2 U.S. B-Schools Lead The Elite In Graduating Unicorn Founders

Newly published data show that two U.S. business schools far outpace their peers in the top 10 of the 2024 U.S. News & World Report ranking for producing unicorn founders.

Stanford University Graduate School of Business leads with an impressive 5.7 founders of unicorns, or companies with a billion-dollar valuation, per 1,000 MBA graduates, according to data published November 11 by Ilya Strebulaev, Stanford finance professor and one-time Poets&Quants Professor of the Week. Harvard Business School follows at 4.2 per 1,000 graduates.

The University of California at Berkeley Haas School of Business produces 2.8 unicorn founders per 1,000 graduates, while MIT Sloan School of Management and The Wharton School share fourth place among U.S. B-schools, each producing 1.7 unicorn founders per 1,000 graduates.

Source: Stanford Venture Capital Initiative

FINDINGS ALIGN WITH U.S. NEWS RANKING

Ilya A. Strebulaev of Stanford Graduate School of Business

Strebulaev, who has been at Stanford since 2004, founded the Venture Capital Initiative in 2015. The team of research assistants, Ph.D. students, project managers, lawyers, and others has compiled a database that includes every U.S. unicorn startup since 1995 — more than 1,100 unicorns across dozens of industries, all backed by VC and having had at least one private round of funding or funding at exit with the post-money valuation of $1 billion and above after January 1, 1997. With data and prominent examples, the professor regularly reports the VCI’s findings on his LinkedIn page.

“Interestingly,” Strebulaev writes on LinkedIn of the most recently published data, “these findings align closely with the U.S. News Business School Rankings, suggesting a strong correlation between overall program quality and entrepreneurial success.”

Among Strebulaev’s other findings that have been reported on by P&Q:

• In 2023 we reported that data showed that his academic home, Stanford University, led all U.S. universities with nearly 300 alumni who have launched more than 200 unicorns — over 40 more billion-dollar companies than the next school on the list, Harvard.
• Fewer than a third of unicorns based in the United States have a founder who went to a B-school. Of those companies that do have an MBA among their team of founders, Harvard Business School is the most-represented B-school; however, in terms of per capita unicorn founders, Stanford “is the clear winner,” Strebulaev writes.
• However, in another trove of recently published research, Strebulaev and his team at Stanford found that almost 30% of founders of U.S.-based unicorns either attended or worked at a non-U.S. university.

WHAT MAKES TOP B-SCHOOLS ‘LAUNCHPADS’ FOR UNICORNS?

The Venture Capital Initiative’s most recent findings emerge from a sample that consists of 1,110 U.S.-based, VC-backed startups that became unicorns between 1997 and 2021 (as well as 2,897 founders). To calculate the ratio per 1,000 alumni, Strebulaev’s team used data on MBA graduates from 2000 to 2021. Rankings are based on the U.S. News Business School Rankings.

“What makes top business schools such powerful launchpads for successful entrepreneurs? Is it the network, the curriculum, or perhaps the entrepreneurial ecosystem they provide?” Strebulaev asks readers from his LinkedIn page, inviting comments.

DON’T MISS DO YOU NEED AN MBA TO FOUND A UNICORN? HISTORY SAYS … PROBABLY NOT and THIS SCHOOL’S ALUMNI HAVE CREATED MORE THAN 200 BILLION-DOLLAR COMPANIES IN THE LAST 28 YEARS