How much do VCs make(base salary)?
Silicon Valley is a fascinating place for someone interested in technology. It is not only because of the companies but also because of the capital ecosystem. Venture Capitalists sit in the middle of capital allocation to startups.
Many MBA students want to join VC firms as Associates or Principals. It is one of the most sought after jobs for new graduates.
I thought I’d dig deeper into how much are these VCs paying in base salary. It would be almost impossible to get data directly from the people working in the industry.
I used the H-1B database to figure out these salaries. The first thing that struck me is that not a lot of VC firms hire H-1Bs. They probably either explicitly don’t want to hire them or people get their Green Cards or citizenships by the time VCs hire them. It’s difficult to tell but seems like VCs don’t want to hire H-1B visa holders.
I have looked at salaries offered by only 46 VC funds — a small percentage compared to the overall ecosystem. I found that many funds have never sponsored any H-1B at all.
Here are the median salary jumps across various levels:
How much do Partners make?
There are only 11 funds that have hired a partner on H-1B. The minimum salary of a partner is $200,000 and the highest is $750,000.
Only Tiger Global calls its Partner level people “Investment Analysts”. This is a significant departure in terminology than others. Also, there’s one Partner that gets paid $750,000 (3x more than the others).
The titles vary by the fund but they all possibly mean the same thing. The most common titles are — Partner and Managing Director.
Here’s an overview of the base salaries:
Highest: Tiger Global Management — $750,000
Lowest: Union Square Capital — $200,000
Most Variable: Tiger Global — $250,000 to $750,000
Median Salary: $200,000
How much do Principals make?
The number of funds that hired is also 11 but the funds are different here. For e.g. ICONIQ has hired only 1 at the Principal level but none at the Partner level.
Highest: Lightspeed Capital Management— $235,893
Lowest: General Catalyst— $130,000
Most Variable: Lightspeed Capital — $200,000 to $290,000
Median Salary: $165,000
How much do Associates make?
The landscape for jobs as an Associate on H-1B is better than other positions at VC funds. A total of 15 funds have had hired at least one Associate. This may be primarily because of the large number of talented MBA graduates available for these jobs.
VC firms also like to hire people early and groom them to the fund’s way of investing. The probability of getting hired on H-1B is at an Associate level.
The salaries also vary significantly at this level. Here’s how it looks:
Outlier: Thrive Capital — $249,999
Highest: Bain Capital — $175,000
Lowest: Thrive Capital— $80,000 (not consider Foundation’s lowest $66,000 which seems like an Analyst salary)
Most Variable: Thrive Capital — $80,000 to $249,999
Median Salary: $125,000
The VC industry definitely pays well — both in terms of base salaries and equity. But also requires a lot of hard work, risk-taking, and learning.
100% of the jobs are based in Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston. If you want to build a career in the VC industry, it’s better to move to one of these cities.
