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.

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.

While I did complete high school, I would have to say that it was by the skin of my teeth. My education ever since then has been one that I got "on the job" and I consider myself a very well-educated person at this point!

The problem is not the sentiment, it's the execution. When a company makes a mistake, the individual benefits because they've learned how NOT to do something while the institution had to pay for the mistake.

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?

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

That doesn't mean we should be doing it, though. We should always be carving back those things that are comfortable and institutionalized but not necessarily impactful.