“Business schools are failing students. They focus on administration, HR, accounting, and cost. They portray value as something managers magically add, like a markup on a widget. And they produce graduates mired in stale bureaucratic thinking. Venture Mode is the antidote. As its capable authors make clear, business needs more value creators and fewer managers. Value is not the mysterious byproduct of rigid processes—it’s the starting point and critical focus. Smart businesses relentlessly seek to understand the consumer’s experience and work backward. The book lays out the critical principles every business needs to move away from bureaucracy and toward value creation. It’s an eye-opening expose of what’s wrong with the MBA factories. It’s a clarion call for a new way of thinking about business. More than anything, Venture Mode is the mindset shift every entrepreneur needs for the twenty-first century.”—Jeff Deist, general counsel, Monetary Metals & Co.; former president, Mises Institute

“Venture Mode offers an entrepreneurial approach to business education that applies intense focus to customer needs, empathetic innovation, subjective value, entrepreneurial action, and networks. Its original perspective highlights how traditional thinking has ill-equipped leaders for today’s dynamic markets, where value creation drives thriving. By demanding an educational approach that nurtures empathy, ingenuity, judgment, and tenacity, business schools can help unleash entrepreneurial leaders.Venture Mode offers three novel elements to the ongoing rethinking of management:

1. Education based on providing a true understanding of the drivers of innovative value creation and generative market shifts.

2. Experiential learning rather than classrooms and textbooks.

3. A business model in which the hiring party is the customer.

Venture Mode is a revolutionary alternative to current models of business education, rooted in the entrepreneurial pursuit of new value creation.”—Stephen Denning, former World Bank executive, Forbes senior contributor, and author of The Age of Agile

“Venture Mode is a striking rethink of business education brimming with creative insight. Hunter Hastings and Mark Packard reveal how “administrative mode” has suffocated innovation. Their proposal is fresh, entrepreneurial, and rooted in value creation. The authors’ thoughtful framework transforms how we think about leadership and learning. The book provides a blueprint for the future of business . . . so needed for today’s dynamic markets.”—Dennis Lopez, CEO, Global Real Estate Company

“The MBA may be the gold standard in business credentials—but is it gold-plated nonsense? In Venture Mode, Hastings and Packard argue it’s not just overrated—it’s counterproductive. The problem lies in the ‘A’ for administration, which suffocates the ‘B’ for business. Instead of fostering value creation and customer focus, the MBA mindset breeds bureaucracy, control, and rigid routines. Managers are trained like battlefield generals, not builders of innovation. Business schools teach command and compliance, not creativity. What’s lost? The entrepreneur—the true engine of the market—who thrives by serving, not scheming.”—Per Bylund, PhD, associate professor of entrepreneurship and Johnny D. Pope Chair, Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University

“I spent a lifetime researching how firms create long-term value, establishing that a knowledge-building culture is the key determinant of long-term performance. In contrast, the most popular theory of the firm in business schools is agency theory that focuses on ways to control the adversarial relationships between principals and agents. Hastings and Packard unpack the evolution of business school education to plainly reveal the dominance of control, i.e., administration (the ‘A’ in MBA), that guides the MBA curriculum and also to explain why we need a new alternative. My work is complementary to Hastings and Packard, with their game plan for escaping the administration trap. Venture Mode lays the foundation for a needed paradigm change for business school education, beginning with the goal to better understand the value-creation process in order to significantly improve our performance as value creators in our business careers. In reading the book’s ten chapters, I was struck by the implications of this new paradigm for living the good life. That is, living one’s life to create value for others, and in so doing, create value for yourself—earned success.”—Bartley J. Madden, former managing director, Credit Suisse HOLT, and author of Value Creation Insights: A Foundational Understanding of How Firms Build Knowledge and Create Value

“Venture Mode is a manifesto that redefines business success for the AI age. By contrasting the stifling constraints of traditional administration mode with the dynamic freedom of what they call ‘venture mode,’ the authors illuminate a path to unprecedented adaptability and innovative success. This book harnesses entrepreneurial economics to nurture creativity, turning rigid planning into fluid experimentation and feedback-driven growth. In an era dominated by AI, these venture mode skills are no longer optional—they are essential life skills for thriving amid constant change. The proposed Masters of Business Enterprise (MBE) revolutionizes curriculum, business models, and experiential learning, empowering corporations as true stakeholders. A must-read for anyone ready to unleash entrepreneurial potential and help build a thriving new economy. This visionary work will inspire leaders to embrace change and drive transformative progress.”—Curtis R. Carlson, PhD, professor of practice, Northeastern University; former CEO, SRI International in Silicon Valley