????在校外居住的學生就讀斯坦福大學（Stanford University）MBA的成本，大約超過212,000美元。再加上從谷歌（Google）辭職所產生的每年約75,000美元的機會成本，攻讀這種被戲稱為“宇宙之王”的學位的總成本累計接近390,000美元，這樣一筆龐大的費用，恐怕會令許多人目瞪口呆。

????三個月前剛剛從斯坦福大學商學院畢業的阿曼達?布拉德福德，便為自己挖了這樣一個大坑。那么，她接受如此頂級的教育是要做什么？

????她正在iTunes上發布一款應用程序。注意，這可不是一款普通的應用。這是一款約會應用，類似于交友應用Tinder，專為超級挑剔的人找到同樣挑剔的約會對象。如今同類產品多如牛毛，比如OkCupid、Coffee Meets Bagal、Hinge、Plenty of Fish和Zoosk等，僅iTunes上便有200多款約會應用。

????在這樣的情況下，我們真的有必要為那些靠自己無法找到約會對象的人再推出一款新應用嗎？成立一家手機應用公司，真的需要有MBA學位嗎？

????可能并不需要。但這并沒有讓29歲的布拉德福德打消念頭。至少，在這款被她稱為The League的應用上，布拉德福德的履歷可以讓她成為優質約會對象。這款應用允許想要約會的人查看The League會員的教育和工作背景，誘導他們進入用戶的LinkedIn個人資料和Facebook頁面。

????布拉德福德的簡歷會讓大多數人產生一個疑問——她為什么浪費時間，在一個高度飽和的領域里開發一款應用？畢竟，她在2007年畢業于卡耐基梅隆大學（Carnegie Mellon），取得了信息系統專業的學位，而能取得STEM（科學、技術、工程與數學）學位的女性可謂鳳毛麟角。畢業后，布拉德福德成為一名銷售工程師，后來在企業云計算公司salesforce.com擔任客戶經理。在這家公司工作三年之后，她又前往硅谷最熱門的公司之一：谷歌，最初擔任“售前工程師”，后來進入業務開發部門，與谷歌的產品和工程設計團隊共事。布拉德福德甚至還在硅谷著名的風險投資公司紅杉資本（Sequoia Capital）做了9個月的投資者。

????你肯定會想，有如此了不起的履歷，再加上毫不遜色的斯坦福大學MBA學位，一個人應該想出更實質性的業務，而不是一款約會應用。去年，斯坦福大學MBA學生創立公司的比例達到創紀錄的18%，但幾乎沒有幾家初創公司是專門開發一款手機應用的。

????The estimated cost of an MBA for a single student who lives off campus at Stanford University is slightly more than $212,000. Add to that tidy sum the opportunity costs of quitting a job at Google that paid about $75,000 a year, and your all-in cost for the Master of the Universe degree comes to a formidable, if not mind-numbing, number: nearly $390,000.

????That’s the kind of hole Amanda Bradford dug for herself when she graduated from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business just three months ago. So what is she doing with that world-class education?

????She is launching an app on iTunes. Not just any app, mind you. It’s yet another dating app, a Tinder-like application for super picky people who want to meet other super picky people. In a world cluttered with the likes of OkCupid, Coffee Meets Bagel, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, and Zoosk, there are more than 200 entries listed under dating apps on iTunes alone.

????Do we really need another app for people who can’t get dates on their own? And does it really take an MBA from Stanford to launch an app company?

????Probably not. But none of that seems to have deterred 29-year-old Bradford, whose resume at least makes her prime dating material on what she is calling The League. Among other things, the app allows would-be daters to see the educational and work backgrounds of The League’s members, hooking them into the LinkedIn profiles and Facebook pages of users.

????A glimpse of Bradford’s CV would lead most to wonder why she would waste her time with an app in a highly crowded field. After all, she graduated in 2007 from Carnegie Mellon with a degree in information systems, a somewhat rare young woman with a STEM credential. Bradford then landed a job as a sales engineer and later account executive at salesforce.com. After a three-year stint there, she moved to one of the hottest companies in Silicon Valley: Google, first as a “pre-sales engineer” and finally in a business development role, working with Google product and engineering teams. Bradford even spent nine months at Sequoia Capital, the high-flying Silicon Valley venture capital firm, as an investor.

????You’d think someone with that kind of resume, topped by a Stanford MBA no less, would think up a more substantive business than a dating app. Last year, a record 18% of Stanford MBAs founded companies, but few of those startups were created to do launch an app.