The MBA-to-VC pipeline stays a really actual factor. However that path is slightly shakier than it as soon as was, based on PitchBook reporting and new educational analysis.
Harvard positioned 50 of its 1,004 MBA graduates into VC roles in 2024, with a median beginning wage of $177,500. Stanford positioned round 30 from its smaller class. Greater than 10,000 Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton MBA alumni at the moment maintain senior positions at U.S. VC corporations, PitchBook knowledge exhibits.
The MBA’s grip on enterprise capital is loosening, nonetheless, based on Stanford professor Ilya Strebulaev, who discovered that 44% of mid-career enterprise professionals held MBAs within the early 2000s, in comparison with 32% at this time.
What’s driving the change? VC has advanced past conventional sectors into AI and {hardware}, the place technical expertise beats enterprise faculty credentials, so corporations are more and more scanning expertise from firms like OpenAI and SpaceX quite than elite MBA applications. “There may be much less urge for food for MBAs at the moment,” govt recruiter Will Champagne tells PitchBook.
College students haven’t gotten the memo but; Stanford’s VC membership nonetheless boasts 600 members out of the roughly 850 MBA college students on campus. They’re paying a steep value, too. Nabbing an MBA at a prime program can price greater than $200,000.
