

Yale Fights to Keep Student Start-Ups From Defecting to Silicon Valley - daveambrose
http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/07/31/yale-fights-to-keep-student-start-ups-from-defecting-to-silicon-valley/

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pg
These guys don't seem to understand that the critical ingredient is investors.
Half the startups we fund start out in Boston, which is much more of a startup
hub than New Haven. And still most of the successful ones end up in the
Valley, because that's where the investors are.

If YC doesn't cause startups to take root in Boston (not that we care; we're
neutral on the question), this program is unlikely to make startups take root
in New Haven.

~~~
daveambrose
Paul, what about idea incubation? I went to a school similar to Yale in the
mindset of Investment Banking, Consulting and Law School was the end-all-be-
all; wouldn't this be a great resource for interested students to mix/match
with successful alumni, interested board members and a rich network?

I'm strongly considering this for Georgetown.

~~~
pg
What is idea incubation? Working on your startup's business plan while in
school? Sounds like premature optimization. Or more precisely, what Trevor
calls "turd polishing."

If you want to start a web/software startup, the best thing you can do while
in school is just start hacking with your friends. Maybe a company will grow
out of it, maybe not, but you'll get the two most important ingredients for a
startup: expertise and co-founders.

But hack, don't plan.

~~~
aswanson
...don't plan. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing>

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CSchonwald
Speaking as someone who vaguely knows many of the people who are involved in
YEI, the yale students involved are very much in the same vein as the
marketing folks who you'd see creating companies during the first web bubble,
where the technology folks who actually do the design and whatnot are second
tier.

There exist counter examples,but thats certainly the general trend

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geebee
Is it such a problem that technically oriented, entrepreneurial Yale students
head out to silicon valley for funding? After all, I wouldn't expect Yale to
try to dissuade finance-types from working on wall street. Instead, it would
make more sense to tout the students' success stories in these two regions -
ie., prove that you don't have to go to Stanford to succeed on Sand Hill Road,
and that you don't have to go to Columbia to succeed on wall street.

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spencerfry
I graduated from Yale in '06 and sold the company I'd been working on
throughout college nine months after I graduated. Yale definitely doesn't have
a lot of entrepreneurs there, but we do have the Yale Entrepreneurial Society
-- of which I was a member -- that acts as a support hub for the few
entrepreneurs to get together.

They also have the Y50K, which awards $50k to the winning business plan. Funny
thing is, my company didn't even make it to the final round, but we sold a
year later for probably 10x the current revenue of all the companies that did
make it combined (sorry, I had to, I still feel snubbed). The problem with
Yale's entrepreneurial endeavors is that it's far more aimed at traditional
business / pharmaceuticals / brick&mortar rather than smart techies with a
great idea. And, well, my company involved gaming and VoIP and they didn't
gave a damn about gaming. (We went on to win $75k and first place at Case
Western Reserve University's business plan competition.)

~~~
danw
Business plan competitions seem to be about giving away money to the wrong
thing. The prizes go to the ones who can write what the judges want to read,
not to those who can start a company. Perhaps they should give the prizes to
people with product prototypes or who can demonstrate the existence of a
market because they've sold something to it

~~~
pg
"A prize poem is like a prize sheep. The object of the competitor for the
agricultural premium is to produce an animal fit, not to be eaten, but to be
weighed. Accordingly he pampers his victim into morbid and unnatural fatness;
and, when it is in such a state that it would be sent away in disgust from any
table, he offers it to the judges. The object of the poetical candidate, in
like manner, is to produce, not a good poem, but a poem of that exact degree
of frigidity or bombast which may appear to his censors to be correct or
sublime. Compositions thus constructed will always be worthless."

\- Macaulay, "On the Royal Society of Literature"

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menloparkbum
Isn't Yale where you go when you can't be bothered to start a company, because
you're inheriting one from your family?

~~~
pg
Emmett and Justin of Justin.TV went there.

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emmett
Additionally, off the top of my head, Joel Spolsky and Olin Shivers.

Boolah boolah.

~~~
Shooter
Joel went to Penn, didn't he?

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emmett
From his webpage:

    
    
        I came back to the US for college, where I attended the 
        University of Pennsylvania for one year, then transferred 
        to Yale, where I got a BS in Computer Science.
    

So yes, but mostly Yale.

~~~
Shooter
Thanks. I should have checked his site. I just remembered his name from an
alumni thing at Penn.

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aswanson
Great comment:

 _Yale has too much of a business/MBA/manager orientation (read: inefficient,
simpleminded bean-counting).

Unfortunately, the entire country is seeing the fruits of a decade or so of
“investment management’s” influence.

Tech people need to understand that save for MIT and environs, the east coast
is at best s second rate tech hub._

~~~
daveambrose
Perhaps, but there will always be a select few that push the traditional
boundaries and challenge the status quo. Maybe there won't be too many, but
those that do can reap the rewards.

~~~
anamax
Yes, a very few will beat the odds. What benefit did they get for their extra
risk?

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fallentimes
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but wouldn't they just defect after the 10 week
program, especially since the majority are tech startups?

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pchristensen
After 10 weeks of working with Yale faculty and New Haven based lawyers,
accountants, etc, they'd have much more reason to stay.

~~~
daveambrose
Can you explain in more detail?

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dangoldin
He means that they are already vested in a working relationship so why change
a good thing.

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anamax
They have a relationship, but what is it working toward and what is it good
for?

How many of the lawyers in New Haven are or personally know partners at Wilson
Sonsini? (If you don't recognize the name ....) I know paralegals with shelves
full of "tombstones". How many can I find in New Haven? (Again, if you don't
know what a tombstone is ....)

The important thing about Silicon Valley is that almost everyone involved has
done it before. (Yes, it may be the first time for some/all of the founding
team, but everyone else is a veteran.) How many people in New Haven can say
the same?

~~~
pchristensen
No one said it was in the students' best interest, just that the goal was to
get more companies to stay in New Haven.

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ajross
Well, of course. Because everyone knows New Haven, Connecticut is a global hub
of technological innovation...

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babul
The Silicon Valley ecosystem is too well established? (...even people from the
other side of the planet are looking to Silicon Valley if they are into tech
and coming to America).

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gustaf
In like forth sentence I read "Business Plan".

Fail.

