climb of the organizational ladder, you have to redefine your role in the value chain from player to captain to coach to manager, and for some, to owner. These are different roles and you won't be able to succeed as a manager when you're acting like a player.

Harkening back to a story about my grandfather, I was lucky to attend a great high school in New York, Bronx High School of Science, which has produced more Nobel prize winners than any other high school in America.

In the summer between my freshman and sophomore year, my grandfather got me a job at a local messenger company working on Wall Street. I was lucky enough to have been in the business during a stock market boom but just before the fax machine appeared on the scene, let alone email and the Internet. As a result, the messenger business was booming.

The disruption caused by globalization and technology (what Tom Friedman calls hyperconnectedness) will be around for the rest of our professional lives.

If the question is, how do we best produce business people who can succeed in the post-Great Recession era, then I think the MBA programs and their connection to large companies remains intact but it's not the path to a "Business Brilliant" life. It's a path to a middle-class existence marked by large stretches of security and comfort with occasional eruptions that you're probably ill-prepared to handle. Do I sound too cynical?