Posted on 09/01/2007 9:22:52 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
I must confess to being disappointed five years ago when my son, Vineet, told me he had no interest in applying to any of the schools I consider elite. He said he would fit in better at a public state university and he didn't believe that choice would lessen his chances of career success.
Perhaps it was the bias that my company's venture capitalists showed toward management teams from top-tier colleges that skewed my thinking. Whatever the cause, I have since concluded I shouldn't have been upset in the least. An education from one of the world's top schools may not give that much of an edge after all. And in some cases it may actually lessen the chances you will become a successful entrepreneur.
Founders from Across the Educational Spectrum
I should have known better. I didn't graduate from an elite university -- and by elite, I mean schools such as Ivy League universities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and top-tier academic institutions globally. Yet I founded two successful technology companies.
My new mindset isn't solely based on my experience either. After joining Duke University and researching this topic, I've learned that the majority of the immigrants who founded tech companies over the last decade didn't graduate from universities that are the highest ranked or considered elite, based on selective admissions criteria. Schools like MIT and Stanford don't graduate more founders than Stevens Institute of Technology or Arizona State University. Even the famed Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) only graduated 15% of the founders of companies in India's Silicon Valley.
Our findings were based on interviews with 317 engineering and technology companies that opened from 1995 to 2005 with a foreign-born founder. One of the biggest surprises was that there was no dominant university in the U.S. or abroad that graduated these company founders; they studied in various schools of all tiers across the U.S. and in their home countries.
Foreign-Born Entrepreneurs Flourish
Our research had focused on company founders who were foreign-born. It could be that American-born entrepreneurs have a different educational profile than immigrants. So, more research is needed before we draw final conclusions.
But this immigrant group does constitute a sizable percentage of all tech startups. In an earlier research project, we discovered that a quarter of the engineering and technology companies founded nationwide, and half of those founded in Silicon Valley from 1995 to 2005, had a foreign-born chief executive or lead technologist as a founder. These companies accounted for $52 billion in sales and 450,000 jobs in 2005 (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/1/07, "Open Doors Wider for Skilled Immigrants").
Could it be that elite education is overrated in the tech world? I asked several friends, most of whom are tech executives, for input. I expected those from top-tier schools to get defensive. Yet I was surprised that every one of the dozens who responded agreed. Most elite university graduates say it was the contacts they made and networks they formed in school, rather than the education itself, that provided the real advantage.
Entrepreneurial vs. Corporate Thinking
Jim Duggan, a senior technology industry analyst who holds a bachelor's in engineering from MIT and a master's in science and engineering from Princeton, goes further. He writes that he wasn't surprised by our findings. In fact, he would contend that attendance at top-tier schools might even be inversely correlated with entrepreneurial success. These schools often focus on producing the next generation of research scientists and academics -- not entrepreneurs. He believes that the elitism and confidence these schools nurture may work well in large corporations, but not in tech startups. His perspective on MIT is that the curriculum had only begun to evolve to be venture-friendly in the last 10 years.
According to John Trumpbour, research director of Harvard Law School's Labor & Worklife Program, many MBAs say they wish to be entrepreneurs, but relatively few take this path. He reckons a prestigious degree probably makes it easier to take a safe, but nonentrepreneurial, route to affluence and success. With the lucrative salaries and huge signing bonuses offered by top corporations, risking it all to start a tech venture becomes a really difficult decision.
Part of the reason certain types of institutions may be underrepresented among entrepreneurial ranks may stem from school size. Sudhakar Shenoy, an IIT graduate and chief executive of Information Management Consultants, says it's not fair to compare his alma mater to much larger schools. He notes that IIT has graduated only 5,000 of India's 176,000 engineers, and that based on the number of companies started by its graduates, they were five times more likely than others to start tech companies.
To get a reaction from the academic community, I posted a provocative message on the Sloan Industry Studies listserv, which reaches more than 1,000 professors and deans. In this discussion group, challenging academic norms and traditions is like stirring a hornet's nest. I've received dozens of fiery e-mails every time I've dared. I was astonished that only one academic responded, and no one went on the offensive.
Taking the Focus Off Pedigree
North Carolina State University Professor Subhash Batra, an MIT graduate, didn't take issue with our findings, but wonders whether we're asking the right questions. "If you change the focus to the question, 'What institutions produce the scholars, teachers, thinkers of tomorrow?'" Batra says, "you might get different findings. I think there is danger in making measurements using a one-dimensional scale of entrepreneurial success."
I decided to seek input from Carl Schramm, who is probably the world's leading expert on entrepreneurship and education. Schramm heads the Kauffman Foundation, which focuses on advancing entrepreneurship and improving the education of children and youth. It has supported my work. Schramm says that venture capitalists look for talent in the wrong places; they even hire the wrong people in their own firms by focusing just on pedigree.
The university that produces the most blue chip CEOs and university professors, the most Peace Corps volunteers, and the most productive and long-running patents isn't Stanford or MIT -- it's the University of Wisconsin. Students "who do the prestige MBA route find it hard to shake the huge offers and end up becoming risk-averse," Schramm says. Graduates of elite schools tend to be book-smart and have incredible SAT scores, but they often lack street smarts and creativity, he says. Plus, they tend to have a sense of entitlement and superiority that leads to not working well with others, he notes.
Vineet recently completed his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. And he accepted an entry-level position at a Washington, D.C., tech startup. His success or failure will be determined by how hard he works, how much he continues to learn and grow, and how he helps his company meet goals. I don't think anyone cares about what school he graduated from. I can't remember the last time anyone asked me to name mine.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a local community college degree. The person with that degree probably gets a better real education than the brainwashing Poison Ivy schools........
Good school. One of my best hires came from there.
Ah, I foresee a future career in Washington DC!
Depending on what your particular goal is I’m sure having an Ivy League education is their gateway to the world...but it seems to me for most people who I come across just seem to have gone to make their resume look all fancied up, despite the fact there are state school grads who would do just as effectively.
“Plus, they tend to have a sense of entitlement and superiority that leads to not working well with others”
That has often been my experience with grads from “big name” engineering schools.
Some of the brightest people I’ve worked with in my engineering career came from small schools, with only regional name recognition, and the graduates of these smaller schools tended to actually have earned more of their “A” grades.
What is a dirty little secret is the amount of grade inflation at big-name schools. Smaller engineering schools don’t grade inflate. They’re often very hard on their students.
At my engineering school, we were told in the first week of freshman year “Look to your left. Look to your right. One of those people on either side of you won’t be here at the end of sophomore year. It is my job as a professor to see that one of them isn’t here.” And it was true — they washed out about 50% of the people who were incoming freshmen and replaced them with transfers who came in from (drum roll please) community colleges.
Probably lack people skills.
>>Graduates of elite schools tend to be book-smart and have incredible SAT scores, but they often lack street smarts and creativity, he says<<
I wonder how he established a lack of creativity on the part of elite school graduates.
The biggest parenting mistake I ever made was when I encouraged my son to go to an “elite” school out of state. Both of us borrowed money we couldn't’t afford to because we bought into the myth of the “elite” school.
He would have been just fine at the local university.
I would encourage just about any parent/student NOT to EVER borrow money for education. It might take longer to get through but it is worth it not to go into debt.
When you owe student loans, you will BEG to borrow money from the mob to pay them off if anything goes wrong. That is how bad student loan debt law is.
It really depends what you are studying. As far as medicine, cutting edge science research and such there is no replacement for getting into the colleges that will provide you access to the tools you need to learn your profession. As for liberal arts, business, and similar endeavors I don’t know what the long term benefit is. It most certainly can open doors but for a considerable risk of not paying off especially if you are one to believe that you are entitled to something just because you went to an Ivy league school.
I worked for an individual that seemed to have that opinion of herself. She found an early retirement because of it. She was intelligent but did not understand that her intelligence was not in an of itself a self evident asset to those around her. She was a horrible manager, petulant, and petty. I felt really bad for her. I remember the day she first introduced herself mentioning her recent divorce. It struck me as strange. It still weighs heavily on my heart but one can only do so much. One can not rescue everyone but one can at a minimum keep those lonely bitter souls from hurting others in their torment.
All I can offer is my anecdotal evidence. When I worked at a large corporation in NY, we had a lot of Ivy League grads and a few from state schools. In my opinion, the brightest and the best were always from SUNY. The Ivy League dudes and dudettes were always a step behind the staties.
Success or failure and how they respond to it (give up or just getting warmed up) is all about the person, not the school.
I will say that getting a degree at Texas A&M helps out in getting jobs in Texas. Aggies like hiring other Aggies.
That’s the benefit of getting a degree from A&M.
Probably, the University of Wisconsin student body is ten times the size of all the ivys combined. I can think of three sucessful Stanford dropouts. Gates, Jobs, and Tiger Woods.
The only benefit of an Ivy League University education is the networking. States schools have it as well, but probably not as good. I went to State School and has not hurt me at all.
My son is applying to Graduate Schools (not one of the Ivy Leagues) and I noticed that one of the concentrations at some schools was a MBA with a concentration in Entrepreneurship. The courses include subjects like New Venture Capital and Marketing New Technology.
I’ve had 6 MIT IT graduates work for me (2 I hired, the others I inherited) and worked with 5 more over the last 15 years. All but one of them couldn’t write a coherent paper without serious help. However, they are highly confident in their not always evident abilities. I have to say the one really good one - was outstanding. She was an international student but not from Asia.
I’ve worked directly with 6 Harvard and a couple of Wellesley grads - again, they all were really impressed with themselves. Of the Harvard grads - 2 were very impressive, the others and the Wellesley grads couldn’t write coherently, couldn’t build a convincing argument for their conclusions, and were quick with ad hominem attacks or sarcasm in place of discussion.
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