Which Universities Produce the Most Y Combinator Founders? 📊 They received over 27,000 applications and funded 260 companies. An acceptance rate under 1%. Here are insights from the latest YC Winter 2024 batch: 𝗧𝗼𝗽 𝟭𝟱 𝗔𝗹𝗺𝗮 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: Stanford: 16 MIT: 15 UC Berkeley: 12 Harvard: 11 Toronto: 9 Cornell: 9 Georgia Tech: 8 Waterloo: 6 Duke: 6 *Pennsylvania: 6 Cambridge: 6 Brown: 5 *Wharton: 5 HEC Paris: 5 University of Illinois: 4 *𝘜𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝘀: 65% in B2B SaaS / Enterprise 11% in Consumer 10% in Healthcare 8% in Fintech 4% in Industrials 1% in Govtech 1% in Edtech 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗰𝘀: Asian: 25% Black: 4% Hispanic: 2% Middle Eastern: 5% Multi-racial: 10% South Asian: 18% White: 36% Many of the companies in this batch are building around AI. It will be interesting to see if the AI trend continues when the Summer 2024 batch data is released. Not getting into YC doesn’t mean you’re not a great founder. Many of the best and most iconic companies never went through an accelerator. #startups #venturecapital #entrepreneurship ____ Enjoy this? Follow Kevin Jurovich for daily startup & VC insights and the occasional meme. ✌️
Produces? Seems to imply an action on the part of the universities, when the action is just as likely to be selection bias on the part of YC. A huge part of the YC ecosystem is its initial investor network and other YC founded company partner network. The chart I'd like to see is the alma maters of that extended roster.
Made me think about founders to country population ratio. And it turns out Canada wins this round.
There were 7 founders from Brigham Young University in the w24 batch!
Know for a fact the cohort had 7 founders from Brigham Young University!
Whatever the root is — the fruit is.
I have a long list of startup achievements and have been invited to pitch to YC 4 times. I went to FIDM and majored in Fashion Design and studied Philosophy on an ashram. I stand for artists who put in the work to learn, operate and become functionally business literate. We are rare but growing. It’s so hard without the networking out of the gate advantage and knowing zero vernacular at first. Learn while operating and get the education of a lifetime. Defy statistics, categories and redefine what a unicorn looks like. Inspire other artists to believe that huge success and sticking to artistic principles aren’t mutually exclusive. Legally Blonde it and to the moon. This is my life’s purpose.
If you want to overlook talent, choose only from among those who follow the path prescribed by conventional wisdom instead of finding a way to detect key qualities such as creativity, resilience, intense topical interest, independent thinking, collaborative impulse, desire to explore and self-driven purposeful learning. It appears that you might be collecting logos and prestige instead of the best talent.
Sweet. Good reason to order Stanford swag
I wonder what % of YC founders came from one of those schools. The info is less relevant if together they comprise < 5-10% of all YC founders. I can see how, in the absence of other data, a “good school” can help YC filter applicants.
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5dI'm not sure why coming from a university is still considered like a good metric to be a great startup founder. Starting a business, specially a startup, has literally nothing to do with being in university. Most of the stuff you learn at the uni doesn't apply for the day to day grind of running a business. I understand why a conservative company would offer more opportunities to someone with a degree. I completely don't understand why an accelerator like YC would do the same.