Key Takeaways
- American universities like Harvard, Stanford, and Penn lead in producing billionaire alumni.
- Most wealth comes from technology startups and entrepreneurial ventures (e.g., Microsoft, Google, DoorDash, Baidu).
This visualization ranks institutions by billionaire alumni, highlighting U.S. dominance and the growing role of Asian universities. The data comes from Salas Díaz & Young (2024). The study was published in September 2024, but the underlying data was collected in March 2021.
| School Name | Number of Billionaires | Country | Billionaire Alumni | Source of Wealth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard University | 104 | USA | Steve Ballmer, Michael Bloomberg | Microsoft, Microsoft, Bloomberg L.P. |
| Stanford University | 69 | USA | Jerry Yang, Andy Fang | Yahoo, DoorDash |
| University of Pennsylvania | 38 | USA | Elon Musk | Tesla |
| Columbia University | 32 | USA | Warren Buffett | Berkshire Hathaway |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 28 | USA | Charles Koch | Koch Industries |
| Yale University | 24 | USA | Stephen A. Schwarzman | Blackstone Group |
| Cornell University | 22 | USA | Robert F. Smith | Vista Equity Partners |
| University of Mumbai | 22 | India | Mukesh Ambani | Reliance Industries |
| Tsinghua University | 19 | China | Sun Hongbin | Sunac China Holdings |
| New York University | 18 | USA | John Paulson | Paulson & Co. (hedge fund) |
| University of Southern California | 17 | USA | George Lucas | Lucasfilm (Star Wars franchise) |
| University of California, Berkeley | 15 | USA | Tony Xu | DoorDash |
| University of Michigan | 15 | USA | Larry Page | |
| Peking University | 14 | China | Robin Li | Baidu |
| Moscow State University | 13 | Russia | Andrey Melnichenko | EuroChem |
| Princeton University | 13 | USA | Jeff Bezos | Amazon |
| University of California, Los Angeles | 12 | USA | Larry Fink | BlackRock |
| University of Chicago | 12 | USA | Joe Mansueto | Morningstar, Inc. i |
| Fudan University | 12 | China | Bruno Wu | Sun Media / Entertainment |
| Seoul National University | 12 | South Korea | Kim Beom-soo | Kakao |
| Zhejiang University | 12 | China | Colin Huang (Huang Zheng) | Pinduoduo |