You make a lot of harsh statements.
One thing you will find in common among these statements is that almost every single one is unsubstantiated.
Your argument relies entirely on telling the audience to go “figure out for themselves” why your argument is valid. In doing so you rather conveniently manage to avoid making an actual argument.
Your claim that “nothing happens here outside of academia” is trivially false. Students eat here, attend discussion section here, exist here etc. A direct consequence of living here is that things happen outside of academia. If all people did here was academia/ related to academics, we would die from starvation.
As for the entrepreneurial culture:
- Databricks (Ion Stoica, also the hottest startup in SV by VC funding)
- Apple (Steve Wozniak)
- Anyscale
- Covariant
- SoftBank
- Intel
- AIG
- Tesla (Marc Tarpenning, Co-Founder)
- Autodesk
- Activision Blizzard
- Keyhole Inc (Acquired by Google -> Google Earth)
- Hyperloop One (Acquired by Virgin Hyperloop)
- EBay
- FireEye (Just went Public at a multi-billion dollar valuation)
- GrandCentral (Acquired by Google -> Google Voice)
- Barracuda Networks
- Where 2 Technologies (Acquired by Google -> Google Maps)
Is Tesla not innovative and relevant enough for you?
Oh and Steve Wozniak designed the iMac G5 20 in 2004 and the iPhone in 2007. He graduated from Berkeley in 1987 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak)
So yeah Apple Existed in 84’ but the golden years of Apple (The iPhone years) were post Berkeley.
We’re #2 when it comes to new Startups and VC funding per Forbes. Only Behind Stanford and outpacing MIT.
Also Berkeley’s golden years were 1945-1960 ie The Atomic Bomb… I may not know nuclear physics but I do know how to subtract… 2022-1945 = 77 < 100 years…
No offense but Oxford has produced shit when it comes to startups….
Maybe Stanford or MIT but you’re wayyyy off target with Oxford.
Also I’d still say Berkeley is great. We win a Nobel Prize every freaking year… David Card, Jennifer Doudna recently….
Berkeley is an academic powerhouse we literally have a higher h-index in most departments than either MIT or Stanford…
All schools mentioned: Oxford MIT Stanford are great though.
College is first about an education you can’t build shit without learning about what it is you are building. I’d say the education is phenomenal. Incredible faculty, challenging classes, academically talented peers.
Stanford is more entrepreneurial but there are no other better schools for entrepreneurship empirically: by number of startups, capital raised, number of exits, ipo listings etc.
I don’t know what it is you’re whining about…you sound more hurt than anything else.
While I agree that the 4.0 EECS majors aren’t necessarily the winners, they do go on to make decent bank, 250k / year is nothing to scoff at. How much privilege do you have to say that making millions per year is normal and expected? Can you make more money?
I guarantee you not all Stanford or MIT grads are worth 10 figures. In the end the people they start these multi-billion dollar companies succeed regardless of where they go to school.
Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates literally dropped out of Harvard and succeeded without support from Harvard. It was their talent, luck, timing, vision, and work ethic that led them to success… it had nothing to do with their school. No alumni connections or old-boy networks at least not in the internet age.
I think your rant has been comprehensively disproven. Did I miss anything?
Peace!