<p>What a lot of people fail to understand is that everything about the Silicon Valley is so tied to one single school. Here is the transcript from a speech given by Professor William Miller (Stanford bschool) to a European crowd on the success of Stanford/Silicon Valley symbiosis. </p>
<p>Profile of Miller:</p>
<p>Byerly, what earthquake? Do you have the link to the Gazette article? I'm curious about Harvard copying Stanford's programs. Shouldn't Stanford keep them a secret? Why should Harvard benefit from Stanford's success and just copy them?</p>
<p>I wouldn't use the word "copying". All these schools enjoy a successful, collaborative relationship, and they all learn from each other. Stanford's approach to managing institution-industry relationship was inspired by what MIT had done, for example.</p>
<p>I tried to find the Gazette article but could no longer locate it. Nevertheless here is one that talks about Yale learning from Stanford:</p>
<p>Note the article also does mention Yale's own strengths that would be hard for Stanford to emulate. The point it, all of these schools are excellent and unique. It's all about fit. Ask any facutly member/administrator at these schools and they'll tell you the same. There is no "pecking order" such as what is often conceived. What strikes me as amusing is the people who tend to feel intensely of this "pecking order" more often than not are either rejects or wannabes.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Stanford's strengths will also be very hard to emulate. Both Berkeley and MIT have engineering schools on par with Stanford's but neither school enjoys the same kind of access to capital and industry. A big part is the infrastructure that Stanford has amassed (i.e. the world's venture capital money is just down the road). Have you heard of the Stanford Research Park? Acres of land right along Page Mill Road leased to such companies as HP (headquarters), Accenture, Wallstreet Journal, UBS, Xerox etc. Stanford still has thousands of acres of undeveloped land. (Close to 9000, I believe.) And there is also the culture. Risk-taking and adaptability is Stanford's game. These will be really hard to emulate.</p>
<p>Here is some stuff about why Route 128 (around Boston, which is whre America's tech center used to be) dwindled while the Silicon Valley came to be:</p>
<p>Stanford has an incredible infrastructure in science and technology. The institution was led by real visionaires such as Terman in the 1950s and 1960s, who helped build Stanford and the entire Silicon Valley into what they are now. Most institutions in the Northeast have been left way behind by this revolution -- and they're <em>much</em> further behind than many of them realize (I live in the Northeast now).</p>
<p>Yet Stanford's recent success is largely based on the electronics and computer industry, and it's not clear how long they'll be able to ride that wave. In the 1960s and 1970s, the "big thing" was semiconductor technology, and Stanford got it right. But nobody knows what the "next big thing that changes the world" is going to be: nanotechnology, stem cells, molecular imaging, genomics, or whatever else. For an institution, the challenge isn't necessarily to keep pushing yesterday's technologies and reveling in your past success, but rather to put yourself into the strongest possible position to develop that "next big thing."</p>
<p>Despite his shortcomings in my opinion, Lawrence Summers at Harvard seems to understand this. He appears to envision the new Harvard campus as an incubator of biotechnology (in effect a Silicon Valley of biotechnology), and they have the infrastructure to make something like that happen. If that initiative ever succeeds, it wouldn't surprise me if <em>that</em> becomes the next big thing.</p>
<p>Stanford is pushing Stem Cells really hard. It also helps that the state of California passed the large grant for stem cell research, making California the leader in stem cells.</p>
<p>I don't think Harvard has the capability to ride the stem cell wave in the same way that Stanford can. The Northeast is an economic dead zone. Only California can pursue the wave of the future.</p>
<p>You're only partially correct. Boston has always been big in biological sciences. Plus the proximity to New Jersey. MIT and Harvard make formidable competition to Stanford.</p>
<p>But Stanford is indeed pushing stem cells really hard. Not only do they have Bio-X/Clark Center (funded by ex-Stanford prof and founder of Netscape and Silion Graphics, Jim Clark), they also hired away top people from Harvard and Michigan just recently. (c.f. <a href="http://www.stanforddaily.com/tempo?page=content&id=17576&repository=0001_article%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanforddaily.com/tempo?page=content&id=17576&repository=0001_article</a>) Furthermore, emerging biological technologies, unlike traditional biological sciences, will draw very heavily from EE and CS knowhow. (Think about artificial organs, intelligent implants, nanotech, etc.) The fact that Stanford is very interdiciplinary and have their CS, EE Bioengineering and Med school all across the street from each other will be a huge boost. They have also started an Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering recently. Emerging technologies is all about computation, simulation, machine learning, etc. </p>
<p>Harvard is a very decentralized institution. Different schools within the university essentially function like completely independent entities, with very unequal resources. That doesn't bode well for today's kind of research. But nevertheless, Harvard has always been and will remain a major force in biology and medicine.</p>
<p>(You're also right that in terms of the regulatory environment California is THE stem cells place in the US. The state just approved $3billion for stem cells research.)</p>
<p>"Even if the university fully invests in technology, even if Harvard were to merge with MIT (yes, it has been proposed in the past)."</p>
<p>The MIT merger is a very slim possibility, right, since Harvard is investing so much in its own engineering department?</p>
<p>Stanford has a history of pioneering in the new things very well. It's an entrepreneurial, go-getter sort of school. Harvard and the Northesast schools are always one step behind. That's simply their culture. They are afraid to brave new waters and only want to commit themselves to the tried and true method. This is why all the ivies lag in engineering and are so good in liberal arts. Stanford has always pushed to the fore in terms of the newest technology, which is why they capitalized on engineering in the 20th century, the digital age int he 21st century, and probably bio-technology in the years to come. </p>
<p>After Stanford takes full advantage of the bio-tech industry, there is a very large possibility that Stanford will become the most prestigious university in the world. The ivies will still be highy sought after, but Stanford, and by extension, California, will be THE place to be (if it isn't already).</p>
<p>Hmm . . . seems like you are saying that MIT lags. I don't think that is quite accurate. There are many start up on the east coast and the west coast that are started by MIT grads . . . not so the Harvard grads, except maybe facebook. ;-)</p>
<p>No I didn't suggest anything like that--although it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case either. The Boston area still has a large number of startups, even today, and perhaps is second only to the Silicon Valley area. Nevertheless I think there is consensus that Stanford leads in entrepreneurship in technology, both by number and by impact. That's just there culture. And the environment really nutures it too. The saying is that almost every company in the Silicon Valley is related to Stanford or to some Stanford person in one way or the other (in a graph theory or social network sense).</p>
<p>There are actually many Harvard startups, though perhaps not the kind we're thinking of. Harvard grads also figure quite prominently in the Silicon Valley area. By some measure I saw a while ago, VC firms in the SV area are filled with MBAs from Stanford, Harvard and Wharton (in that order too, I recall).</p>
<p>Intel, SUN got its technology from some where other than SF. SF has not contributed to any specific technology paradign. Even Browser came fron UI Urbana( Mark Andessen). Apple was started by a college drop out and Berkeley grad. MSFT was started by a West guy who went Harvard. Other than HP, there is no SF driven/originated to speak off.</p>
<p>Stanford is going down( 50% CA class which turning 30% Hispanics, 30% asians). And the center is moving to Asia for electronics/software.
Safest Engineering profession is CIVIL now, can of shore that roof or bridge.</p>
<p>"Stanford is going down( 50% CA class which turning 30% Hispanics, 30% asians)."</p>
<p>Are you implying that these minorities are somehow bringing down the university?</p>
<p>As usual, baba's statements are completely incorrect and misleading. </p>
<p>The SUN in SUN Microsystems stands for Stanford University Networking and the firm was very much founded on the university's campus as were several other prominent technology firms. </p>
<p>The statistics regarding Stanford's undergraduate enrollment are also completely incorrect with 10.8% Hispanic as opposed to "30%," and 23.9% Asian as opposed to "30%." Also, CA enrollment at Stanford is 40.3% not "50%," so baba was wrong on every quoted statistic.</p>
<p>That was kind of retarded for him to say that SUN microsystems wasn't related to Stanford when SUN stands for Stanford University Network. LOL! that's probably one of the dumbest things baba ever said.</p>
<p>Baba has said a lot of dumb things, may I point out. His statistics are usually flawed.</p>
<p>Stanford's prominence in the tech fields cannot be doubted.</p>
<p>SUN used UNIX from UCB as core technology. CIO</p>
<p>As usual baba you have not read the information on the page which I linked that proves, categorically, that you are completely incorrect. </p>
<p>Additionally, you misquoted and misrepresented facts about Stanford's undergraduate enrollment.</p>
<p>Inuendo wrote</p>
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As usual baba you have not read the information on the page which I linked that proves, categorically, that you are completely incorrect.
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<p>Actual, baba has a point: Sun's operating system, Solaris, was derived from the Berkeley Software Distribution developed by Bill Joy while he was a graduate student at UC Berkeley. Solaris is now ported to Intel's x86 architecture to compete with Linux, so the hardware, while important historically to the company, is now in danger of becoming irrelevant. Sun started another round of deep layoffs last week. Also working alongside Bill Joy at Berekely were two undergraduates, Lynne Greer and William Jolitz, who went on to create 386BSD, which is the ancestor of the Darwin core of the Macintosh OS X (which is why Apple technically can run on Intel computers).</p>
<p>The hardware for SUN was developed by Andreas Bechtolsheim, who was a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford...but he has never actually received a degree from Stanford (he dropped out). Bechtolsheim is now a founding member of Carnegie-Mellon University's West Coast campus. The other founders of Sun (Khosla and McNealy) were alums of Stanford biz school, not undergraduates. </p>
<p>kdqol points to some interesting articles, but it should be pointed that Miller's speech took place in 1998, during the height of the Dot Com (some say "Dot Con") silliness, and really needs to be taken with a grain of salt. For example, the Yamaha chip professor may have made $5 million and became "very happy", and the department may have been happy, but nobody can name any undergraduates who were very happy because the courses offered at CCRMA were primarily for graduate students. Miller (who earned all of his degrees from Purdue University) is of course being very self-serving.</p>
<p>kdqol wrote:</p>
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<p>The unspoken word is most of these Stanford-related supreme court justices were in fact nominated to become Supreme Court Justices by President Ronald Reagan. The key thing to remember is that, historically, Reagan hated Berkeley and he hated hippies. A great Reagan quote about a hippy: "His hair was cut like Tarzan, he acted like Jane and he smelled like Cheetah". :D As Republican governor of California, he had to call the National Guard to quell down the rowdy protests by six thousand radicals at the Berkely campus in 1969. As President, nothing gave him more satisfaction than elevating Berkeley's rival. Ironically, Stanford wouldn't return the favor. When Reagan wanted to establish his memorial library on the Stanford campus, the university declined. </p>
<p>kdqol wrote:</p>
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<p>Two of those Nobel prize winners you mention have since left Stanford. Robert Laughlin, with a B.S. from UC Berekely and PhD from MIT, is now the president of KAIST. Steven Chu, with a B.S. from the University of Rochester and a PhD from UC Berkeley, is now the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.</p>
<p>kdqol wrote:</p>
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<p>The important thing is to distinguish between graduate and undergraduate alumni, and faculty. For example, of all of the companies you name, only HP, Yahoo!, and Charles Schwab have undergraduate alumni. Yahoo! is interesting because David Filo (with a B.S. from Tulane) was given more shares in the company than Yang in acknowledgement of Filo's greater technical contribution. Filo had written most of the original software for Yahoo! (cobbled together with Unix utilities such as grep), and would author the Filo Server Pages at the company. HP was founded in the 1930's, quite a while back. Netscape's co-founder Jim Clark was a former Stanford Research Professor, which doesn't mean he taught any classes, and besides, when he founded Netscape with Marc Andreessen, they basically raided the Mosaic team at NCSA (run by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Andreessen and Eric Bina, the two authors of Mosaic, got their B.S.'s from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. </p>
<p>kdqol wrote:</p>
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<p>That is a historical inaccuracy. "Silicon Valley" is named for silicon dioxide, which is a semiconductor: when doped with impurities, it can act as a signal amplifier that, when saturated, can represent discrete logic values. The semiconductor transistor was created circa 1948 at Bell Labs in New Jersey by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley. Shockley was the supervisor of Bardeen and Brattain, and was a brilliant yet very competitive guy. Shockley was unhappy that Bardeen and Brattain were getting so much credit for the invention of the transistor, and he left Bell Labs and headed back to his alma mater, Caltech, where he met with Arnold Beckman, a Caltech professor with a PhD from Caltech. Beckman had started up his own company Beckman Instruments, and wanted to help Shockley commercialize semiconductor transistors. Shockley's mother was living in Palo Alto at the time, and she was sick; Shockley had also just gone through a divorce. That's the principle reason why Shockley moved to Palo Alto rather than sticking around in Pasadena to establish Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory as a division of Beckman Instruments. Then Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain (the latter still at Bell Labs at the time) all received the Nobel Prize, and Shockley's management style (which was always weird and abrasive) just continued to get more bizarre. So eight of his most trusted employees (whom he had personally recruited) quit Shockley Labs to start their own company, and got venture capital from the inventor and entrepreneur, Sherman Fairchild, a Harvard drop-out (due to tuberculosis) who had founded Fairchild Camera and Instruement Company, and made major developments in flash photography. The new company became Fairchild Semiconductor. Two of the eight, Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce left Fairchild and founded Intel. (Moore had received his B.S. from UC Berekely, and his PhD from Caltech; Noyce had received his B.S. from Grinell College and his PhD from MIT.) Noyce is credited as a co-inventor of the integrated circuit along with Jack Kilby, who just died this past week. (Kilby got his B.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and invented his version of the circuit in Dallas, Texas, working for Texas Instruments, which was co-founded by MIT alums) The Italian-born and -educated Frederico Faggin would leave Intel to start Zilog. Other employees would leave Fairchild to create Advanced Micro Devices (aka AMD, as in the modern day AMD64), which would become a second-source to Intel. (For security reasons, the federal government required that Intel have a second source, just in case anything happened to Intel's manufacturing capabilities). Another semiconductor company, National Semiconductor, was co founded by Floyd Kvamme, who had gotten his B.S. from UC Berekeley. Companies begat other companies, and they all were building their enormous campuses on the cheap available land in the South Bay Area that was formerly used for orchards. </p>
<p>This is why the Valley became known as "Silicon Valley": Silicon Dioxide, luck (as in Shockley's mom being in the South Bay) , cheap real estate, and the initial gathering of minds, which in turn fueled more companies that decided to stick around in the area. </p>
<p>In addition, when Intel went public, it created multi-millionaires. Among these was Mike Markulla, who had a B.S. from the University of Southern California, and had gone to work at Intel. After the IPO, he invested $250,000 of his money into a little company called Apple Computer and worked behind the scenes mentoring Steve Wozniak (a Berkeley undergraduate who had created the Apple I) and Steve Jobs. The company created the commercial PC revolution, and spurred IBM to create its version of a personal computer (developed in Boca Raton, Florida, under the management of IBM's Don Estridge), which changed history forever. </p>
<p>The key thing to understand is that HP did not start investigating semiconductors until six years after Fairchild Semiconductor had formed, and even then it, only researched semiconductors for internal purposes. It never went into mass production of semiconductors, so it cannot in any way be called the "birthplace of Silicon Valley". </p>
<p>Another key point is to notice the names that keep reappearing: Caltech, MIT, UC Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</p>
<p>kdqol wrote:</p>
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Stanford also played a role in the founding of Intel, of course. Andrew Grove still teaches at the business school.
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<p>That is also somewhat historically inaccurate. Andrew Grove, who got his B.S. from the City College of New York, and his PhD from Berekeley. I think he did not start teaching at the biz school until the 1980s, well after Intel's founding in 1968.</p>
<p>kdqol wrote:</p>
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<p>The key word is "attended"; Tiger dropped out. Of the names kdqo lists, only Yang has an undergraduate degree from Stanford. Tiger Woods was successful regardless of Stanford. </p>
<p>kdqol wrote:</p>
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<p>When Steve Jobs returned to become CEO of Apple Computer, he only accepted a symbolic $1 in annual salary. Hennessey, by contrast, is one greedy guy. His current annual salary from Stanford is over $500,000, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. In addition he serves on the board of directors as MIPS, from which he gets more money. He gets royalties from his textbooks. Plus he received 65,000 shares from Google in order to be on their Board of Directors. It makes the Senior Class of 2005's gift of $72,000 look pretty foolish. Hennessey is laughing all the way to the bank.</p>
<p>kdqol wrote:</p>
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<p>Current CEO of Pfizer is Hank McKinnell, with a bachelor's degree in business from the University of British Columbia.</p>
<p>The current CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, received his B.A. in applied math/econ from Harvard. (He apparently also scored pretty well in the Putnam math competition) Ballmer was kind of Bill Gate's "older brother" at Harvard, sponsoring Gates' induction into his fraternity. Ballmer dropped out of Stanford Business School after one year.</p>
<p>Current CEO of Canon is Fujio Mitarai. His undergraduate degree is from Chuo University.</p>
<p>Fiorina and "outstanding" don't go well together. Perhaps kdqol meant to say "ousted". Unforutnately Fiorina had a horrible record as CEO of HP. HP's stocks fell preciptiously during her reign. HP employees hated her guts and she surrounded herself with round-the-clock bodyguards, individual shareholders were angered by the merger with Compaq (even booing her en masse at a shareholder's meeting), and finally, earlier this year, the board of directors accepted their mistake and ordered her to resign.</p>
<p>Regarding Sun Microsystems founding, yes it was off theStanford University Network (SUN). Taking a look at the individuals:</p>
<p>Andy Bechtolscheim - Carnegie Mellon undergrad, Stanford graduate school
Bill Joy - University of Michigan undergrad, Berkeley graduate school
Scott McNealy - Harvard Economics degree, Stanford MBA (it took him a few tries to get in).</p>