<p>Most CEOs started their careers in entry-level positions. There are a few esceptions, such as Michael Dell and Bill Gates, who started a business from scratch.</p>
<p>There are founder-CEOs who bring in more experienced hands to run the business after it had grown beyond their ability to manage it.</p>
<p>There are probably more founder-CEOs who went to Stanford than anywhere else. I’ve read that people who who enter established businesses and then rise to CEO are likely to have gone to schools with large student bodies. Cornell and Penn State were well prepresented one list of CEOs I recall having seen.</p>
<p>Graduates of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton who are old enough to be CEOS are more likely to take advantage of opportunities that are more lucrative out of the gate (in finance, medicine, or law) that reliably led to substantial remuneration, but were less likely to lead to a position in corporate management.</p>