Standard Chartered chief executive Bill Winters says his Ivy League MBA was "a waste of time," and the real edge in today's AI-driven economy comes from the curiosity and empathy he developed as a humanities major.

What Happened: Winters, 63, told Bloomberg last week that his 1988 Wharton degree added little value, even though the New Jersey native parlayed it into a 26-year run at JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and a decade at the helm of the £26 billion emerging-markets lender.

"I studied international relations and history. I got an MBA later, but that was a waste of time," he said. The veteran banker credits those undergraduate classes at Colgate University, not finance lectures in Philadelphia, for teaching him “how to think.”

“For the 40 years since I left university, those skills have been degraded, degraded, degraded. They're coming back now," he added, arguing that algorithmic tools handle most technical work while leaders must excel at "curiosity and empathy."

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Why It Matters: Winters' critique lands as MBA costs soar. Tuition at Wharton has climbed to roughly $93,000 a year, almost six times the 1988 sticker price, while median starting pay has only tripled. He urged teenagers to skip business school unless it delivers clear, job-ready skills.

Winters insists that humanities graduates are better positioned for boardrooms reshaped by generative AI. "The technical skills are being provided by the machine, or by very competent people in other parts of the world who have nailed the technical skills at a relatively low cost," he said.

Shark Tank star and investor Kevin O’Leary echoes Winters’ thoughts. O’Leary once remarked that real-world experience, rather than business school, shaped his instincts. Ken Griffin, founder of hedge‑fund giant Citadel LLC, also lectured Stanford students that he strongly believes that the key goal for everyone enrolled in an Ivy League MBA program should be to surround themselves with sharper minds.

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