I tried sharing this story directly on LinkedIn, but it didn’t work, so I’m posting it here.
If you didn’t graduate from a top 5 school and wonder why top VCs are primarily funding certain types grads, then here’s a story for you.
Elena, who recently launched a really cool resume and career coaching service called Inner Stories, is reading a book called “Alpha Girls“, about women in the VC world from back in the 80s-90s. One of the things she shared with me is that Accel, named in the book, had Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Princeton University as institutional investors.
Think about it. That way, they are 2x incentivized to fund their graduates. Looking at funding patterns, it’s now starting to make sense how the system works over here. Here’s an extra article outlining how the university endowment funds ended up boycotting Accel’s VC fund fees in 2001, and other interesting tidbits of VC history.
So the money you pay for that Harvard tuition might end up on your cap table at seed or Series A, if you graduate and start a company. Not a bad deal for students. Not great for diversity, though, and opening up the funding circle.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash