ScienceNot yet confirmed elsewhere1 publisher2 min readPublished
Top 1% of 12,000 US venture capitalists generated over half of $1.2 trillion in profit
Stanford and Ohio State researchers found the top 5% of just over 12,000 US venture capitalists generated 90% of $1.2 trillion in net profit. Education, experience and gender correlate with who ends up there, and the authors present the dataset as a benchmark for choosing and comparing investors.
The Scientist · Science desk
Key figures: the top 5% of VCs in the sample generated 90% of all net profits. 38% of VCs with at least one investment are credited with a successful outcome. 15% of VCs manage three or more successful deals. Women are 5.4% of VCs with six or more deals and 16% of all VCs.
| Figure | Value | Note | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net profits generated by the top 5% of VCs in the sample | 90% | 4 | |
| Investing VCs with a success | 38% | 6 | |
| 3+ successful deals | 15 % of VCs | 7 | |
| Women among VCs with six or more deals | 5.4% | Women are 16% of all VCs | 11 |
What happened
- Among VCs with at least one investment, 38% are credited with a successful outcome: an IPO, a unicorn valuation, or a sale at no less than five times the capital raised.
- VCs who enter as junior associates are up to 83 percentage points less likely to become partners than those who start as VPs, principals or other midlevel hires.
- The 12,000 or so VCs in the profit analysis were drawn from a larger sample of 100,000 VC-affiliated professionals.
Why it matters
- capability VCs and LPs get a person-level peer set against which to compare a given career, the benchmarking use Strebulaev describes.
- decision An LP tempted to use these traits as a screen would need them measured at the start of a career and returns measured afterward; until that test exists, the selection use is a hypothesis.
- constraint The authors call the cause of the gender gap unclear, so a manager screen can infer nothing from it beyond the correlation.
Five percent of a sample of just over 12,000 is about 600 VCs [2][19], and that group generated 90% of the $1.2 trillion [4]. The other 11,400 or so shared the remaining 10%, about $120 billion, an average near $10 million each [20]. The top 1% averaged at least $5 billion apiece [21]. Those are means over a lopsided group, and the sample is roughly 12% of the larger pool the authors drew from [24].
Individual success is scarce too. Among VCs with at least one investment, 62% have no credited success [22], and the source reports that only 15% of VCs manage three or more successful deals over a career [7].
The trait figures are shares among winners. Among VCs with six or more successful deals, 52% majored in STEM as undergraduates [8] and 37% hold an MBA from an elite business school [9]. The thing this doesn't tell you is the same share across all the VCs in the sample. A 52% STEM share among top performers would be unremarkable if roughly half of all VCs majored in STEM, and the full-sample rate is the comparison that settles it.
The authors' sharpest school claim is about Stanford. "One of the most pronounced characteristics of VCs that have generated the highest lifetime profits, including market-adjusted net profits, is whether they have an MBA from Stanford GSB," Strebulaev and Jackson write [14]. Strebulaev is a professor of finance at Stanford GSB [18].
The authors frame the pattern as correlation: success concentrates among VCs whose professional trajectory correlates with education, work experience and gender [16]. Women are about a third as common among VCs with six or more deals as among VCs overall [23]. On seniority, Strebulaev and Jackson write that "VC professionals with particular backgrounds, namely, specialized skills, knowledge, networks, or work experience, not necessarily those with junior VC experience, are more likely to become senior-level VCs" [15].
In our view the dataset is the contribution, and the benchmarking use follows from it directly. The selection use is a larger claim. Limited partners are the ones "who select VCs and who now can do so with a higher degree of confidence," Strebulaev said [13]. The figures behind that cover 1996 to 2025 and look backward [2], and the work is listed as a working paper [17].
What to watch
- Whether the full working paper reports each trait's rate across all sampled VCs, and whether the school and degree effects survive controls.
- Whether later cohorts or other researchers test these traits forward against returns the sample has not yet seen.
- Follow-up work on the gender gap, which the authors flag as an important topic for future research.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives40
- Confidence50
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Ilya Strebulaev of Stanford Graduate School of Business and Blake Jackson of Ohio State University assembled and analyzed the largest data set of individual VCs to date.
- [2]
The total inflation-adjusted net profits generated by VCs in a sample of just over 12,000 VCs at U.S. firms between 1996 and 2025 were $1.2 trillion.
- [3]
The sample of just over 12,000 VCs was drawn from a larger sample of 100,000 VC-affiliated professionals.
- [4]
The top 5% of VCs in the sample generated 90% of all net profits.
- [5]
The top 1% of VCs, roughly 120 individuals, account for more than half of all profits.
- [6]
Among VCs with at least one investment, 38% are credited with at least one successful outcome, such as an IPO, unicorn valuation or a sale in which a company is valued at no less than five times the capital raised.
- [7]
Only 15% of VCs manage three or more successful deals over their careers.
- [8]
Among VCs with six or more successful deals, 52% majored in STEM as undergrads.
- [9]
Among VCs with six or more successful deals, 37% have an MBA from an elite business school.
- [10]
VCs who enter the industry at a junior associate level are up to 83 percentage points less likely to eventually become partners than those who start as VPs, principals or in other midlevel roles.
- [11]
Women make up 16% of VCs, yet 5.4% of the VCs with six or more deals are women.
- [12]
The reason for the discrepancies in the performance of male and female VCs is not clear; Strebulaev and Jackson note it is an important topic for future research.
- [13]
"This is important for three layers of ecosystem participants: limited partners, who select VCs and who now can do so with a higher degree of confidence; VCs themselves, who need to benchmark against peers; and founders, who should use our insights in selecting their investors."
- [14]
"One of the most pronounced characteristics of VCs that have generated the highest lifetime profits, including market-adjusted net profits, is whether they have an MBA from Stanford GSB," Strebulaev and Jackson write.
- [15]
"VC professionals with particular backgrounds, namely, specialized skills, knowledge, networks, or work experience, not necessarily those with junior VC experience, are more likely to become senior-level VCs," Strebulaev and Jackson write.
- [16]
Success is highly concentrated among a small number of VCs whose professional trajectory correlates with many factors, including education, work experience and gender.
- [17]
The research is cited as a working paper: Blake Jackson, Ilya A. Strebulaev, Human Capital in Venture Capital: Evidence From 100,000 Venture Capitalists.
- [18]
Ilya Strebulaev is a professor of finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
- [19]
Five percent of a sample of just over 12,000 VCs is about 600 VCs.
- [20]
The other 95% of the sample, about 11,400 VCs, shared the remaining 10% of profits, about $120 billion, an average of roughly $10.5 million each.
- [21]
The top 1%, about 120 VCs, averaged at least $5 billion each in profits.
- [22]
Among VCs with at least one investment, 62% have no credited successful outcome.
- [23]
Women are about one third as common among VCs with six or more deals (5.4%) as among VCs overall (16%).
- [24]
The sample of just over 12,000 VCs is roughly 12% of the 100,000 VC-affiliated professionals it was drawn from.
Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- phys.orgWhy a tiny number of venture capitalists capture almost all the profit
1 article · October 12, 2026
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Topics
- Venture CapitalFollow
- Workforce demographics in financeFollow
- Investor performanceFollow
Entities
- Ilya StrebulaevFollow
- Blake JacksonFollow
- Stanford Graduate School of BusinessFollow
- The Ohio State UniversityFollow