Managerial Springboards: Employee Spillovers of Startup Accelerators

Abstract: We study whether accelerators shape employees’ careers. Drawing on employee-level resume data across the Americas and a Colombian natural experiment with wage records, we find that employees of accelerator-backed startups are more likely to become managers in other firms, earn higher wages, and face no added unemployment risk compared to peers at non-accelerated startups. These effects emerge quickly, persist over time, and occur regardless of whether the startup itself succeeds or fails. They are primarily driven by human capital accumulation, with selection, search, and signalling unable to fully explain the results. Accelerators thus create employee-level spillovers and serve as institutions of skill formation in the innovation economy