<p>I'd love to work at a company like Apple or Google doing product management. Is it really as hard as people make it out to be? Here's my (idealistic) plan:</p>
<p>1) Graduate with a Bachelors (or Masters) in CS at the University of Michigan (currently here)
2) Work at any company for 4 or 5 years
3) Get an MBA from a top 10 school (Apple hires the most Duke MBA students so I would go there, or somewhere along the lines of that)
4) Get the job offer</p>
<p>That doesn't seem too hard. The hardest step would most likely be getting the top 10 MBA, and even then it doesn't seem too difficult to such a thing. </p>
<p>What am I missing here?</p>
<p>Well I hope you don’t hang your entire career on working at one of two companies. I guess it’s only as easy or hard as getting an offer or you don’t. Are you going to try for the Google APM program first? It is difficult to get but Marissa Meyer started one at Yahoo now. I think MS has one too, but likely structured differently. You might try for a summer program at one of those companies or look for a program like Extreme Blue.</p>
<p>I think it is kind of weird to expect that you have such a checklist for 10 years into the future and don’t expect that things will come up. Just be prepared and flexible enough that you don’t pass up opportunities.</p>