Boiled down: MIT approach, according to OP: we're smart, so let's do something badass and hard where being smart is maximally advantageous (because dumbasses w

Boiled down: MIT approach, according to OP: we're smart, so let's do something badass and hard where being smart is maximally advantageous (because dumbasses wouldn't even understand the problem or the work). Stanford approach, according to OP: we may be smart, but most people are self-important morons, including many of the gatekeepers we have to impress, so let's do easy shit so we can focus 100% on the marketing. I'm not going to make better vs. worse comparisons, as both approaches have value, but I think that adept engineers (which most of us are, or want to be) fare better under the MIT approach. Under the approach ascribed to Stanford by the OP, engineers are just commodities of low importance-- it's the connection-peddlers and marketers who actually matter. (And that's what we actually see in the VC-funded incarnation of the Valley.)