[slopnv]

Based from your experience as an advisor for a VC group, how will a graduate degree be helpful in founding a biotech or nanotech firm? Do you think an undergraduate degree is enough to found say a company like Hewlett-Packard? My opinion is that, with an undergraduate degree, it seems more possible to start a software/internet company than in any other high-tech industyr. Thanks!

[dekhn]

I think the graduate degree helps because it contains many signals, such as 5-7 years of work on a project, an advisor, and papers. That said I'm more than happy to fund smart undergraduates, but it's really hard to see signals that make any one undergraduate stick out from the crowd (doing graduate-level research and publishing papers as an undergraduate is a good signal).