Ask HN: How do you start getting into VC?
With the lack of substantial capital and experience, how can someone learn more about venture capital? How did you get started?
> Lots of college students reach out to me asking me about how to be a VC.
I tell them: be a founder first. The best VCs are chosen by founders based on how much they can help bake the 10 year overnight success.
Power laws plus adverse selection equal bad returns. Be a founder.
To be an intern/employee for a VC you need to have basically graduated from one of the big business schools: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Kellogg, Wharton, Booth... there are others but not many. If you go to one of these schools it's relatively easy to get the connections you need.
If you want to be an intern/employee and you can't get to one of these schools or don't want to, you need to specialize in something that VCs want. That specialty is usually something data driven. Data Analytics is a really big deal for VCs. If you can do that at an above Masters Level they may look at you without a Masters Degree, business degree, or degree in anything at all. Though it will still be a bit of an uphill battle. And honestly, you probably won't get paid as well as if you took those data analytics skills to some other company.
Unfortunately, if you want to do something other than Data Analytics for a VC, you're kind of up a creek. Those big business schools are cranking out people and they have good connections. They will take the job before you get a chance.
Same thing with PE. There are top-tier PEs, mid-tier PE firms. For top tier PEs like KKR, Blackstone, academic pedigree is the only way for those who are not well-connected.
Both a friendly voice of the industry and a good place to get an inside/out view of the VC industry: