McKinsey Alumni Outperform Others in Founding VC-Backed Healthcare Startups

Not a big fan of simple empirical correlations. Some reasons why McKinsey alum might be able to start companies:

1. McKinsey is not a long term job, most employees are expected to leave in 3-5 yrs, the company in fact actively encourages such behavior. I know friends in Bain who received coaching from senior employees to crack interviews of other companies (Often VC’s, or Private Equity)

2. Being in McKinsey gives you access to capital. You develop relationships with VC’s, PE’s, HNWI’s that can help you boot strap your company initially which is critical to founding a company.

That said there are some major disadvantages to being in a McKinsey like career path which is what I think these Silicon Valley folks are trying to get at:

1. You almost certainly have 0 technical knowledge. I was from a top engineering school and those who chose to go to consulting had the least interest in engineering. This is not as big of a dealbreaker as you’d think, technical competence can in fact be bought with money.

2. You even possibly lack any operational expertise. This is what I find most damning about being from a consultancy. A non technical guy with experience in a fast growing startup or a large established company like Walmart, has far more real world operational experience than a McKinsey consultant.

3. You are likely a successful status chaser. You probably went to the beat undergrad school, best MBA, got the topmost grades without actually being all that interested in your subject material. This shows your potential is high, but a startup is long and grueling. If you do not have genuine interest and ability to tough it out for 6-10 years, things are not going to go that well for you. Which is also why I think SV types are skeptical of those from this career path.

That said I think great people can come from anywhere, if McKinsey types want to have their go at startups, good for them, let’s see if any of them actually succeed!

Recent data challenges Vinod Khosla's claim that working at McKinsey might be a waste of time.

In fact, McKinsey alumni are leading in venture-backed business creation, especially in the Healthcare sector, even outpacing tech giants like Google and Microsoft in other sectors.