Back in the early 2000s when startups were not cool, it was much less likely to find people with business degrees working in a startup. They preferred Wall St companies and big companies in general.
But once startups started to seem cool we got shows like Shark Tank and Silicon Valley is full of people for whom traditional definitions of status and hierarchy are a big part of their self identity and aspirational posture. Those who would otherwise have gone to work at Goldman or Deloitte are now bringing their status-seeking worldview to startups. While not all have business degrees, many have the same kind of high achiever / status focus. They want an impressive title and they want a team under them, etc.
The VC world is poor at discerning the correct signals, because many such employees have impressive educational pedigrees which we all know helps to sell "the team" to the next round of investors, and they are usually pretty good at making decks, etc.
I think the financial crisis was also a big part of it. Goldman et al were no longer hiring, or if they were it wasn't with the big bonuses and people hated bankers (more than usual I mean) so there was an additional incentive not to go to NYC and instead head west.
It is just the pay to quality of life ratio. Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and even Amazon offered much better pay to quality of life at work ratios than finance and law. And still do, because they have been and continue to be far more profitable than Goldman and the other banks.
There are plenty of homes for the status-hungry, be they startups or FAANGs. I'd hoped they'd get bored of tech and leave, but there's too much money around, and status doesn't really leave professions very quickly. I do think they've changed the culture though. Primarily thinking about the weird way devs treat the FAANGs of the world: devs from there are seen as uber-geniuses without even saying anything. It's like we all need to believe that is true to ensure that those places remain high status in our mind.
But once startups started to seem cool we got shows like Shark Tank and Silicon Valley is full of people for whom traditional definitions of status and hierarchy are a big part of their self identity and aspirational posture. Those who would otherwise have gone to work at Goldman or Deloitte are now bringing their status-seeking worldview to startups. While not all have business degrees, many have the same kind of high achiever / status focus. They want an impressive title and they want a team under them, etc.
The VC world is poor at discerning the correct signals, because many such employees have impressive educational pedigrees which we all know helps to sell "the team" to the next round of investors, and they are usually pretty good at making decks, etc.