Who are the founders of venture capital-backed initial public offering companies in the United States?

Prior research acknowledged the importance of founders in affecting firm strategy and performance, but large empirical analyses of profiles of entrepreneurial founders are scant, in part because of the difficulty in collecting founder data. This study represents the first effort to study entrepreneurial founders across half a century. Using a hand-collected unique and comprehensive dataset, this research sheds light on the demographic, educational, and career characteristics of founders for the venture capital (VC)-backed initial public offering (IPO) companies during 1960-2015. The research has useful implications for researchers and practitioners. By understanding who the founders are and where they come from, this article scratches the surface of founder characteristics and firm performance from which further work could build on and provides useful information for founders who are likely to seek VC-funding and IPO to build realistic expectations, VC firms who are interested in investing in potentially rewarding and promising new ventures to select good targets, and governments that struggle to promote entrepreneurial efforts and enhance economic development, in general, to come up with appropriate policies.