Why is every successful tech founder an Ivy League graduate?
Look at the top startups founded in the last couple of years, nearly every founder seems to come from an Ivy League school, Stanford, or MIT, often with a perfect GPA. Why is that? Does being academically brilliant matter more than being a strong entrepreneur in the tech industry? It’s always been this way, but it’s even more pronounced now. At least there used to be a couple of exceptions (non-Ivy grads…). Even founders from outside the US are all from top universities. Compared to other industries, tech entrepreneurship seems to be very elitist about college degrees, kind of like finance, whereas entertainment and other online businesses (online retail, fashion, etc.) seem more open. Look at Y Combinator; it’s even worse there.
It's not that complicated. People want to give money to people they think are smart. Nobody is going to get fired from their VC job bc they gave money to two kids from MIT.
This is a central theme in hiring everywhere. Risk aversion.
Plus there’s the Ivy alumni network. Having an alumni take your call, having an alum reach out to someone on your behalf, meeting people at college events. I know someone who remembered that someone from his freshman dorm was son of a big shot at a VC firm. At Stanford, the faculty will make the introductions.
Ivy League kids are smart and usually have wealthy or at least well-off parents. The brains allow them to think of ideas and the family money lets them try out their 5th idea when their first 4 fail.
Who is more likely to succeed? A straight A kid with infinite attempts or a B- student who may only have one shot, if they’re lucky, before they have to get a job to pay rent?
Also, candidly, it's pretty easy to tell who's gonna be a winner or not from high school. People think they didn't get into a top school because of DEI or whatever, but too many people think too highly of themselves. Look at how many posts this forum gets from non-targets who thought they were fucked over in life and smarter than they are...
Given that good schools can literally choose the smartest and most promising students it just makes sense. Also the culture is super elitist here in SF. I thought my social scene in NYC was but SF is on another level. At every party I’ve been to it’s just 95+% Ivy League or Stanford/MIT people. The network matters a lot and it’s hard to network when you don’t go to a good school
Are the UChi, Gtown, Northwestern, Norte dames fucked?
Norte?
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