None of them succeeded because of technology alone. They won with smart strategy, impeccable timing, and unicorn skills – not just innovation.

That’s why MIT, the world’s leading technology university, isn’t dominating the billionaire rankings. Instead, Harvard and Stanford – schools known more for business and strategy than for breakthrough tech – are producing the most billionaires.

MIT has helped power tech revolutions, but entrepreneurs require more than just technology to develop unicorns – because technology alone rarely builds unicorns.

Among 87 billion-dollar entrepreneurs, only 1% succeeded primarily due to technology. Here’s why:

Most technologies can be imitated and improved in emerging industries. And most evolutionary technology improvements can be imitated and improved in existing industries by stronger competitors – by doing slight tweaks to the patent or by buying the fledgling company to give VCs an exit.

Most Unicorn-Entrepreneurs did not succeed with innovative tech. They succeeded by identifying an emerging trend – and using strategy and business skills to lead it. In many cases, the billion-dollar entrepreneurs imitated the innovation and improved on the strategy. Look at these examples:

These founders had the skills to enter emerging industries started by new, revolutionary technologies. They excelled at evaluating the patterns, finding the best strategy that could dominate this emerging industry, and using finance-smart skills to takeoff without VC to stay in control – not by inventing a unicorn technology.

In my research, 94% of billion-dollar entrepreneurs used strategy and skills to build their ventures before attracting VC on their own terms—or avoided it entirely. Some notable examples:

They didn’t chase VC. They made VCs chase them. Or they avoided VC.

Getting VC is often seen as a badge of success. But it comes with a cost. About 80% of VC-funded ventures fail, and up to about 80% of VC-backed founders are replaced with professional CEOs, according to Noam Wasserman in the Founders’ Dilemma. There are many reasons why Founder-CEOs may be better than a Professional-CEO at building unicorns – but that is for a future blog.

However, the net result is that the VCs and hired CEOs get rich in the few successes when the Founder-CEOs are fired. Among 22 billion-dollar entrepreneurs I studied, those who delayed or avoided VC and stayed in control kept 2x to 7x more of the wealth their ventures created.

It’s time to rethink how we teach entrepreneurship. Instead of focusing only on innovation and VC, we should teach founders how to:

• Spot and ride emerging trends
• Develop Unicorn strategies
• Master the skills to lead from startup to domination
• Stay in control to build wealth and impact.

That’s how 94% of billion-dollar entrepreneurs did it. Harvard and Stanford emphasize strategy and leadership. MIT seems to emphasize technology. That’s why Harvard and Stanford lead in billionaires—and why it’s time for a new model of education. It’s time we built better unicorn entrepreneurs, not just unicorn innovations.