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Comment by ig1 | Hacker News Reader

Startups founded by Harvard MBA alumni:

  Direct Hit+
  Gilt Group*
  Hunch
  Starent*
  Viglink
  Yelp+
  Zynga*

  + Valued at over $500m
  * Valued at over $1bn

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Former startups founded by college dropouts:

* Apple

* Microsoft

The fact that some people from a highly driven and intelligent group were successful at startups is not really significant in and of itself.

No, but you can compare the success rate of Harvard and Techstars alumni is founding successful startups. Given Techstars has yet to produce one $100m+ startup in the last five years and Harvard is probably in the double digits, I reckon Harvard will win.

Sure it could just be the case that Harvard has more talented people in the first place, but I'm not sure what methodology you could use to remove that bias.

No you can't, yet. The statistical sample is much too small to determine whether Techstars is on par, higher or lower with Harvard comparatively to make this statement.

How many $100m startups did Harvard produce in its first 5 years of founding?

We're not comparing HBS of 1908 to Techstars of 2011, we're comparing Techstars of 2006-2011 with HBS of 2006-2011.

Sure Techstars might be amazing in a hundred years time, but it's not exactly relavent for someone deciding what to do now.

I'm saying that Techstars has only had 5 years to refine itself. HBS has had over 100. I would think by that definition alone HBS should be churning out better results!

>I would think by that definition alone HBS should be churning out better results!

Is HBS designed to produce tech startups though? HBS is probably closer to their desired results by virtue of "refinement" of it's aims and processes, yes. However unless those aims include "creating more tech startups" I don't see how their longevity is especially relevant.

totally agreed, you can't underestimate the importance of an alumni network and lessons from past years - advantages that make HBS v. TS a meaningless comparison in terms of success output.

Not if your trying to pick one over the other, we're not making some abstract theoretical comparison here about the fundamentals of the two programs.

If Harvard is better at producing startups than TS, regardless of the reason (alumni, experience), then Harvard would actually be a better choice than TS for someone looking to found a startup.

The GP was pointing out that out of the small (relative to the number of college dropouts) group of Harvard MBA grads, there have been quite a few tech startups.

You are right that any such correlation doesn't imply causality - maybe the MBA and startup success were both caused by a prior drive.

But its an encouraging sign; that Apple and Microsoft were started by dropouts doesn't really change that.

The guy who actually started Gilt Groupe, Kevin Ryan, got his MBA at INSEAD. Not that it changes your point much.

There were three cofounders at Gilt, the other two Alexandra Wilkis Wilson and Alexis Maybank were both Harvard MBAs (where they met).

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