

Art schools have minted more massive Unicorns than MIT - replicatorblog
https://medium.com/founder-dialogues/seriously-art-schools-have-minted-more-massive-unicorns-than-mit-5f99cd1bf62c

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h_o
I don't think this matters. People who want to start businesses will start
them - regardless of what school they go to. Sure it's an interesting insight,
but don't get knocked by it.

How many unicorns are there where the founder(s) didn't go to college? Plus,
it was my understanding that the people who want it more are often less well
off - and can't afford to go to these higher priced schools (M.I.T., Harvard
etc); perhaps that's a point worth noting too.

Less chips = less flips

*chips referring to 'chips on shoulders'; flips referring to flipping companies

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replicatorblog
Totally, hence we see startups from the U of Calgary and the Missouri School
of Science & Technology. Thankfully we're in a world where amazing founder can
come from anywhere.

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akhilcacharya
Who went to MSST?

Im a bit skeptical that school doesnt matter - but I'd agree with you
completely if more founders came from my school, ha-ha.

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replicatorblog
It definitely matters, but our point was that it's not an impenetrable
barrier. Stanford/Harvard are still highly represented, but so are some lesser
known state schools.

Twitter/Square's Jack Dorsey is the MSST alum!

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akhilcacharya
Good points. However, Dorsey did transfer to NYU, which is at least marginally
better known nationally.

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1971genocide
Big surprise than art schools produce more leaders/CEOs than MIT which is a
specialized engineering school ?

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replicatorblog
I was fairly surprised by the finding. Yes MIT is an engineering school, but
is much more oriented around the startup lifestyle. They've got an annual
entrepreneurship competition, a top 5 business school, and most importantly, a
raft of super successful founder/graduates. I think the art school issue is a
bit of a fluke, but surprised MIT isn't more like Stanford or Harvard in terms
of presence.

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gumby
Believe me MIT is well aware of their poor startup record. I donate enough
that people from the development office visit me in person, and they have been
worrying for _decades_ that MIT grads go on to work for other people.

When I was a student (80s) MIT was still basically anti-entrepreneurial (this
despite Draper, EG&G, etc..even Symbolics and LMI) and instead focused around
government R&D and policy. There is so much hysteresis in the system that this
culture is very hard to change.

A lot of the things you mention (startup competition) are surface phenomena.
Stanford is far and away more deeply entrepreneurial (they were already a bit
this way back in the early 80s -- think the Sun/Cisco era).

As for Harvard, well, the reasons I chose not to go there still appear to
apply.

