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Where did famous founders and CEOs study?
We all know Bill Gates dropped out of university, along with several other CEOs and founders before making their millions. Guess who went one level further and got expelled? And guess which university graduates the most successful founders?
Which universities produce the most successful founders?
The Ivy League schools have long had a reputation for producing excellent graduates who end up at the top of their field. There are of course many more non-Ivy universities that have extremely good reputations that produce industry experts, but is there one that produces significantly more founders?
Crunchbase looked at founders of US companies that raised their last round of funding in 2022 or 2023, and have raised at least $1m in total. This list understandably looks similar to the yearly rankings of US universities, as founders seek the best education that money can buy. Interestingly, the top 3 universities are non-Ivy: Stanford, MIT and UC Berkeley. All excellent schools in their own rights, but Stanford comes out way on top with 472 founders.
One reason for Stanford’s success is that its business school is also one of the best in the world, and with many founders completing an MBA, this gets a lot more heads in the door that may have previously completed a Bachelor’s or Master’s at another university lower down this list.
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What did CEOs major in?
So MBAs are understandably a popular choice as founders look to learn how to run a business. But what did they do before that?
Business Insider looked at the educational backgrounds of 52 famous tech CEOs and founders. Being tech, many had a STEM background with the most frequent majors being engineering or computer science. The next most frequent degree was an MBA, followed by economics. A smattering of social sciences and humanities are also included, while 10 of the 52 either dropped out or got expelled - Steve Wozniak being the guilty party after hacking the University of Colorado Boulder’s computer system and sending prank messages to everyone. He actually did this again at UC Berkeley, but left on his own accord to eventually start Apple.
See you on Wednesday for more charts on crime!
Created by Miguel