What do they do?
Pick Stanford if you dream to become an entrepreneur before or shortly after you graduate (MIT would consume too much of your spare time with its more rigorous curriculum). Otherwise, pick MIT.
Maybe 2001-2003 instead of the 1990s, when the few venture capital firms that were still considering investing in startup companies were reputedly more interested in the company’s outsourcing plan than its business plan.
Ha. That’s true.
If either of these schools is “better” at CS or entrepreneurship, the difference is negligible. Proximity to the industry can help, but MIT doesn’t have any trouble getting its graduates into Silicon Valley tech companies. Lots of tech entrepreneurship happens on the West Coast, but certainly not all of it, and you don’t need to be here to start a tech company (and the pandemic is accelerating the pace of that change). In fact, you may find conditions more favorable outside of Silicon Valley - there are a lot of regions that are giving incentives and tax breaks to attract a tech industry to their area.
So I’d make this choice based on culture and personal preference. Where would you rather go to college? Which university’s culture and environment are a better fit for you?
I’m with Juliet. I encouraged my son to go back and really look at the culture at these schools. While at MIT, he had internships in SV. Between UG and grad school, he had internships at start ups and big companies It is so very personal For my son, he didn’t want the hours at a start up. He loves his wife, cooking, weekend adventures, his puppy, etc.
P.s. I didn’t realize rivet’s son was in same field.
On the academic side, don’t forget to consider each school’s general education requirements.
https://undergrad.stanford.edu/student-handbook/general-education-requirements
Also note that MIT uses the semester system (two 15-week semesters per academic year) while Stanford uses the quarter system (three 10-week quarters per academic year). If you want to compare course “sizes” or “volumes”, Stanford units are quarter hours. MIT units are 1/3 of a semester hour each, so 2 MIT units = 1 Stanford unit.
I think that you should look at the general education requirements for both schools. Also look at the requirements for a CS major for both schools. When I was there MIT had quite a few EE courses required for a CS degree (major 6-3). However, since then they have added 18C (Mathematics with Computer Science) as a potential major which of course has no required EE and quite a bit of required math.
MIT has very intensive courses that you typically take fewer of, and has the semester system. It was common to take 4 classes at a time. At Stanford students will typically take 5 classes at a time and it is on the quarter system. This means that the end of the quarter comes up quite quickly, but you get to take more courses in a year. If you like a course a lot and it is in an area where you want to specialize you take the next in the sequence the following quarter. If you just wanted a bit you just take one class for one quarter and get to learn a fair amount then get on to something else next quarter.
At MIT you pretty much get the full four seasons this week. It snowed today. By Tuesday it should almost have Stanford like weather (warm and sunny).
I personally liked my time at Stanford better. However, this was probably mostly because I was older (I did my master’s at Stanford) and was more ready to work hard. You need to be committed to work hard and focus on your education 100% at either of these schools.
I have seen a great deal of this, and it is accelerating. IMHO the only way to stay relevant is to be one of the best. However, you are comparing two of the very top schools either of which will maximize your chances to do exactly that.
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More like, someone who can get admitted to them is more likely to be able to do that.
Hmmm, I actually prefer a combination of both sentiments (@DadTwoGirls and @ucbalumnus ), Something like: Someone who can get admitted to these top schools will be able to take advantage of all they offer, maximizing their chances to reach their full potential… 
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why is this even a question. Stop asking and just go with college fit