Business School Vs. Incubator: An Entrepreneurial Test Drive At Stanford To Find Which Works Best

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If you are looking to buy a new car it is only natural to test drive the models you are interested in. You’ll quickly get a sense of quality, handling, comfort, and can back up your research with comparable data on cost, mileage, reliability, resale value and much more that is easily available online.

But the decision to go to business school is not so straightforward. You can visit the schools, meet with students and alumni, talk to recruiters, assess costs and check performance on the numerous media MBA rankings. But what about that test drive? How can you compare the classroom experience from one school to another? And for the would-be entrepreneur, how do you decide if business school is a better option than an incubator?

Zak Allal is an Algerian-born entrepreneur and doctor, who completed clinical rotations at Harvard Medical School and Oxford University Medical School. He is also a classically trained musician who includes performances at Carnegie Hall on his resume. This diverse background has contributed to a number of start-ups including 4 Dimension Therapeutics, which repurposes drugs for rare diseases, as well as international concert tours and a teaching fellowship at Singularity University, a Silicon Valley teaching organization founded and funded by the the likes of Google, IDEO, X Prize, Linkedin and the Kauffman Foundation.