6 ms·

When I was at Georgia Tech (2004-07) nearly everyone had heard of startups in the CS department, and grad students being involved in machine-learning / data-min

by mjn 13y ago

When I was at Georgia Tech (2004-07) nearly everyone had heard of startups in the CS department, and grad students being involved in machine-learning / data-mining startups was a common summer job, so I'm not sure where this is coming from. Here's one big one cofounded by a professor: http://www.skytree.net/ http://www.skytree.net/

timtamboy63 13y ago
That was worded poorly - as far as I've seen, a startup isn't really a viable option for undegrads. Yes, we've definitely had our share of successes, but it's not something that is particularly encouraged, especially outside of CS. I really want to see engineering based startups coming out of Tech. We've got the talent, and we have some amazing hardware hackers but it's incredibly rare to see them start a startup.
- conjecTech 13y ago
  I know you're very well intentioned, but I don't think your methods support this. You aren't going to get people making companies in engineering simply by putting them in a room with a few arduinos and macs. And things like "3 day startup" completely miss the complexity that goes along with actual engineering projects and is heavily biased towards generic internet based ideas. You needs something more fundamental to get across what you are trying to do, and I think there are things on campus which are aiding in that. RoboJackets, for instance, has been rather influential in this regards. 2 of our old officers that are still in the Atlanta area are both involved in very successful startups, one of our electrical guys was at YCombinator last year working on a hardware startup, and we regularly have startup job postings go out on our email headers. I'm aiming for this to grow more, and things are slowly being put into action. I think the most fundamental thing you can do to get people to take these kinds of risks is to show them that it's possible to succeed. I'll be posting some stuff on the CS facebook group in the next few weeks dealing with one of our initiatives. If you'd like to talk about this at some point, I'm the treasurer of RJ and my name shouldn't be too hard to find with a bit of googling.
  - timtamboy63 13y ago
    I'd love to chat. I have no doubt you know more about how to engage the hardware community than me, and I'd absolutely love your thoughts on how we can further encourage engineering startups. Will shoot you an email soon :)
  - willyum 13y ago
    Hey appreciate your thoughts on this matter and would really love to collaborate with you in finding ways to engage with those passionate in hardware/robotics. However, 3 alumni working in startups is hardly influential. I've made an effort to speak with Hunter and although he definitely one of the most intelligent people I've met at Tech, he had to be convinced to go to the YCominbator interview because he had no clue what it was. I'm sure you left out a couple other people in your organization that are involved in entrepreneurship but you are right when it comes to changing the culture to show students that it is possible to succeed. That is definitely the core of our vision.
ghc 13y ago
Agreed, when I was at Tech (03-08) startups were all the rage and there were tons of them forming around campus. I think times have probably changed in Atlanta thanks to the financial crisis, and startups are no longer as common.
- ja27 13y ago
  He should look at the name on the Klaus building and realize that we'd actually heard of startups in the early 1990s and before. The ATDC has even been around for 33 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Klaus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Klaus
  - timtamboy63 13y ago
    Klaus is a bit of a personal hero. Not saying that no-one had heard of/started a startup, more that the culture at Tech isn't particularly conducive to it.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  Definitely didn't know this, and it's super interesting. Weird that they've died down so much.
- rietta 13y ago
  The Atlanta startup culture is a bit different from the Bay Area. Less consumer internet, more B2B. The investors tend to come from a real-estate, or similar background, and do not always understand technology. That's partly why the bootstrapping/lean startup approach is so critical around here. It's just not worth wasting time trying to get a permission slip from an old rich guy in most cases.
  - kmassey 13y ago
    "investors tend to come from real estate" Yowza, you're about 20 years behind the times. Local angel group has 100+ investors, is 15 years old and has invested in probably 60+ companies in tech space by now. 4 GA VC firms are raising new funds, ATV has just created a new accelerator, state of GA has just created a state based $100M fund, Flashpoint has helped raise roughly $30M in 18 months and so on and so on.
caw 13y ago
In my time at GT (06-11), I didn't really hear about startups until senior/super senior year. A few friends got either internships or post-graduation jobs in Tech square, mostly due to their recruitment via the Co-op/Internship office or ugrad research. I always seemed to learn about them after they hired someone though, and not before. In my last 2 years the startup scene seemed to explode. The CS entrepreneurship class had been around for a while, but there was a huge amount of publicity around Titin Tech from the Innovation Competition, and then the announcement of Flashpoint, now this. Maybe I just wasn't as plugged in, but there's a lot of cool things happening now at GT.
rietta 13y ago
Georgia Tech was a mixed bag during that period if I remember correctly. I fought to keep the ACM chapter relevant to encourage entrepreneurship from 2002 to 2004, but it didn't quite stick way I had dreamed. The research going on at Georgia Tech is amazing. But its hard to build a startup out of that culture - especially a consumer internet one. But the best opportunities are usually hard things.

by mjn 13y ago

timtamboy63 13y ago

That was worded poorly - as far as I've seen, a startup isn't really a viable option for undegrads. Yes, we've definitely had our share of successes, but it's not something that is particularly encouraged, especially outside of CS. I really want to see engineering based startups coming out of Tech. We've got the talent, and we have some amazing hardware hackers but it's incredibly rare to see them start a startup.

conjecTech 13y ago
I know you're very well intentioned, but I don't think your methods support this. You aren't going to get people making companies in engineering simply by putting them in a room with a few arduinos and macs. And things like "3 day startup" completely miss the complexity that goes along with actual engineering projects and is heavily biased towards generic internet based ideas. You needs something more fundamental to get across what you are trying to do, and I think there are things on campus which are aiding in that. RoboJackets, for instance, has been rather influential in this regards. 2 of our old officers that are still in the Atlanta area are both involved in very successful startups, one of our electrical guys was at YCombinator last year working on a hardware startup, and we regularly have startup job postings go out on our email headers. I'm aiming for this to grow more, and things are slowly being put into action. I think the most fundamental thing you can do to get people to take these kinds of risks is to show them that it's possible to succeed. I'll be posting some stuff on the CS facebook group in the next few weeks dealing with one of our initiatives. If you'd like to talk about this at some point, I'm the treasurer of RJ and my name shouldn't be too hard to find with a bit of googling.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  I'd love to chat. I have no doubt you know more about how to engage the hardware community than me, and I'd absolutely love your thoughts on how we can further encourage engineering startups. Will shoot you an email soon :)
- willyum 13y ago
  Hey appreciate your thoughts on this matter and would really love to collaborate with you in finding ways to engage with those passionate in hardware/robotics. However, 3 alumni working in startups is hardly influential. I've made an effort to speak with Hunter and although he definitely one of the most intelligent people I've met at Tech, he had to be convinced to go to the YCominbator interview because he had no clue what it was. I'm sure you left out a couple other people in your organization that are involved in entrepreneurship but you are right when it comes to changing the culture to show students that it is possible to succeed. That is definitely the core of our vision.

ghc 13y ago

Agreed, when I was at Tech (03-08) startups were all the rage and there were tons of them forming around campus. I think times have probably changed in Atlanta thanks to the financial crisis, and startups are no longer as common.

ja27 13y ago
He should look at the name on the Klaus building and realize that we'd actually heard of startups in the early 1990s and before. The ATDC has even been around for 33 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Klaus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Klaus
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  Klaus is a bit of a personal hero. Not saying that no-one had heard of/started a startup, more that the culture at Tech isn't particularly conducive to it.
timtamboy63 13y ago
Definitely didn't know this, and it's super interesting. Weird that they've died down so much.
rietta 13y ago
The Atlanta startup culture is a bit different from the Bay Area. Less consumer internet, more B2B. The investors tend to come from a real-estate, or similar background, and do not always understand technology. That's partly why the bootstrapping/lean startup approach is so critical around here. It's just not worth wasting time trying to get a permission slip from an old rich guy in most cases.
- kmassey 13y ago
  "investors tend to come from real estate" Yowza, you're about 20 years behind the times. Local angel group has 100+ investors, is 15 years old and has invested in probably 60+ companies in tech space by now. 4 GA VC firms are raising new funds, ATV has just created a new accelerator, state of GA has just created a state based $100M fund, Flashpoint has helped raise roughly $30M in 18 months and so on and so on.

caw 13y ago

In my time at GT (06-11), I didn't really hear about startups until senior/super senior year. A few friends got either internships or post-graduation jobs in Tech square, mostly due to their recruitment via the Co-op/Internship office or ugrad research. I always seemed to learn about them after they hired someone though, and not before. In my last 2 years the startup scene seemed to explode. The CS entrepreneurship class had been around for a while, but there was a huge amount of publicity around Titin Tech from the Innovation Competition, and then the announcement of Flashpoint, now this. Maybe I just wasn't as plugged in, but there's a lot of cool things happening now at GT.

rietta 13y ago

Georgia Tech was a mixed bag during that period if I remember correctly. I fought to keep the ACM chapter relevant to encourage entrepreneurship from 2002 to 2004, but it didn't quite stick way I had dreamed. The research going on at Georgia Tech is amazing. But its hard to build a startup out of that culture - especially a consumer internet one. But the best opportunities are usually hard things.