
The End of Stanford? - mjfern
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/04/silicon-valley-start-ups-and-the-end-of-stanford.html
======
ryguytilidie
Since every comment seems to want to point to Stanford's rich history, diverse
degrees and entrepreneurial excitement (I'm not doubting that Stanford has all
of these things) Let me try to make something clear: The author isn't taking
issue with any of those things. The author is taking issue with 20 year olds
who have spent 50-100k on their education being asked to drop out for a .1%
stake in a company so they can make their professor million. It is a very
obvious conflict of interest, great school or not.

~~~
nickbarnwell
If they're attending Stanford, they've not spent 50-100k on their education.
The school's endowment is sufficiently large that significant financial aid is
granted even to individuals from (relatively) wealthy families.

I have friends for whom UConn in-state tuition was _more_ than attending
Stanford, even when accounting for Cost of Living and frequent flights to and
from California.

~~~
modfodder
Just remember that financial aid includes loans. So while a university may
boast that the average student receives enough financial aid to cover the full
cost of their education, that could still mean they are tens of thousands, if
not hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. (And I say this without any
knowledge of Stanford's ratio of grants and scholarships to loans).

~~~
tedunangst
_(And I say this without any knowledge of Stanford 's ratio of grants and
scholarships to loans)._

oh, well, don't let that stop you from chiming in!

~~~
modfodder
Why would I let my ignorance keep me from forming an inaccurate opinion, that
would be un-American (hell, it was hard enough just to put that
acknowledgement in there admitting my ignorance...I felt dirty).

------
teuobk
Sensationalist hogwash. Stanford continues to be strong as a research
university, and not just in engineering. Consider that two of this year's
Nobel laureates were Stanford professors: one in medicine, one in chemistry.
Think about the very strong history program, or the fine arts, or the
(surprising) presence of the conservative Hoover Institution. In the years I
spent as a student, I saw plenty of entrepreneurial excitement, but I also
experienced excellence in areas far removed from the worlds of business,
venture capital, and software.

Stanford is a diverse place. Just because a small number of students are
dropping out to start companies doesn't mean that the end of the university is
nigh.

~~~
slurry
It's legitimate to ask about the ethics of administrators investing personally
in a student startup, especially when the students drop out en masse.

~~~
snowwrestler
I think the outrage is based on a perception of a teacher/student
relationship, but unlike high school, the students in college are legal
adults. Legally, and I would argue ethically, college students are not under
the care of their professors or administrators.

If there were allegations that professors were tying their instruction to
investment--e.g. let me invest in your company or I will give you an F--I
would agree that there are ethical issues. But I don't see any allegations of
that.

~~~
macspoofing
>If there were allegations that professors were tying their instruction to
investment ...

That's not the point. The faculty-student relationship and university-student
relationship is fraught with those kinds of ethical landmines. For example, I
can tell you right now, if a professor is invested in student's company, he
cannot be his professor ever again (i.e. he may be his lecturer, but he can
never grade his or her projects, papers and exams).

This is all especially true in the context of investment and startups. I'm
sure if you're a high-flying startup going towards a billion dollar exit
everyone is happy and best-friends. But let me tell you, the nature of your
relationship with your investors changes fundamentally when your business
starts failing and there is a very real risk of people losing hundreds of
thousands (or millions) of invested money.

>but unlike high school, the students in college are legal adults.

Doesn't matter. A doctor cannot write prescriptions for people he may know
personally because of the obvious conflict of interest. Similarly a clinical
therapist shouldn't be providing therapy for friends or family. It doesn't
matter that all parties are responsible, upstanding adults.

~~~
rlanday
It is not true that doctors cannot write prescriptions for people they know.

~~~
macspoofing
Fair. I don't know what the legality is in every jurisdiction and it may very
well be legal everywhere so I'll clarify. It is highly frowned upon, and
potentially unethical, for doctors to treat their family or prescribe
medication for themselves or their family. This most certainly extends to non-
family members if a conflict of interest exists. It would be unethical if you
prescribed medication to your bookie.

Anyway, my point stands regardless. The fact that there may be no strict
illegality in a school or faculty investing in student project, does not mean
there are no ethical issues that have to be resolved. Furthermore, the faculty
or school may be opening itself up to liability. Frequently these kinds of
issues are not judged (in civil court at least) strictly on their legality but
rather on the 'smell test'. I can imagine a scenario in which a student may
sue the school alleging some negative repercussions in his school life given
that the investment fell through (maybe sue the school for tuition fees he
paid prior to being 'pressured' to quit school). The case may be merit-less,
but the school could be punished for putting themselves in a position in which
a conflict of interest exists. When a business blows-up there are a lot of
hurt feelings and a lot of anger and bitterness.

------
mrmaddog
Well this is silly. Stanford graduation rates have been increasing over the
past 10 years:
([http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2012](http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2012) \-
search for point B11). 1998-2003 were all in the 90-93% range. This last year
had a graduation rate of 95%. This doesn't support the opinion that students
are dropping out 'en masse.' As for "professors having a financial stake in
their student's work" – since when was this _not_ the case? Professors have
been dependent on grant money based on the work of their student researchers
for decades; only previously, the students had no way of making money off of
the work themselves.

I do think that it would be good to establish and maintain a set of ethics for
professors who have a financial stake in companies, but it seems like this
piece was more of a ranting projection built for page views than a thoughtful
criticism on the state of the university.

Edit: And I should have researched a little more: Stanford does have a policy
regarding faculty investments:
[http://doresearch.stanford.edu/policies/research-policy-
hand...](http://doresearch.stanford.edu/policies/research-policy-
handbook/conflicts-commitment-and-interest/faculty-policy-conflict). Points 3
& 4 seem particularly applicably as a response:

    
    
       3. Faculty must foster an atmosphere of academic freedom by 
       promoting the open and timely exchange of results of 
       scholarly activities, and ensuring that their advising of 
       students (defined for this policy to include postdoctoral 
       scholars and other trainees) and their supervision of staff 
       are independent of personal financial interests. Faculty 
       should inform students and colleagues about outside 
       obligations that might influence the free exchange of 
       scholarly information between them and the faculty member.
       
       4. Faculty may not use University resources or personnel, 
       including facilities, staff, students or other trainees, 
       equipment, or confidential information, except in a purely 
       incidental way, as part of their outside consulting or 
       business activities or for any other purposes that are 
       unrelated to the education, research, scholarship, and public 
       service missions of the University.

~~~
001sky
_Is Stanford still a university?_

You're missing the point of the question. The real question is, is stanford
legitimately a non-profit institution? That's not a 'silly' question, and it
has material implications.

~~~
dekhn
American universities are for profit entities (corporations).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act)

Before the Bayh–Dole Act, federal research funding contracts and grants
obligated inventors (where ever they worked) to assign inventions they made
using federal funding to the federal government.[3] Bayh-Dole permits a
university, small business, or non-profit institution to elect to pursue
ownership of an invention in preference to the government.[4]

Stanford, further, is a private institution. See, for example, their
investment company:
[http://www.smc.stanford.edu/](http://www.smc.stanford.edu/) which is part of
the university and is overseen by the Board.

They certainly don't qualify (nor do public universities like UC) as non-
profits; they don't reinvest all their earnings into their operating budget.
Investors in Stanford receive a return on the growth of the endowment.

~~~
001sky
_The University is a tax-exempt institution under section 501(c)(3) of the
Internal Revenue Code._

[https://ogc.stanford.edu/stanford-legal-
facts#q1](https://ogc.stanford.edu/stanford-legal-facts#q1)

 _A 501(c) organization, also known colloquially as a... "nonprofit", is an
American tax-exempt nonprofit organization._

~~~
dekhn
Yes, yes, of course they are a 501c3.

However, reality demonstrates that Universities are most definitely for
profit. This is embedded in their operating principles. Have you worked with
the Office of Technology Licensing?

This includes that you would call "nonprofit" according to IRS, but this is
actually an issue that has been debated since Bayh Dole by people who
understand the subtlety of what I'm talking about. In short, the very
definition of nonprofit itself is inadequate the span the nature of
corporations which are under 501c3.

~~~
dragonwriter
> However, reality demonstrates that Universities are most definitely for
> profit.

They certainly don't return profit to investors, which is what 501c3 and
several related-but-different "nonprofit" designations refer to.

I'm not sure in what other sense you could be meaning that they are "for
profit".

> Have you worked with the Office of Technology Licensing?

Certainly, Universities have parts of their operations devoted to generating
revenue; all nonprofits _necessarily_ do, since if they don't generate revenue
that meets expenses, they can't continue to operate. Revenue is not the same
thing as profits.

> people who understand the subtlety of what I'm talking about

If you have a coherent idea, perhaps you can explain it rather than making
implications that anyone who hasn't read your mind is intellectually
defective.

> In short, the very definition of nonprofit itself is inadequate the span the
> nature of corporations which are under 501c3

Since the relevant definition of nonprofit _comes from_ 501c3, it is,
necessarily, sufficient to span the entities which fall under 501c3, since
anything it doesn't span doesn't, _ipso facto_ , fall under 501c3.

~~~
dekhn
Universities collect funds. The excess of these funds, which are not required
for the costs of maintaining the university, are distributed to professors and
students (this is profit returned to investor; the professors invest time and
opportunity cost while the students invest labor) in the form of internal
grants. These professors and students then use the grants to develop
technology, which they then use university funds to develop into companies
(while also getting patent royalties from the OTL for having patented the tech
and licensed it), which tend to then hire employees and donate funds back to
the universities that fostered them.

This activity has caused many to question the tax-exempt status of
universities. The purpose of tax exemption for universities is to promote
education, not prevent universities in acting as for-profit institutions.

Some examples: the (complex and unique) example of Cooper Union.

Also: [http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Releases-Final-Report-
on...](http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Releases-Final-Report-on-Tax-
Exempt-Colleges-and-Universities-Compliance-Project)

The audits identified some significant compliance issues at the colleges and
universities examined,” said Lois Lerner, Director, Exempt Organizations
division. “Because these issues may well be present elsewhere across the tax-
exempt sector, all exempt organizations need to be aware of the importance of
accurately reporting unrelated business income and providing appropriate
executive compensation.”

Note the discussion of unrelated business income.

There is an active lawsuit against Princeton on similar grounds:
[http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2013/06/lawsuit_challengi...](http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2013/06/lawsuit_challenging_princeton_universitys_tax-
exempt_status_wont_be_dismissed.html)

from article: "The school’s policy of sharing patent royalties with faculty
could cost the university an additional $20 to 30 million in taxes a year."

Please, do not ever tell somebody they are intellectually defective; it
weakens your argument. Further, as I've demonstrated everything to support my
case, in showing that there are 501c3 unviersity organizations which have been
cited by the IRS for having violating the terms of that.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The excess of these funds, which are not required for the costs of
> maintaining the university, are distributed to professors and students (this
> is profit returned to investor; the professors invest time and opportunity
> cost while the students invest labor) in the form of internal grants.

Internal grants are not a redistribution of profits, they are an internal
budget allocation. The funds don't become personal funds.

> This activity has caused many to question the tax-exempt status of
> universities.

People question lots of things on bases which are not legitimate.

> The purpose of tax exemption for universities is to promote education, not
> prevent universities in acting as for-profit institutions.

Its actually both, as is obvious from the tax code. Tax exemption under 501c3
requires _both_ not being operated for profit _and_ operating a specific form
or function of entity (educational, in the case relevant to universities.)

> Note the discussion of unrelated business income.

Unrelated business income is a _separate_ requirement of tax-exemption from
not operating for profit; income from unrelated (to the tax-exempt purpose)
business income is taxable to protect for-profit business from not-for-profit
institutions. The fact that the IRS found some issues with some colleges and
universities regarding proper reporting of unrelated business income does not
mean _those_ colleges and universities (much less universities in general) are
operated for profit.

> There is an active lawsuit against Princeton on similar grounds

The existence of an active lawsuit isn't proof of anything except the
existence of someone with a sufficient _interest_ in the legal effects of the
finding that the lawsuit seeks.

> Please, do not ever tell somebody they are intellectually defective

I criticized your rhetoric, not your intellect.

------
kylec

        Shouldn't it be a place to drift, to think, to read, to meet new people,
        and to work at whatever inspires you?
    

This article does bring up a valid point, but it seems that the author is also
blinded by his romantic notion of what a university should be.

~~~
jonnathanson
I would take things a step further. For instance:

 _" Shouldn't it be a place to drift, to think, to read, to meet new people,
and to work at whatever inspires you?"_

 _Should_ it be? Perhaps it's time we reevaluated what college is supposed to
be about. Given the skyrocketing costs of a college education, not to mention
the opportunity costs of the 4 years spent there, maybe we need to think of
the "investment" in a college education as precisely that: something to be
taken quite seriously.

I wouldn't want my child to debt-finance a startup, to the tune of several
hundred thousand dollars, just so he could "drift, think, read" and so forth.
So why is it ok that he does so for college?

College is the last great chance to "drift" in life before one has to grow up
and get serious. Sure. But it's also the most pressure-free environment in
which to build the foundation for the rest of one's life. It's a huge
investment, literally and figuratively, to waste aimlessly. Use college
wisely. Not every second has to be a grind, but on the other hand, I don't
think over-grinding is the issue for most of our country's college students.
Have some fun in college, yes. Expose yourself to new ideas and cool things.
Great. But don't treat the experience as a four-year vacation from the real
world.

I don't mean to come across as a heartless 'tiger parent' in this comment. But
these romantic notions of college strike me as increasingly antiquated.
They're luxurious fantasies that many of us can't afford to nurse.

~~~
glesica
If by "drift", we mean "get drunk and go to football games" then I am right
there with you, not something I want my kid to focus on. But if by "drift" we
mean explore the world and think about what it means to live in it, then I
can't disagree with you more. That kind of drifting _IS_ an investment. It may
not make one wealthy, but it will likely go a long way toward making one
happy, and it can improve society immeasurably.

The social implications of college seem to get lost in the debate on HN, and
really everywhere to some extent. We don't send our kids to college simply for
their own good, we do it also for the good of society, which is why, in the
past, people saw fit for society to cover most of the cost.

    
    
      > But these romantic notions of college strike me as increasingly antiquated. They're luxurious fantasies that many of us can't afford to nurse.
    

But why? As a nation we are "wealthier" than we have ever been, and
productivity has skyrocketed in the last 100 years. Why is it, then, that we
are actually losing ground and every day we hear that we can no longer
"afford" things that we, presumably, could once afford? The retirement age is
being pushed ever higher while, at the same time, students are under pressure
to enter the work force sooner. This is not the economy we signed up for.

~~~
jimbokun
"We don't send our kids to college simply for their own good, we do it also
for the good of society, which is why, in the past, people saw fit for society
to cover most of the cost."

When was that?

~~~
wavefunction
Up until the 70s, many public colleges and universities did not charge tuition
for students.

~~~
jessaustin
But it isn't as though they were educating the general public. Most people
back then never applied to college. Since we decided that everyone without
severe head trauma should have a diploma, that's no longer sustainable.

------
bbrunner
As someone who graduated from Stanford pretty recently (2012), I can tell you
that this is utterly ridiculous. Anecdotally, I would say there is a strong
split between people who are insanely motivated to pursue a startup and people
who think starting a company is a dumb trend motivated by naiveté.

Is Stanford a strong STEM school? Definitely. But if you take two seconds to
actually look at the degrees that students end up earning
([http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2011.html#degrees](http://ucomm.stanford.edu/cds/2011.html#degrees)),
you get a picture of a much more well-balanced environment.

~~~
001sky
If you crunch the numbers, for more than two seconds, this is what the (de-
fragmented) data show:

STEM = 46%

Politics& Beuracracy = 37%

Arts = 14%

This seems intuitively correct, but YMMV.

~~~
001sky
Communication/journalism (CIP 9) 2.5 Psychology (CIP 42) 4.1 Public
administration and social services(CIP 44) 1.5 Social sciences (CIP 45) 20.6
Area and ethnic studies (CIP 5) 2.5 Politics & Bueracracy 31.2

Biological / Life Sciences (CIP 26) 7.1 Computer and information sciences (CIP
11) 5 Engineering (CIP 14) 15.1 Engineering technologies (CIP 15) 3.7
Mathematics and statistics(CIP 27) 3.3 Physical sciences (CIP 40) 4.7 STEM
38.9

Visual and performing arts (CIP 50) 2.6 History (CIP 54) 3.2 Liberal
arts/general studies (CIP 24) 0.1 English (CIP 23) 3.6 Foreign languages and
literatures (CIP 16) 3 Philosophy, religion, theology (CIP 38) 1.7 Arts 14.2

+Pro-rata on interdisciplinary (16%)

------
hemancuso
A dozen out of 17k and students and academic staff. Great story.

This interaction between industry and academia has long been one of Stanford's
greatest strengths. There is no Silicon Valley without Stanford, and that
didn't happen overnight or even lately.

Sure, CS is once again an absurdly popular major as it has been in the past.
But with Stanford you don't have to choose between Harvard & MIT, you get both
['04 CS, color me biased].

~~~
ryguytilidie
"A dozen out of 17k and students and academic staff. Great story."

How is this relevant at all? The fact that some students are in a situation
where they are pressured to drop out for the economic gain of their professors
is clearly a problem. Just because it is happening to a small number of
students doesn't make it okay...?

~~~
hemancuso
"Pressured to drop out for the economic gain of the professors?"

Give me a break. Taking a break from Stanford undergrad for a few years with a
few awesome peers to run a startup happens a few times a year, if not more
lately. Some non-trivial portion of the CS majors join to start a company.
Timing often dictates market opportunity. This seems like an amazing one -
faculty want to join, you're backed by the president Stanford university.

An absolutely fantastic opportunity that the students owe to their luck of
having gotten into Stanford.

------
strlen
This is hugely myopic: reality is far more Stanford students are going to be
joining Microsoft and other established companies (we're not even talking
younger public companies like Facebook!) upon graduation than startups; those
starting companies are going to be fewer.

Stanford _is_ a non-profit institution, their mission is education, not
generating a profit for their share holders. Venture investments as an
approach to maintaining their endowment does not, in any way, conflict with
this -- all universities maintain investment portfolios.

Hennessy isn't exactly a new comer to technology: when I was looking at errata
for my Computer Architecture textbook (_the_ Computer Architecture textbook) I
found it more surprising for me to find that one of its authors (Hennessy) was
the president of Stanford (given that Patterson is at Berkeley and that STEM
folks rarely took leadership positions at universities).

I did not attend Stanford myself, but plenty of my friends have, and I've been
on campus many times. Like any institution, I am sure it has many valid
criticisms -- the idea the educational system is purely meritocratic and
available to anyone intelligent and motivated, for example, is still a myth
(in several senses of the word -- it representations genuine aspiration, but
does not reflect reality).

However, it isn't some kind of a incubator for a lilly-white privileged elite
that it's made out to be: it's incredibly diverse and beyond being a top-tier
research university, it also has a great humanities program including a core
curriculum. Indeed, the endowment is why students who do not come from wealthy
backgrounds have been able to afford it (the same is also true for many other
elite universities).

A long time ago, a friend who was heavily into hip-hop culture and lived in
New York asked me if "people were just being shot randomly" in California, as
the rap music seems to suggest. The idea that everyone in Silicon Valley is a
startup founder is equally as silly: I remember the weekend after I left Yahoo
(by then perceived to be in decline) to join a startup in January of 2008 (the
nexus of web 2.0 boom), more people asked "why are you leaving a known company
to join some tiny one that may not be around" then asked "what took you so
long?"

------
RyanMcGreal
There is also a follow-up post:

[http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/04/the-e...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/04/the-
end-of-stanford-part-ii.html)

~~~
acjohnson55
It's kind of like the piece he should have written in the first place. The
first piece was little more than a troll comment in blog post form. This at
least shows a little bit of thought.

------
not_that_noob
There is enough data to indicate that the primary function of elite
universities is to signal that those they admit are motivated enough and smart
enough to achieve success, for their definition of success. What they do post-
admission in the university has little relevance to what they do in their
professional lives. These latest trends at Stanford are simply a logical
extension of this truth. In this scenario, Stanford is simply a richer version
of Y Combinator.

What this means is that in the rush to make more money and get more startups
going, perhaps more meaningful things will be de-emphasized. The bright
student on entering the school gets the unspoken message that founding a tech
startup is more prized than say building the groundwork for bio research, or
questioning and trying to change society, or perhaps investigating dark
matter.

If other universities followed Stanford's lead, we could end up with a world
where many individuals will individually be monetarily richer, but one in
which we could all collectively end up less rich in knowledge and meaning.

------
kunai
So, because of a few dropout students who start ephemeral startups with
limited scope and no scalability that are destined to die out in 3 or 4 years
until the next big thing comes along, Stanford is now no longer a school but a
breeding ground for fresh business intellect?

Give me a break. Stanford's graduation rates have been steadily rising to
highs. Its research is still top-notch, and breakthroughs are found every day.

And Knuth... is that enough? Is it? Yes, it is. Sensationalism at its best...

------
noelwelsh
Stanford are doing more than most to kill the traditional university (see
Coursera and Udacity). It's only natural that Stanford-the-institution should
be trying to change the model so it can survive. It isn't clear to me that
giving students learning opportunities likes running a real company with real
investors is a bad use of a university.

~~~
mattlutze
My undergrad university has had a program[1] where students start/run actual
companies for at least the last decade. The school helps secure grants or
contracts with industry partners and the students work on actual problems.

If you want credit you still have to pay like a class. However, for a number
of them at least the managers had salaries that met or exceeded their course
cost, and some everyone was paid.

Michigan Tech feeds to the biotech and automotive industries particularly in
Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin given the location, and a lot of the
enterprises have done some cool things with those fields, as well as some
defense work.

1: [http://www.mtu.edu/enterprise/](http://www.mtu.edu/enterprise/)

------
sloanesturz
I am a current Stanford sophomore. I think that Mr. Thompson has a misguided
view of what is currently happening at the school.

Stanford definitely puts a lot of emphasis on engineering and entrepreneurship
but this has been the case since Frederick Terman encouraged Hewlett and
Packard to create Hewlett-Packard. We've got plenty of pure researchers,
especially in Artificial Intelligence and in self-driving cars. We also have
Don Knuth. If you ever want to see pure academic research in CS, flip through
TAOCP for a little.

We also have plenty humanities researchers and writers. The Hoover Institute
at Stanford is a leading think tank about government and has a handful of
researchers you've heard of (read: Condoleeza Rice). Add in our 22 Nobel Prize
winners that are currently teaching at the school, and you've got a pretty
established research university.

------
tn13
The real point of going to school is not to earn a paper with ink on it. The
purpose is to empower young individuals to do something that immensely
benefits them, people around them and society in general. If Stanford students
are able to do that before actually completing the degree course it is even
better.

------
peterwwillis
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

------
kmfrk
The article's from April.

------
Glyptodon
MIT is just the same - all their researchers and students are starting
companies on the side while making use of MIT resources and networks.

------
tghw
While I agree this is a somewhat troubling trend, it is also ignoring the vast
majority of students who go there and get an education as expected. It does
seem that some conflict of interest rules should be put in place, but the
hyperbole of the article weakens its case.

------
tomasien
I rather enjoyed this post, but what a ridiculous premise. "There's a few
great startups to come out of here over the last 100 years, the other
thousands of students must feel the pressure to drop out!" I mean, what?

------
cafard
For how many students is this picture of Stanford recognizable? (I have never
been nearer Stanford than the SF airport, so the question isn't entirely
rhetorical.)

~~~
teuobk
Instantly recognizable. It's in the middle of the Oval looking towards the
Main Quad.

------
pbreit
Kinda hand-wavy on what the actually problem is.

------
calinet6
As a Berkeley grad, never was I happier to see a headline.

Up with the Blue and Gold, down with the red!

------
CrankyPants
This kind of link-bait title and article seems above The New Yorker.

------
leoh
Stanford can be a very empowering place, no matter what you study.

------
NN88
Holy Hyperbole!

------
michaelochurch
Is it not obvious to anyone else that Clinkle was secretly funded and
supported by Stanford haters specifically to humiliate that university? There
is no other explanation.

Clinkle's not worth taking seriously in any context, and its existence does
not establish anything, much less "the end of Stanford".

~~~
dkuntz2
Can someone explain the appeal of Clinkle to me? I've tried to understand it,
but even one of their marketers couldn't explain to me how it was better than
carrying your wallet around.

~~~
jff
I know nothing about Clinkle, but I think it's a great word for the act of
passing a kidney stone.

~~~
dkuntz2
That seems to be about as useful as they are so far as I can determine. And
I've talked to a member of their team.

