Venture for America Wants to Steal the Smart Kids Back from Finance

Take that, Goldman Sachs.

Mr. Yang (Photo: Venture for America)

It’s a sad fact about modern American society that a vast amount of our brightest minds are plucked straight from college graduation every year and thrown into finance–which, you might be surprised to hear, is not the most noble of industries. Enter Venture for America, which wants to yank all those promising, freshly-graduated young people from the clutches of investment firms and land them at startups.

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New York-based Venture for America was started by UPenn grad Andrew Yang, who dreamed up the concept while employed at test prep company Manhattan GMAT. According to Bloomberg, it functions a lot like the popular post-grad program Teach for America, placing budding entrepreneurs in companies with less than 10 people. The companies are located all over the country, and Mr. Yang hopes that padding their ranks with Ivy Leaguers will help kickstart local economies.

It sounds like an innovative engine for job creation. But considering startup failure rates, let’s just hope Venture for America doesn’t add to ranks of the unemployed.

Venture for America Wants to Steal the Smart Kids Back from Finance