

The #1 University in the U.S. for spinning off startups may surprise you - rgonzalez
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2011/11/30/the-1-university-in-the-u-s-for-spinning-off-startups-may-surprise-you/?awesm=tnw.to_1C3Zf&utm_campaign=social%20media&utm_medium=Spreadus&utm_source=Facebook&utm_content=The%20#1%20University%20in%20the%20U.S.%20for%20spinning%20off%20startups%20may%20surprise%20you

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cleverjake
If you read about computer history much, and the university of utah is
mentioned quite a bit. They were one of the first four computers on the
ARPANet, a hotbed for graphics research, and the alma mater of Alan Kay, Ed
Catmull and John Warnock. A bunch of early Pixar people came from there, and a
number from PARC. Perhaps its because I don't know much about Utah, but it
always surprised me how important it was to computer history, especially in
relation to graphics.

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te_platt
I don't know if it is related but they seem to have been consistently open and
inviting to outsiders. I grew up within walking distance to campus back in the
70s and 80s. Two of my older brothers used to "sneak" computer time on a
teletype system they had. I found out later just about anyone could show up
and someone was around willing to show how to use it. They often have
engineering weekends where high school kids can come through and explore
projects other students are working on - more than an open house, less than a
course. My oldest son visits regularly and just sent in his application
yesterday.

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cleverjake
I believe it was Dealers in Lightning that had an anecdote about someone
piping up with the perfect answer during a all hands meeting, while telling
off the bigwig who was saying it wouldn't work. As it turns out, it was
someone just touring PARC, who happened to be an expert.

That sort of all-comers-welcome mentality seems to be common in many
successful hacker spaces. Though I am not sure if it is a cause of a result of
it.

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kevinalexbrown
This could really be titled "University of Utah is the number one University
in US for spinning off startups."

It's a good article, but I prefer my HN de-linkbaited. (NB: the linkbait
worked, and I clicked on the link).

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puls
"other top schools included Brigham Young University, Columbia, Cornell, Johns
Hopkins, Purdue, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of
Michigan"

Where is Stanford in this list? It seems like they're counting startups that
come out of university-sponsored research instead of startups that come from
university people.

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kevinalexbrown
I think that's where the "spinning off" comes from? I mean Standford
University didn't exactly "spin off" Google.

Edit: very wrong about the above.

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rdouble
Yeah they did...

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kevinalexbrown
Was the university itself really involved in the business itself, giving lots
of assistance to Brin/Page? I mean I know it hosted the original site or
whatever, but I was under the impression that they weren't super-involved in
the business side.

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rdouble
Stanford owns the PageRank patent and licenses it to Google.

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oniTony
Spinning off research as a business is somewhat different than entrepreneurial
students starting their own ventures. At the very least, it sounds like the
University gets to hold on to the IP.

Besides, it's #1 (by whatever metric) out of just 9 schools examined.

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cynic_at_yc
"In total, the 2010 AUTM survey reports information collected from 183
institutions across the U.S. -- 155 universities, 27 hospitals and research
institutions, and one third-party management company."
([http://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-of-utah-repeats-as-
no-1-u...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-of-utah-repeats-as-
no-1-university-for-startups-2011-11-30))

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ArbitraryLimits
This is specifically a count of the number of companies which have paid money
to these universities to license technology developed by their professors,
which doesn't really IMHO have anything to do with software startups anymore.

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SeanLuke
Didn't surprise me in the least. U Utah has a long and important part of
computer science history, and the Mormon culture (U of U is 50% Mormon) is
very highly entrepreneurial.

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iNate2000
They also have a lot of involvement in bio-medical engineering. That field
doesn't intersect a whole lot with the web-heavy types of things that we
discuss here on hacker news.

(I only know that because I attended "The U" - I'm very web-heavy myself.)

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ashbrahma
Brigham Young, which is also in Utah, is number 3 on the list.

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guimarin
I've found that people new to start-ups haven't heard of Utah Based Start-ups
because their community is so isolated. Utah based start-ups are in the Valley
as well, but they are a very self-segregated group. Nevertheless they make
valuable contributions to computing so I'm not complaining.

~~~
phamilton
Fusion IO and Omniture deserve a bit of recognition for recent performance.
Both Salt Lake / Utah Valley based startups.

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orbitingpluto
Another #1 for the University of Utah: Best Ubuntu mirror in the west. I think
they lag behind a couple of hours from some of the primary mirrors, but it's
oh so worth it for the speed.

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scarmig
I hate to be churlish, but the link-baity title is pretty silly. It's unclear
what the "Association of University Technology Managers" is even measuring
here.

I'll just say that if you're a high schooler whose only priority is to be
around lots of people in start ups and to join or start one yourself, Utah may
not, in actuality, be the best place to go.

(Which isn't to say it's a bad choice or doesn't have substantial strengths.)

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juiceandjuice
This might be surprising, but people are forgetting about medical/genetics
research and the money it brings in. The U has one of the best medical schools
and genetics research in the nation, things that are less visible to the
general public (unless it's a gene patent case from Myriad Genetics or
something)

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chauzer
what about successful startups?

