CEO&Founder at WislaCode | Software Solutions | Fintech, Mobile, Payments, Banking | EMBA (IMD, Switzerland) | Former C-level Executive in Banks
What do Stanford, Google, and McKinsey have in common? They've all been launchpads for future unicorn founders! Some insights from Ilya Strebulaev's post (work experience of future unicorn founders): 🔹 Most (73%) of these places are for-profit companies, including giants like Google (105 founders), Microsoft (73), and IBM (56). 🔹 Universities make up 12% of the sample, with Stanford (60 founders), MIT (52), and Harvard (33) leading the way. (Note that we count only employees here, not graduates.) After delving into Ilya's post, I'm interested in which universities frequently produce graduates who will become unicorn founders. I found the following statistics (source: another Ilya's article, "This School's Alumni Have Created More Than 200 Billion-Dollar Companies In The Last 28 Years" ): 🔹 Stanford University: 285 alumni, 207 unicorns 🔹 Harvard University: 164 unicorns 🔹 University of Pennsylvania: 67 unicorns 🔹 Yale University: 59 unicorns 🔹 Cornell University: 58 unicorns ... Part of my Silicon Valley module was at Stanford University when I studied at IMD. The entrepreneurial spirit was palpable in every corner, from the classrooms to the cafes. It's no surprise that Stanford leads the rankings. #Startups #Entrepreneurship #Unicorns #Stanford
Professor at Stanford | Bestselling Author | Innovation | Venture Capital & Private Equity
What do Stanford, Google, and McKinsey have in common? They’ve all been launchpads for future unicorn founders! For 2,677 founders of 1,076 US-based VC-backed unicorns, we tracked where they worked before striking out on their own. Here's what we found: 🔹 These founders came from 6,109 unique organizations, but only 33 entities employed 15 or more unicorn founders. 🔹 Nearly half (45%) of these top 33 institutions were backed by venture capital at some point in their journey. 🔹 Most (73%) of these places are for-profit companies, including giants like Google (105 founders), Microsoft (73), and IBM (56). 🔹 Universities make up 12% of the sample, with Stanford (60 founders), MIT (52), and Harvard (33) leading the way. (Note that we count only employees here, not graduates.) 🔹 6% of the institutions are banks, such as Goldman Sachs (27 founders), and another 6% are government organizations such as NASA (19 founders). 🔹 One VC fund made the list: Flagship Pioneering (20 founders). 🔹 88% of these organizations are American, 67% are publicly traded, and 42% are in Big Tech. 🔹 Perhaps surprisingly, just 36% of them appear on the Forbes Top 100 employers list. I find many of these results surprising, so I will explore the results more and report further discoveries here! Thank you to the Stanford University Graduate School of Business Venture Capital Initiative team for spearheading this research. Note: Most of the work experience data comes from founders’ LinkedIn profiles. Internships, part-time positions, and periods of study are excluded. For the 1,110 unicorns in our dataset, there are 2,987 unique unicorn founders, who worked at 5,763 unique organizations prior to founding their unicorns. Only 56 institutions among those have more than 10 unique founders. Did you find this post interesting? I post unicorn-related insights several times a week. Follow me, Ilya Strebulaev, to stay tuned. #stanford #stanfordgsb #venturecapital #startups #innovation #technology #theventuremindset
