Most unicorn founders are graduates of Stanford, Harvard, and the IITs
1–10 of 68 posts
Re: Most unicorn founders are graduates of Stanford, Harvard, and the IITs
#2This article will be downvoted because it goes against many peoples mental model that, if you work hard, you can be successful.
Well, statistically, Stanford/Harvard/IIT graduates are more likely to be successful. If you go to Berkely or Georgia Tech, good for you, but the Stanford et al. grads are probably better.
Re: Most unicorn founders are graduates of Stanford, Harvard, and the IITs
#3This article will be downvoted because it goes against many peoples mental model that, if you work hard, you can be successful. Well, statistically, Stanford/Harvard/IIT graduates are more likely to be successful. If you go to Berkely or Georgia Tech, good for you, but the Stanford et al. grads are probably better.
Better? It is just much easier for them to get funding. More funding -> More successes.
Source: I know a ton of people who went to Stanford and who had zero trouble getting near unlimited funding.
Also the purpose of this article is to appeal to the Indian reader base that is qz.com. They are writing articles to appease their demographics.
Re: Most unicorn founders are graduates of Stanford, Harvard, and the IITs
#4This article will be downvoted because it goes against many peoples mental model that, if you work hard, you can be successful. Well, statistically, Stanford/Harvard/IIT graduates are more likely to be successful. If you go to Berkely or Georgia Tech, good for you, but the Stanford et al. grads are probably better.
Your example is funny because 2 paragraphs in they show their data:
Stanford(51), Harvard(37), UC (18), IIT (12)
One could say "UC is a system, not one school" but then you have to say the same of IIT.
Same issue with the headline too.
Re: Most unicorn founders are graduates of Stanford, Harvard, and the IITs
#5This article will be downvoted because it goes against many peoples mental model that, if you work hard, you can be successful. Well, statistically, Stanford/Harvard/IIT graduates are more likely to be successful. If you go to Berkely or Georgia Tech, good for you, but the Stanford et al. grads are probably better.
Funny that while the IITs, as per the article, is said to be a collection of autonomous institutes, and that the University of California, which is an another collection of colleges, and still rated higher than the IITs, you would want to dismiss Berkeley? Any reason for your contempt?
Re: Most unicorn founders are graduates of Stanford, Harvard, and the IITs
#6This ordering is bunk because the author makes no attempt to normalize for student population. Larger schools have a massive advantage compared to smaller ones.
Compare the University of California and MIT. University of California has 250,000 students and MIT has 11,000. After normalizing the data, MIT produces 1 unicorn per 1,200 yearly enrolled student, while UoC produces 1 unicorn per 13,900 yearly enrolled student. By this list, MIT students are 10x more likely to found a unicorn compared to UoC students but are ranked lower in this list.
The authors shouldn't even be combining all ten UC schools in the first place as each runs as a separate university with their own faculty, admissions, etc.
A similar argument applies to the IITs.
Re: Most unicorn founders are graduates of Stanford, Harvard, and the IITs
#7This ordering is bunk because the author makes no attempt to normalize for student population. Larger schools have a massive advantage compared to smaller ones. Compare the University of California and MIT. University of California has 250,000 students and MIT has 11,000. After normalizing the data, MIT produces 1 unicorn per 1,200 yearly enrolled student, while UoC produces 1 unicorn per 13,900 yearly enrolled stude…
[deleted]
Re: Most unicorn founders are graduates of Stanford, Harvard, and the IITs
#8This article will be downvoted because it goes against many peoples mental model that, if you work hard, you can be successful. Well, statistically, Stanford/Harvard/IIT graduates are more likely to be successful. If you go to Berkely or Georgia Tech, good for you, but the Stanford et al. grads are probably better.
Your example is funny because 2 paragraphs in they show their data: Stanford(51), Harvard(37), UC (18), IIT (12) One could say "UC is a system, not one school" but then you have to say the same of IIT. Same issue with the headline too.
Perhaps what would be more interesting is the zip codes where these unicorn founders originated rather than placing the credit entirely on which colleges and universities they got into.
Re: Most unicorn founders are graduates of Stanford, Harvard, and the IITs
#9This article will be downvoted because it goes against many peoples mental model that, if you work hard, you can be successful. Well, statistically, Stanford/Harvard/IIT graduates are more likely to be successful. If you go to Berkely or Georgia Tech, good for you, but the Stanford et al. grads are probably better.
Better? It is just much easier for them to get funding. More funding -> More successes. Source: I know a ton of people who went to Stanford and who had zero trouble getting near unlimited funding. Also the purpose of this article is to appeal to the Indian reader base that is qz.com. They are writing articles to appease their demographics.
Amazes me that a low/no capital business model (software) combined with the hacker ethos was so readily and quickly hijacked by The Money People. You don't need this much money and a true entrepreneur dies inside everytime they give away a piece of their company.
Re: Most unicorn founders are graduates of Stanford, Harvard, and the IITs
#10This ordering is bunk because the author makes no attempt to normalize for student population. Larger schools have a massive advantage compared to smaller ones. Compare the University of California and MIT. University of California has 250,000 students and MIT has 11,000. After normalizing the data, MIT produces 1 unicorn per 1,200 yearly enrolled student, while UoC produces 1 unicorn per 13,900 yearly enrolled stude…
IITs collectively have only 33k undergrads, according to wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technolog...
That would make the entire system comparable to a large state school in the US. They do have proportionally more grad students, so total student body is right around the biggest state schools - Florida, Texas, Ohio, etc.
Definitely not on the same level as Stanford or Harvard, but still very impressive.