bencasselman

I think this is an important issue that's worthy of coverage. I also thought it was important to disclose that I'm not innocent/unbiased in this. FWIW, in my own higher ed writing I try to emphasize more representative schools. (I'm the author of this piece.)

I'm a journalist, not an economist, although these days my role is probably a bit in between the two. (I have the luxury of digging a lot deeper than your typical online journalist.)

This research is still new, so there's no clear consensus yet. But so far the reception has been positive. The paper tries to get at a core question that's bedeviled economics recently: How is it possible that startups could be declining, given everything happening in SV? This is probably the most sophisticated answer so far. But it doesn't mean it's 100% correct.

(I'm the author of the linked article.) At the margin, it's plausible that the effect you're describing is having an impact. But the real distinction the researchers are making is between companies that are looking to expand and those that were always intended to be small businesses. They intentionally avoided an overdetermined model ("Companies that rhyme with 'Gamma-zon' always grow huge!") and chose attributes that more generally signal the intention to grow.