Fortune Aug. 9, 2016

What the Founders of Facebook, Snapchat and Home Depot Have in Common

They were all brothers—technically speaking.

Uber. Snapchat. Dropbox. Lyft. Blue Apron. EventBrite. Warby Parker.

All of them are private companies valued at $1 billion or more. But their valuations aren’t the only thing these so-called unicorns have in common: they each have at least one founder who was part of a fraternity.

Greek life, particularly in recent years, has been criticized for its promotion of binge drinking, hazing and other bad behavior. At the same time, it’s also been instrumental in the development of some of today’s best-known businesses. Take Evan Spiegel, who developed the wildly successful app Snapchat with two of his Kappa Sigma brothers at Stanford. Spiegel had a leadership role at the fraternity—he was social chair—before the chapter was kicked off campus for throwing a party where alcohol was served during a university-mandated “dry” weekend. Snapchat likely wouldn’t have existed if Spiegel .....

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