Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/843963
22 | | Fall 2016 At Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, MBAs going into fi nance dropped from 27 percent in 2008 to 20 percent in 2015, while those entering the tech fi eld rose steeply. At University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, MBAs entering investment banking dropped more than 10 percentage points to 14 percent in 2015 over the past decade, while those entering technology more than doubled to 11 percent. It seems to be a universal trend. A recent Bloomberg report found that at Harvard Business School, only 4 percent of the 2015 graduating class planned to join a bank. "The prestige is gone," explains Jake Anderson- Bialis, a Harvard MBA who recently founded FertilityIQ.com, a website that culls reviews of fertility doctors and clinics. "The money in banking is not what it used to be, the hours are still as grueling and the regulatory burden continues to grow. Maybe those 4 percent sense an opportunity the rest of us just couldn't imagine." or decades, fi nance has been the traditional path for ambitious MBA graduates from top business schools, but now a number of would-be investors are being tempted away from Wall Street toward Silicon Valley, particularly to the world of consumer internet start-ups. According to recruiters, there are a variety of reasons why the tech industry is enticing more business school graduates than any other sector. "Today's MBAs want to be associated with innovative businesses where they can make a diff erence, have their skill set stretched and work with awesome people," says Sandy Khan, an MBA talent acquisition consultant and founder of MBAarena.com. "Of course, it helps that tech salaries are competitive and in some cases higher than banking."