Is Stanford Too Close To Silicon Valley?

nicholast writes "The New Yorker has a story by Ken Auletta about the connections between Stanford and Silicon Valley. The piece explains how important the university is to tech companies and venture capital firms, but it also questions whether Stanford has become too focused on wealth. 'It's an atmosphere that can be toxic to the mission of the university as a place of refuge, contemplation, and investigation for its own sake,' says one professor. The piece also explains Stanford's conflicted thoughts about distance education, which could transform the university or prove to be a threat to it."

Re:a misunderstanding of science and engineering

[wanax]

I think you're misunderstanding the primary complaint about the venture funding bias:
1) Stanford admissions selections, while probabilistic, are dominated by socioeconomic status (this also highly correlates with several often used measures of 'smarts', like the SAT).
2) Stanford students and graduates have privileged access to venture capital funding for their start-ups.
3) This gives incentive for a certain type of highly achieving student to apply to Stanford -- those interested in receiving VC money.
4) That incentive compromises Stanford's ability as a top-tier research institution to attract students who are interested in basic research in proportion to those interested in immediately applicable research topics.
5) Without the broad basic research base, the quality of Stanford alums starts declining because their applied ideas don't use the best current science.

I don't think, even if this cycle perpetuates that it spells death to Stanford or anything, but it sure is non-optimal in terms of technological development, and it will surely also cause a dip in the quality of Stanford's research output, which has generally been extremely high in the past 40 or so years... and given the amount of GDP the Stanford has access to and their research record in the past 40 years, that's bad news not only for the US tax payer but humanity as a whole.

Re:Stanford Grads are Awesome

[Attila Dimedici]

Why use Romney as an example of "legacy kids"? Guess what Romney's father did not go to Harvard, but Obama's did. Obama is the "legacy kid".

Re:That's a myth. Kids aren't stupid.

[jimbolauski]

I don't know where you live, but nurses are still in high demand. Two of my friends recently got nursing degrees one had a job within a week the other who did not work nights because she has a son took 1 month to find a job that fit her schedule. One month was a very long time as everyone else she graduated with had a job all ready. The unemployment rate for nurses is 2.2% that is one of the best rates for any career field.