Where High-Growth Company Founders Start Out and Where They End Up

Economic development experts and politicians have long recognized that many cities have turned from traditional “smokestack chasing” to place-making, adding amenities — like green spaces, more walkable neighborhoods, and better public transportation — as well as investing in schools, higher education, and the arts to make themselves attractive to talented workers. Whether these efforts actually spur economic growth or are merely a product of this growth continues to be a matter of ongoing debate.

A new study by Kate Maxwell and Samuel Arbesman, "The Ascent of America’s High Growth Companies: Founder Mobility" (PDF) for the Kauffman Foundation, offers important new insights on this issue by providing data on the movements of a key group of entrepreneurial talent — the founders of Inc. 500 companies, ranked as the fastest-growing privately held firms in the United States. Covering the period 2000 to 2008, it charts the peregrinations of these founding entrepreneurs from their alma maters to the metros where they launched their companies. Geographically, these Inc. 500 companies were located in 210 metros and 49 states, which are also home to 605 universities. The research identified data on 1,702 founders over this period, including the university they attended for 1,476 of them. Ultimately, the study provides a detailed, objective handle on the flow of entrepreneurial talent and which metros are “producing,” “exporting,” “importing,” and “consuming” it.