5 ms·

University of California launches $250M fund for student startups on campus

71 points by littletimmy 11y ago

littletimmy 11y ago
IMO, this is really concerning. A university, as an institution, is very different from a tech incubator. It is a place that should be somewhat removed from the commercial world where the idealists have a space to explore their interests without being subject to in-your-face money-making activity. This also introduces a lot of complications. Say a professor starts a company, is it ethical for him to ask students to work for him? If a student starts a company, and an influential professor wants a board seat, can the 19yo student comfortably say no?
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Say a professor starts a company, is it ethical for him to ask students to work for him? If a student starts a company, and an influential professor wants a board seat, can the 19yo student comfortably say no? I'm not sure why these are particular concerns with a venture fund backed by the University's investment office focused on endeavors emerging from the university community (faculty, staff, and alumni.) They are issues that, to the extent that they exist with such a venture, exist whenever students and faculty members are involved in business ventures (no matter whether they receive funding for those ventures from a university-affiliated venture fund), and are quite likely already addressed in university academic ethics and conduct rules.
  - noddingham 11y ago
    Agreed. While the method may be new (a university fund specifically dedicated to startups), the fact is that academic research has led to the creation of companies, patents, etc., in other fields for decades now. TFA: "The University of California has been granted more patents than any other university in the world and has over 30 accelerators and incubators. More than 800 startups with UC patents have been founded since 1980." And it probably won't be 19yo students, it will be graduate, PhD, and post-docs, many of whom are actively trying to find the next big thing in their field. Doesn't seem like much news here other than good press for the UC system, and good on them for making dollars easier to get besides trying for an NSF grant.
- lint_roller 11y ago
  Universities are already pre-professional for the vast majority of students. I think the idea of a university being a place of exploration and self-discovery is a lofty ideal of a bygone era for all but children of the upper middle class and wealthy. College used to be more optional; today it's practically a prerequisite for a middle class lifestyle.
  - matthewbauer 11y ago
    Except it really isn't any more. If all you want is a job, there are tons of resources online that will give you much more practical experience than universities. All that it's really missing is some accreditation for employers to use to filter out the talent from the dead weight. University idealism is alive and well I think if you look past the undergraduate programs you'd agree.
    - raziel2701 11y ago
      If all you want is a job then this will be easier if your diploma says UC Berkeley vs self-taught. We can split hairs all day about exceptional cases of people being great at something without a formal education but for the great majority of people a college degree is simply the new minimal education that employers are seeking.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    The lofty ideal is still alive and kicking at Berkeley's peers on the Top 20 lists. College as a box to check off disinterestedly is more the purview of a mediocre football-obsessed and frat-oriented institution than an intellectual beacon like Berkeley.
    - lint_roller 11y ago
      You picked an outlier top university frequented by the offspring of the upper middle class and wealthy. My point stands -- the notion is elitist and has no hope of reflecting the reality of most Americans' relationship with higher education.
- klunger 11y ago
  Many universities already have a technology transfer office of some sort, for work done by researchers on staff using university resources. TTOs mostly deal patent management, but sometimes they fund spin-off companies as well. Extending this kind of resource to entrepreneurial students is a pretty natural move.
- erispoe 11y ago
  This is an idealized view of science and academia that has no grounding in reality. People in academia feel a lot of pressure to research specific topics. The pressure is not necessarily from the market, but from publications. If you "explore your interests" without looking at what would be publishable or not, chances are you're not gonna get a job in academia. These considerations of publication are often quite short-term oriented. Conversely, you find investors comfortable in investing in businesses having slim chances of profitability before at least 10 years, because fundamental research can lead to huge market gains down the road. So it's far from being a case of intellectual freedom against quick profits.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
dude01 11y ago
How much evidence of a bubble do we need? When even universities get into the incubator business...
- secondtimeuse 11y ago
  Universities have always been in the incubator business. The bubble actually forces universities to be more transparent about their IP licensing policies. Do read how Netscape was rewritten due to licensing issues. There is a reason why UIUC gets a bad rep. If anything this is good side effect of bubble, since it forces universities to re-examine their licensing practises and invent new IP models that distinguish between software and medical drug/device inventions. " University of Illinois v. Andreessen (1994) - The web revolution began at the University of Illinois with the first graphics based browser, Mosaic, but few are aware of its history. The open source code which spawned both Netscape and Internet Explorer was created by graduate students using open source code. The university sued the students for trademark infringement in an attempt to capture royalties even though the source code was available for free on the web. The developers offered the university shares in the newly launched Netscape which would have netted UL over $8 million. Instead, the university chose a prolonged legal battle which was settled for $2.7 million, bankrupted Netscape, allowed Microsoft Explorer to capture the browser market and left University of Illinois out of the legacy of the innovation. " http://www.ipadvocate.org/forum/dispute.cfm?Type=Disputes http://www.ipadvocate.org/forum/dispute.cfm?Type=Disputes http://markvillacampa.com/2014/01/13/the-day-i-learned-about-mosaic-from-marc-andreessen/ http://markvillacampa.com/2014/01/13/the-day-i-learned-about...
  - alexophile 11y ago
    I'm still having trouble nailing down the timeline on this, but it seems like, at some point there were two companies, both with access to the mosaic source and both rebuilding it from scratch. One of those companies had licensed it, the other hadn't. Obviously there's more to it than that, but in 1994, I can see how this would look to lawyers. That said, I think public university research should all be public domain so we avoid this entirely, but there's a whole waterfall of other problems that come with that. Also, as a graduate of UIUC, I'm curious about this bad rep. I know their entrepreneurship initiatives are pretty dismal but I still don't understand why that's a uni's job. All the cs/engineers that graduated when I did went straight into great jobs.
DanFeldman 11y ago
This is good. Berkeley's startup ecosystem is lacking compared to Stanford and MIT, I can only imagine its worse at the other UCs. While more specified programs to encourage students to build and try something would be ideal, funding alone is a solid step forward.
- kelukelugames 11y ago
  As grad of Berkeley and MIT, I'm curious why you think Cal's is lacking to MIT? This assertion contradicts both data and anecdotes.
  - beambot 11y ago
    Links to data would be appreciated... rather than just saying "data contradicts this."
    - kelukelugames 11y ago
      http://readwrite.com/2012/12/03/one-university-to-rule-them-all-stanfurd-tops-startup-list http://readwrite.com/2012/12/03/one-university-to-rule-them-... http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/10/vc-joanne-chen-on-how-shes-helping-berkeley-catch.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/10/vc... http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2015/04/uc-berkeley-stanfurd-startups.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2015/04/uc-berk... A lot of these "rankings" has Stanfurd, Cal, MIT or Stanfurd, MIT, Cal. The one data point I can't find anymore is VC money raised. It's basically Stanfurd >> Cal >> everyone else.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
- superuser2 11y ago
  > encourage students to build If you can build a startup and do an academic program at the same time, your academic program isn't anywhere near rigorous enough. Seeing students pass their classes while putting Silicon Valley-level hours in their companies should evsicerate the reputations of the institutions. This is not good at all.

71 points by littletimmy 11y ago

IMO, this is really concerning. A university, as an institution, is very different from a tech incubator. It is a place that should be somewhat removed from the commercial world where the idealists have a space to explore their interests without being subject to in-your-face money-making activity. This also introduces a lot of complications. Say a professor starts a company, is it ethical for him to ask students to work for him? If a student starts a company, and an influential professor wants a board seat, can the 19yo student comfortably say no?

dragonwriter 11y ago
> Say a professor starts a company, is it ethical for him to ask students to work for him? If a student starts a company, and an influential professor wants a board seat, can the 19yo student comfortably say no? I'm not sure why these are particular concerns with a venture fund backed by the University's investment office focused on endeavors emerging from the university community (faculty, staff, and alumni.) They are issues that, to the extent that they exist with such a venture, exist whenever students and faculty members are involved in business ventures (no matter whether they receive funding for those ventures from a university-affiliated venture fund), and are quite likely already addressed in university academic ethics and conduct rules.
- noddingham 11y ago
  Agreed. While the method may be new (a university fund specifically dedicated to startups), the fact is that academic research has led to the creation of companies, patents, etc., in other fields for decades now. TFA: "The University of California has been granted more patents than any other university in the world and has over 30 accelerators and incubators. More than 800 startups with UC patents have been founded since 1980." And it probably won't be 19yo students, it will be graduate, PhD, and post-docs, many of whom are actively trying to find the next big thing in their field. Doesn't seem like much news here other than good press for the UC system, and good on them for making dollars easier to get besides trying for an NSF grant.
lint_roller 11y ago
Universities are already pre-professional for the vast majority of students. I think the idea of a university being a place of exploration and self-discovery is a lofty ideal of a bygone era for all but children of the upper middle class and wealthy. College used to be more optional; today it's practically a prerequisite for a middle class lifestyle.
- matthewbauer 11y ago
  Except it really isn't any more. If all you want is a job, there are tons of resources online that will give you much more practical experience than universities. All that it's really missing is some accreditation for employers to use to filter out the talent from the dead weight. University idealism is alive and well I think if you look past the undergraduate programs you'd agree.
  - raziel2701 11y ago
    If all you want is a job then this will be easier if your diploma says UC Berkeley vs self-taught. We can split hairs all day about exceptional cases of people being great at something without a formal education but for the great majority of people a college degree is simply the new minimal education that employers are seeking.
- superuser2 11y ago
  The lofty ideal is still alive and kicking at Berkeley's peers on the Top 20 lists. College as a box to check off disinterestedly is more the purview of a mediocre football-obsessed and frat-oriented institution than an intellectual beacon like Berkeley.
  - lint_roller 11y ago
    You picked an outlier top university frequented by the offspring of the upper middle class and wealthy. My point stands -- the notion is elitist and has no hope of reflecting the reality of most Americans' relationship with higher education.
klunger 11y ago
Many universities already have a technology transfer office of some sort, for work done by researchers on staff using university resources. TTOs mostly deal patent management, but sometimes they fund spin-off companies as well. Extending this kind of resource to entrepreneurial students is a pretty natural move.
erispoe 11y ago
This is an idealized view of science and academia that has no grounding in reality. People in academia feel a lot of pressure to research specific topics. The pressure is not necessarily from the market, but from publications. If you "explore your interests" without looking at what would be publishable or not, chances are you're not gonna get a job in academia. These considerations of publication are often quite short-term oriented. Conversely, you find investors comfortable in investing in businesses having slim chances of profitability before at least 10 years, because fundamental research can lead to huge market gains down the road. So it's far from being a case of intellectual freedom against quick profits.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

dude01 11y ago

How much evidence of a bubble do we need? When even universities get into the incubator business...

secondtimeuse 11y ago
Universities have always been in the incubator business. The bubble actually forces universities to be more transparent about their IP licensing policies. Do read how Netscape was rewritten due to licensing issues. There is a reason why UIUC gets a bad rep. If anything this is good side effect of bubble, since it forces universities to re-examine their licensing practises and invent new IP models that distinguish between software and medical drug/device inventions. " University of Illinois v. Andreessen (1994) - The web revolution began at the University of Illinois with the first graphics based browser, Mosaic, but few are aware of its history. The open source code which spawned both Netscape and Internet Explorer was created by graduate students using open source code. The university sued the students for trademark infringement in an attempt to capture royalties even though the source code was available for free on the web. The developers offered the university shares in the newly launched Netscape which would have netted UL over $8 million. Instead, the university chose a prolonged legal battle which was settled for $2.7 million, bankrupted Netscape, allowed Microsoft Explorer to capture the browser market and left University of Illinois out of the legacy of the innovation. " http://www.ipadvocate.org/forum/dispute.cfm?Type=Disputes http://www.ipadvocate.org/forum/dispute.cfm?Type=Disputes http://markvillacampa.com/2014/01/13/the-day-i-learned-about-mosaic-from-marc-andreessen/ http://markvillacampa.com/2014/01/13/the-day-i-learned-about...
- alexophile 11y ago
  I'm still having trouble nailing down the timeline on this, but it seems like, at some point there were two companies, both with access to the mosaic source and both rebuilding it from scratch. One of those companies had licensed it, the other hadn't. Obviously there's more to it than that, but in 1994, I can see how this would look to lawyers. That said, I think public university research should all be public domain so we avoid this entirely, but there's a whole waterfall of other problems that come with that. Also, as a graduate of UIUC, I'm curious about this bad rep. I know their entrepreneurship initiatives are pretty dismal but I still don't understand why that's a uni's job. All the cs/engineers that graduated when I did went straight into great jobs.

DanFeldman 11y ago

This is good. Berkeley's startup ecosystem is lacking compared to Stanford and MIT, I can only imagine its worse at the other UCs. While more specified programs to encourage students to build and try something would be ideal, funding alone is a solid step forward.

kelukelugames 11y ago
As grad of Berkeley and MIT, I'm curious why you think Cal's is lacking to MIT? This assertion contradicts both data and anecdotes.
- beambot 11y ago
  Links to data would be appreciated... rather than just saying "data contradicts this."
  - kelukelugames 11y ago
    http://readwrite.com/2012/12/03/one-university-to-rule-them-all-stanfurd-tops-startup-list http://readwrite.com/2012/12/03/one-university-to-rule-them-... http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/10/vc-joanne-chen-on-how-shes-helping-berkeley-catch.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/10/vc... http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2015/04/uc-berkeley-stanfurd-startups.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2015/04/uc-berk... A lot of these "rankings" has Stanfurd, Cal, MIT or Stanfurd, MIT, Cal. The one data point I can't find anymore is VC money raised. It's basically Stanfurd >> Cal >> everyone else.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
superuser2 11y ago
> encourage students to build If you can build a startup and do an academic program at the same time, your academic program isn't anywhere near rigorous enough. Seeing students pass their classes while putting Silicon Valley-level hours in their companies should evsicerate the reputations of the institutions. This is not good at all.