Is Stanford still a university?
I just asked the question in a New Yorker column after the Wall Street Journal reported on the deep, and unnerving, ties between a new start-up called Clinkle and the university. Clinkle was founded by a student who was an advisee of the university's president. More than a dozen computer science students, both graduate and undergraduate, dropped out to work on it. Professors have invested in it. A former business school dean is on the board.
Entrepreneurship is good, as is technological innovation. Stanford has played a crucial role in the development of Silicon Valley and in the creation of companies that do a lot of good for a lot of people. Ken Auletta wrote an extraordinary piece last year on these deep and complicated ties.
But there are very weird power dynamics and conflicts of interest here. If you are a studying computer science at Stanford, do you think you'll get a good grade if you create a company and let your professor invest? Do you think you'll get a bad one if you don't? Is dropping out of Stanford something that's becoming glorified in Silicon Valley—and is Stanford at fault for encouraging that? Remember that the founder of this company, which has encouraged all these people to abandon their studies, was an advisee of the president.
I went to Stanford and love the place. But as I wrote, I worry that the school is becoming less like a university, and more like a start-up incubator with a football team.
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11 年Stanford is not only a university, it is representing what a University should be like. Considering the fact that most people are questioning the value of a degree to begin with, it's great to see closer ties between industry and academia - especially in the business world. I personally would not go to a business school unless they had strong ties between themselves and the private sector. This is not to say that the school should be a diploma mill, but the days of the ivory towers of academia are over and shouldn't come back. Its articles like this that make me want to go to Stanford even more than I did before!
Executive Director at Integro Foundation
11 年i think the role of universities is changing. And yes, they do partially become incubators because there is a lot of learning to be done in starting a business. But that's only part of it. There is still a lot of theoretical learning at stanford, and dont forget that stanford (or any other uni) is much more than the B school
IT training, Communications Skills Training, Professional Writing and Document Management, Implementation
11 年When education outcomes are exam results and certificates then education is a failure. The true measure of education is life outcomes. Would you rather be a drop out with a business or a graduate working at startbucks. Maybe we should require all universities to accept students on a fix fee and they must keep educating and supporting that student until they have a viable life outcome, such as a professional job opportunity or an investor in their startup.
Photographer
11 年Of course there still a university, they have a football program.
Is XX University still a University? Just insert the name of any University ... Most Universities have Commercialisation Units. Some Universities have taken legal action to claim IP rights over creations of their employees and students ... Lucky Universities are charities for the benefit of society, isn't it?