It can probably be as good as academe, but never as good as experience. Most of the benefit from business school is the network anyway, not the book learning.
My logic is that I'd be approaching retirement age. I could/would definitely plan my career so that I had enough money to retire comfortably, which would require about $1.5 million. I'm saying less than that just to be safe (and in case I really want to switch to a less lucrative/more fulfilling career). In reality, I think I'll make a lot more than $1.5 million, but it's a little too risky to bet on.
Constant Contact and Intuit are examples that come to mind. Intuit is debatable since the programmer was the first hire and was working partly for equity. For both companies, the founder came out of Bain Consulting. MySpace might be another example - I don't think their founders were really technical.
I would go with MySQL simply because so many big sites have used it: Facebook, Youtube, Digg, Yahoo, etc. If it's good enough for them, and free, it doesn't seem like you can go wrong.
The only exception would be is if you are primarily handling financial transactions. Then perhaps Oracle would be the way to go, since your customers will be more conservative about the technologies they would accept.
1) Facebook is useful to me in order to a) always have up to date contact information b) have a central place where I can browse photos and c) have a quick introduction to new people that I friend, and see what they are into d) and keep tabs on what all my weak connections are up to. I don't have any major issues with Facebook.
2) I'm selective about what I watch, so I don't browse YouTube. I watch the Daily Show and selected PBS documentaries online. Occaisionally I rent a movie from Amazon Unbox, but the selection is terrible. I use NetFlix to watch old The Wire and West Wing episodes. I wish I could watch those shows online, but they are not available.
3) I wish there was a small niche news site for thoughtful political commentary and policy analysis (as opposed to the endless ranting on reddit). New.ycombinator and programming.reddit.com are great for my programming, business, and startup news.
