The MBA-to-VC pipeline is still alive, but it’s no longer the sure path it once was.
New reporting from PitchBook and research from Stanford suggest that while top business schools continue to feed graduates into venture capital, firms are broadening their talent search.
Harvard placed 50 of its 1,004 MBA graduates into VC roles in 2024, with a median starting salary of $177,500. Stanford placed about 30. In fact, more than 10,000 Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton MBA alumni currently hold senior positions at U.S. VC firms, according to PitchBook data.
But the MBA’s dominance is slipping. Stanford professor Ilya Strebulaev found that 44% of mid-career venture professionals held MBAs in the early 2000s, compared to just 32% today.
The reason: VC is moving deeper into technical sectors like AI and hardware, where experience at companies like OpenAI or SpaceX carries more weight than business school credentials. “There is less appetite for MBAs currently,” executive recruiter Will Champagne told PitchBook.
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Despite the shift, MBA students still flock to VC, Stanford’s VC club has 600 members out of around 850 MBA students. But they’re paying a steep price for an increasingly uncertain payoff, with tuition at top programs topping $200,000.
