We document an unprecedented brain drain of Artificial Intelligence (AI) professors from universities from 2004 to 2018. We find that students from the affected universities establish fewer AI startups and raise less funding. The brain-drain effect is significant for tenured professors, professors from top universities, and deep-learning professors. Additional evidence suggests that unobserved city- and university-level shocks are unlikely to drive our results. We consider several economic channels for the findings. The most consistent explanation is that professors' departures reduce startup founders' AI knowledge, which we find is an important factor for successful startup formation and fundraising.

中文翻译：

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人工智能、教育与创业

我们记录了 2004 年至 2018 年大学人工智能 (AI) 教授前所未有的人才流失情况。我们发现，受影响大学的学生创办的人工智能初创公司较少，筹集的资金也较少。对于终身教授、顶尖大学教授和深度学习教授来说，人才流失效应非常显着。其他证据表明，未观察到的城市和大学层面的冲击不太可能推动我们的结果。我们考虑了研究结果的几个经济渠道。最一致的解释是，教授的离职减少了初创公司创始人的人工智能知识，我们发现这是成功初创公司组建和融资的重要因素。