Topic: Failing Just Fine: Assessing Careers of Venture Capital backed Entrepreneurs Via a Non-Wage Measure

Speaker: Paul Gompers, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Time: 9:00am-10:30am, March 15 (Beijing Time)

Location: 4-101

Abstract:

This paper proposes a non-pecuniary measure of career achievement, seniority. Based on a database of over 130 million resumes, this metric exploits the variation in how long it takes to attain job titles. When non-monetary factors influence career choice, assessing career attainment via non-wage measures, such as seniority, has significant advantages. Accordingly, we use our seniority measure to study labor market outcomes of VC-backed entrepreneurs. Would-be founders experience accelerated career trajectories prior to founding, significantly outperforming graduates from same-tier colleges with similar first jobs. After exiting their start-ups, they obtain jobs about three years more senior than their peers who hold (i) same-tier college degrees, (ii) similar first jobs, and (iii) similar jobs immediately prior to founding their company. Even failed founders find jobs with higher seniority than those attained by their non-founder peers.