PG is an obvious exception, though by all accounts it seems as if his YC commitments still allow him to do nerdy stuff.
Let's not alienate anybody. For all you know there might be some guy who made a fortune in something mundane and may want to invest in promising young people and he's reading this and thinking, "Oh, I see, they only want money from "nerds" with engineering degrees ... guess my money's not good enough for them."
Personally I'd take money from anybody who made it any way other than as a result of hurting someone in the process and could care less about their "pedigree" or "nerd-factor" ... the fact that they may have made it without the advantages of a masters from MIT just tells me they have THAT MUCH MORE streetsmarts to compensate ...
Seriously, after you've bought the houses, the cars, the trophy wives, what else is there other than to get involved in the process?
Isn't that everybody's dream, the old, "Boy if I ever made it, I would do things SOOOOO differently!"
Otherwise, what's the point?
If I ever made it, the FIRST thing I would do (besides paying down my credit cards and finding a slightly larger apartment) is to try my hand at "doing things the way I wish they were done" ...
I think it would be a heck of a lot more fun putting yuppie ivy-league mbas out of business than spending money on fancy food and cars and designer suits ...
But then again I don't have a lot of money so what do I know? Maybe once you have the money and can actually afford those things you develop an inevitable, "the hell with everyone else" attitude ...