6 ms·

Stanford Alumni 5x More Likely to Secure VC Funding Than Carnegie Mellon

46 points by loondri 3y ago

ghaff 3y ago
It looks like there's a lot of correlation between the location of the school and the amount of VC funding associated with the location. Yes, it leans heavily towards elite schools but especially towards elite schools in (or in the orbit of) Silicon Valley, Boston/Cambridge, and NYC. (Schools like Yale, Princeton, and Cornell are obviously not in NYC but I'd consider them most associated with it.)
ckemere 3y ago
Unimpressed by data presentation, with different entries for: "Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Sloan School of Management; MIT - Sloan School of Management; and MIT". Similar overlap for most other institutions on the list. If I was writing a blog post that was going to offer raw data for $4.99 and advertise an AI-driven data analytics product, I'd at least present well curated data in my Figure 1. But maybe that's why I'm still in academia and not in a startup....
- ghaff 3y ago
  I could argue for breaking out business schools or not breaking out business schools but but you should do it cleanly and consistently. I'd probably also argue that the headline is at least suggestive that the data is adjusted for school size and I don't believe it is. (Again, not clear if it should be or not but should be clear that this is about aggregates at the institution level.)
- drewda 3y ago
  Sharp eyes. I can also see "University of California, Berkeley" near the top of the figure and "UC Berkeley" near the bottom of the figure. But agreed that the point of this dataset is not accuracy or explanatory power... it's to drive some clicks to a $4.99 Stripe flow and to "an AI powered data-driven market intelligence platform for private growth stage investors". HN loves eating up content-marking.
- onedognight 3y ago
  The data should also be scaled per-capita otherwise large schools have an advantage.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- 0x6461188A 3y ago
  Berkeley occurs 4 times in the list. Similar repetitions occur for other schools. University of California, Berkeley University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business University of California, Berkeley - Walter A. Haas School of Business UC Berkeley
jdm2212 3y ago
In other news, Stanford is one of the four best undergraduate programs and Carnegie Mellon is... not. Don't get me wrong, CMU has a great computer science faculty, but looking at random CMU alumni doesn't tell you much because a random CMU grad isn't that different from a random Georgetown grad.
- jimbokun 3y ago
  What's your top 4?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jdm2212 3y ago
    The standard top 4 is HYPS (plus MIT and Caltech)
- nerdchum 3y ago
  Yeah a random Georgetown or CMU grad has a lot more question marks than a top 4 school. They may be good but if so why werent they in a top 4 school?
  - sho_hn 3y ago
    It's so funky to read this as a European. I've probably never looked at the edu section of any CV.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      In the UK, a lot of people definitely notice Oxbridge. (Obviously other good UK schools as well.)
      - sho_hn 3y ago
        I've lived in South Korea for four years, and the academic class system there is incredibly intense as well. If you didn't get a chance to go to a SKY uni (Ivy League on steroids), you're essentially a different species as far as society is concerned. Whether you get in depends on a single standardized one-day test at the end of your HS journey that seals your fate for life. Have a bad day? Tough. Alternate pathways and wiggle room are close to non-existant. My wife (who grew up with Korean as her mother tongue, and did well on that test) chose to go to Peking University and did her undergrad (in sociology) in Mandarin, i.e. she spent a couple of extra years beforehand acquiring a foreign language first to be able to speak/write it at college level (and later she added a Master's in Public Policy in English from a European school). At work in Korea this then sometimes got her mobbed for "taking the easy route" vs. attending a SKY uni. It was really crazy given the effort she put in. Overall, I prefer the more laid-back European (perhaps just German?) every-school-is-decent-on-average-and-really-no-one-cares. Sure, someone will say "it's why you don't have Google" next. Maybe.
jschveibinz 3y ago
Likely more related to West Coast and SV culture and proximity than anything else. The East generally doesn’t invest like SV. Note: I’m an early stage investor from the East Coast.
redmerchant2 3y ago
Some of these comments are sound like they were made by high schoolers who think HYPSM or bust. CMU has one of the most rigorous CS/engineering programs. While the top 5% of Stanford grads might be "better" due to how selective they are. But I'd bet the median CMU CS major knows more, programs better etc. Simply because Stanford has a high percent of legacy, athlete, and moneyed international students that buy in. Whereas anecdotally, while CMU students are less well-rounded, those students are serious grinders. If anything, this is proof that prestige, not talent, and who you know matters most. I've heard of several start ups with mostly Berkley/UC grads and one Stanford grad, and they always introduce him first for pitches.
- 0xB31B1B 3y ago
  yea, none of that stuff really matters though. The magic of the MIT type schools is that students are expected to go into entrepreneurial roles, found companies etc in a way that is not the norm at schools like CMU. The peer set at MIT will have better network for fundraising because more people do it, and the network allows the participants to have an edge in success through fair (they get feedback from friends who have done the process before and give suggestions on what to do) and unfair (their wealthy investor buddy can give them warm intros to VCs) means.
  - redmerchant2 3y ago
    MIT can foster that attitude because funding is generous, there’s so much support and safety net even for undergrads. In turn the success stories feeds back and bolsters. It’s only obvious because they are given the chance to demonstrate their capability. I’m arguing that the inherent baseline quality of student does not differ much. If given the chance CMU/Berkeley/etc alums can also succeed. But they’re locked out of many chances due to school prestige.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
spicymaki 3y ago
Rolls eyes. I thought in tech it was skills and deeds that matter not credentials. I suppose meritocracy devolves into credentialism in the long run.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
loondri 3y ago
I'm the OP of this post. Not sure why this is being flagged. Yes I do agree that I could have done a better job at removing duplicates like "UC Berkeley" and "University of California, Berkeley" from the figure but the key takeaway wouldn't have changed.

46 points by loondri 3y ago

It looks like there's a lot of correlation between the location of the school and the amount of VC funding associated with the location. Yes, it leans heavily towards elite schools but especially towards elite schools in (or in the orbit of) Silicon Valley, Boston/Cambridge, and NYC. (Schools like Yale, Princeton, and Cornell are obviously not in NYC but I'd consider them most associated with it.)

ckemere 3y ago

Unimpressed by data presentation, with different entries for: "Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Sloan School of Management; MIT - Sloan School of Management; and MIT". Similar overlap for most other institutions on the list. If I was writing a blog post that was going to offer raw data for $4.99 and advertise an AI-driven data analytics product, I'd at least present well curated data in my Figure 1. But maybe that's why I'm still in academia and not in a startup....

ghaff 3y ago
I could argue for breaking out business schools or not breaking out business schools but but you should do it cleanly and consistently. I'd probably also argue that the headline is at least suggestive that the data is adjusted for school size and I don't believe it is. (Again, not clear if it should be or not but should be clear that this is about aggregates at the institution level.)
drewda 3y ago
Sharp eyes. I can also see "University of California, Berkeley" near the top of the figure and "UC Berkeley" near the bottom of the figure. But agreed that the point of this dataset is not accuracy or explanatory power... it's to drive some clicks to a $4.99 Stripe flow and to "an AI powered data-driven market intelligence platform for private growth stage investors". HN loves eating up content-marking.
onedognight 3y ago
The data should also be scaled per-capita otherwise large schools have an advantage.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
0x6461188A 3y ago
Berkeley occurs 4 times in the list. Similar repetitions occur for other schools. University of California, Berkeley University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business University of California, Berkeley - Walter A. Haas School of Business UC Berkeley

jdm2212 3y ago

In other news, Stanford is one of the four best undergraduate programs and Carnegie Mellon is... not. Don't get me wrong, CMU has a great computer science faculty, but looking at random CMU alumni doesn't tell you much because a random CMU grad isn't that different from a random Georgetown grad.

jimbokun 3y ago
What's your top 4?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jdm2212 3y ago
  The standard top 4 is HYPS (plus MIT and Caltech)
nerdchum 3y ago
Yeah a random Georgetown or CMU grad has a lot more question marks than a top 4 school. They may be good but if so why werent they in a top 4 school?
- sho_hn 3y ago
  It's so funky to read this as a European. I've probably never looked at the edu section of any CV.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    In the UK, a lot of people definitely notice Oxbridge. (Obviously other good UK schools as well.)
    - sho_hn 3y ago
      I've lived in South Korea for four years, and the academic class system there is incredibly intense as well. If you didn't get a chance to go to a SKY uni (Ivy League on steroids), you're essentially a different species as far as society is concerned. Whether you get in depends on a single standardized one-day test at the end of your HS journey that seals your fate for life. Have a bad day? Tough. Alternate pathways and wiggle room are close to non-existant. My wife (who grew up with Korean as her mother tongue, and did well on that test) chose to go to Peking University and did her undergrad (in sociology) in Mandarin, i.e. she spent a couple of extra years beforehand acquiring a foreign language first to be able to speak/write it at college level (and later she added a Master's in Public Policy in English from a European school). At work in Korea this then sometimes got her mobbed for "taking the easy route" vs. attending a SKY uni. It was really crazy given the effort she put in. Overall, I prefer the more laid-back European (perhaps just German?) every-school-is-decent-on-average-and-really-no-one-cares. Sure, someone will say "it's why you don't have Google" next. Maybe.

jschveibinz 3y ago

Likely more related to West Coast and SV culture and proximity than anything else. The East generally doesn’t invest like SV. Note: I’m an early stage investor from the East Coast.

redmerchant2 3y ago

Some of these comments are sound like they were made by high schoolers who think HYPSM or bust. CMU has one of the most rigorous CS/engineering programs. While the top 5% of Stanford grads might be "better" due to how selective they are. But I'd bet the median CMU CS major knows more, programs better etc. Simply because Stanford has a high percent of legacy, athlete, and moneyed international students that buy in. Whereas anecdotally, while CMU students are less well-rounded, those students are serious grinders. If anything, this is proof that prestige, not talent, and who you know matters most. I've heard of several start ups with mostly Berkley/UC grads and one Stanford grad, and they always introduce him first for pitches.

0xB31B1B 3y ago
yea, none of that stuff really matters though. The magic of the MIT type schools is that students are expected to go into entrepreneurial roles, found companies etc in a way that is not the norm at schools like CMU. The peer set at MIT will have better network for fundraising because more people do it, and the network allows the participants to have an edge in success through fair (they get feedback from friends who have done the process before and give suggestions on what to do) and unfair (their wealthy investor buddy can give them warm intros to VCs) means.
- redmerchant2 3y ago
  MIT can foster that attitude because funding is generous, there’s so much support and safety net even for undergrads. In turn the success stories feeds back and bolsters. It’s only obvious because they are given the chance to demonstrate their capability. I’m arguing that the inherent baseline quality of student does not differ much. If given the chance CMU/Berkeley/etc alums can also succeed. But they’re locked out of many chances due to school prestige.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

spicymaki 3y ago

Rolls eyes. I thought in tech it was skills and deeds that matter not credentials. I suppose meritocracy devolves into credentialism in the long run.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

loondri 3y ago

I'm the OP of this post. Not sure why this is being flagged. Yes I do agree that I could have done a better job at removing duplicates like "UC Berkeley" and "University of California, Berkeley" from the figure but the key takeaway wouldn't have changed.