Search fellowship

Definition

A school stipend that pays a graduate to search instead of take a job.

Why It Matters

A search is unpaid until somebody funds it, and for a first-time searcher out of a business school the first money is often the school's own. A fellowship pays a stipend for a fixed window, usually a year, and it is not investment. It buys no equity and takes no board seat, which is why it is worth knowing about before a searcher sells part of a cap table for the same runway. Several schools in the survey here publish a named program, and the terms differ enough that the word alone tells a reader nothing.

In numbers: A fellowship paying $50,000 for a year buys the same runway a searcher might otherwise raise by selling 10 percent of a search fund's cap table, and it takes none of it.