Values show the number of unicorn (co-)founders who have a particular major. Majors with at least 10 founders are shown. Data covers 531 US companies that became unicorns (+$1 billion valuation) between 1997-2019.
Data by Ilya Strebulaev and his team at Stanford GSB Business Venture Capital Initiative identified academic degrees earned by 1,263 of 521 US unicorns.
- 236 founders (19%) have an MBA degree.
- 217 founders (17%) have Master’s degrees other than MBAs.
- 39 people have a dual Master’s degree, including an MBA.
- 286 founders (23%) earned doctoral degrees, such as Ph.D. and MD.
- 15 people have an MBA and a doctoral degree.
- And 56 founders dropped out of college (many in order to start their companies).
#startups #founders #majors #education
Source: Ilya Strebulaev, Venture Capital Initiative, Stanford GSB
A unicorn company, or unicorn startup, is a private company with a valuation over $1 billion. As of April 2022, there are 1,000 unicorns around the world. Popular former unicorns include Airbnb, Facebook and Google. Variants include a decacorn, valued at over $10 billion, and a hectocorn, valued at over $100 billion.
Source: CB Insights