Friday’s Headlines: Stanford MBAs Set Start-Up Record

For the first time since the 1999-2000 dot-com boom, new records are being set for the number of MBAs starting their own businesses, according to a Fortune story. At Stanford, 16 percent of the class of 2011 started their own companies after graduation, up from 5 percent in the early 1990s and topping the 12 percent peak during the dot-com bubble. A study by the GMAC found that 5 percent of soon-to-be MBAs plan to start businesses, while at Harvard, that figure is about 10 percent.

The figures suggest a general shift toward entrepreneurship and interest in working for smaller firms, says the school’s head of career services. Of the new companies started last year, 30 percent were in Internet services and e-commerce, 15 percent investment and financial services, 7 percent each in food and beverages, retail or wholesale, and sport or sports management and 5 percent each in health care, clean-tech and alternative energy. Said the career services head:

“The difference between now and the late '90s in the dot-com boom is the Internet was an emerging, poorly understood space that seemed very new and risky. There was more of a mentality in the late '90s that 'there is a wave happening and I don't know how long that wave is going to last.' In 2012, we now have 20 years-plus of history where this part of the economy has thrived, and thrived surprisingly well, even against the recent financial crisis.”

The trend is driven by the excitement around tech IPOs like Facebook, as well as the school’s new focus on entrepreneurship. To compete, recruiters for traditional corporations are dangling more responsibility for new hires and opportunities to develop their own ideas and projects.

 

Other News:

Jobs growth slowed sharply in May as unemployment rate rises to 8.2 percent. [WSJ]

Morgan Stanley’s private equity unit is looking to raise $1.5 billion for a fund aimed at deals in China and South Korea. [Dow Jones]

Josef Ackermann on Thursday resigned as Deutsche’s CEO after more than a decade. [DealBook]

Hedge funds slashed their research spend by a fifth in the 12 months ended March 31st. [Financial Times]

AIG sent a team from Argentina on assignment to Greece. [Bloomberg]

Nomura raised pay for senior executives by 79 percent last year. [Businessweek]

Russian lender Sberbank may agree to buy Denizbank of Turkey next week. [Reuters]

Deutsche won an auction for a $911 million loan portfolio from Capmark Financial. [WSJ]

Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management bought a 4.27 percent stake in InterContinental Hotels Group. [NY Times]

Morgan Stanley will buy an additional 14 percent stake in their MSSB joint venture from Citi, moving closer to full ownership of the business. [WSJ]