Should Business Students Learn to Code?

Note: The following contributions are personal impulses from Max Eckel. They represent individual reflections and are intended to stimulate discussion and further thought.

If you educate future CEOs, founders, and investors… should they also be developers? I had this conversation yesterday with a professor. We were discussing how we as a business school stay ahead of the curve. AI is everywhere. Tech is reshaping every industry. So the question feels inevitable: Should all business students learn to code?

I do think there is real value in learning at least one language. Python, for example, helps you understand logic, syntax, data structures. It changes how you think. It demystifies technology. But then I ask a harder question: What is the core profile we are actually educating?

We are a business school. Yes, we educate entrepreneurs. But also consultants, investors, corporate leaders, operators. We already educate generalists in the business domain. That has huge merit. Especially in entrepreneurship, where you navigate finance, hiring, sales, product, storytelling, fundraising, strategy. 

Now imagine we also try to turn all of them into developers. Will we educate the best coders? Probably not. Will we risk producing even more overloaded generalists? Maybe. What I strongly believe is this: We educate some of the best business co-founders for technological teams. And that matters more than most people think.

The tech often does not come from us. It comes from research labs, technical universities, deep domain experts. But technology without:

• a market
• a business model
• customers
• funding
• the right narrative

…rarely becomes a company.

When I was head of startup coaching in Aachen, I saw this up close. Brilliant researchers. World-class technology. But turning that into a venture-backed company is a completely different skill set. If we can consistently deliver strong business co-founders who handle financing, company building, sales, fundraising, and storytelling, that’s already an enormous contribution. And the data backs this up. Deep tech spin-offs in Germany increasingly rely on WHU counterparts in their teams. They get funded. They hit the market.

Now here’s the twist. On the same day as this debate, we hosted a Lovable hackathon. Two students, Mitja and Jason pushed it forward themselves! (...which is one reason why I love HashtagWHU) My future colleague Berkant already fully dived in!

In three hours, “pure” business students shipped products with:

• databases
• authentication
• real workflows
• different industry applications

Three hours. The barrier to building is collapsing. So yes, coding literacy is valuable. But I’m not convinced that turning every business student into a probably mediocre developer is the right strategic bet. Maybe our job is to ensure that when world-class technologists look for someone to build a company with, they find someone who can truly carry the business side. And maybe that’s already ambitious enough.

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