Bell Labs Is Gone. Academia Steps In. | Hacker News Reader

Bell Labs Is Gone. Academia Steps In.

nytimes.com

11 pointsrobg6 comments

I wonder how things like this might affect startups coming out of universities. In the past, there were people like Dr. Ousterhout who, realizing they had something hot on their hands, would spin it out into a company from the University. A large corporation breathing down your neck might crimp that to some degree.

US Public Universities seem to be going down the same path as the US Postal Service (an interesting topic in itself as the USPS is established in the Constitution). The government is cutting them loose. I am wary as to whether this is a good idea or not. Private Universities can take care of themselves, but Public Universities, especially land grant universities (e.g. the entire University of California system), were created for a specific purpose and to serve a specific constituency. It is debatable whether or not large multinational corporations are included in this constituency or if they are appropriate entities that should be driving Public University policy.

If the Federal government is cutting US public universities loose, then State governments will have to pick up more of the slack. Or close them.

Having been a professor (now in the private sector), I'm not sure that multinationals will get what they are expecting from academia. Bell Labs and PARC had "applications" built into their DNA. Professors, especially tenured ones, always have an out: academic freedom. Concomitantly, I'm not sure that universities will get what they want, ultimately, either. They are selling their academic horsepower, but may lose academic integrity. It's an interesting relationship.

Having said that, a really smart multinational might get more bang for their buck by funding an army of startups and small research-oriented firms, both with much lower overhead costs than academia (50%+).

What companies get is a good chunk of the infrastructure is funded by the public.

Most labs get big chunks of money from the government, which funds basic research. As a result of this funding, the lab exists and people are trained in the basic science. Turning an already existing lab towards stuff useful for the company is much easier than building one from scratch.

Since much of that basic research money is funneled into universities, corporations have to go to universities to get the benefits.

"...then State governments will have to pick up more of the slack."

The sad thing is State governments are doing the same thing. I reference the illusory "let us fund education with lottery money" mentality many states follow forcing universities and colleges to seek funding elsewhere.

Case in point, Truman State University, the university formerly known as Northeast Missouri State University. Several years ago this institution embarked on a re-branding excercise to become a self-proclaimed "little Harvard" in order to survive. From a financial and quality of education standpoint it has been a successful exercise. "Truman State University's quest to become the nation's leading public liberal arts university" is a demonstrable success regarding national ranking and all the metrics that go along with that ranking. It is serving the nation well as an institution of higher learning. I don't know if the same can be said for Missouri's citizens, especially those of northeast Missouri, whose children are no longer admitted.

I predict that education at public universities will follow the path that their affiliated extracurricular sports programs have followed as they compete for corporate largess. Their will be a "Top 20" group of winners and everyone else. Unfortunately, the Top 20 cannot educate all the students in need of an education.

> funding an army of startups and small research-oriented firms, both with much lower overhead costs than academia

The big advantage in academia is access to prohibitively expensive equipment. What option was there for Google back then, other than using "free" university computers and bandwidth? No way they could've afforded it at 90s prices. Even though prices have fallen now for that, there's always something too pricey for a startup. What if your research involves a particle accelerator or something else you can't rent hourly from Amazon? Students can get access to resources they simply couldn't otherwise, especially in the hard sciences.

Nobody's going to rent $100k of equipment to a student with a $500 limit Mastercard. Not to mention, a week's rental would probably equal your tuition, so forget about having access to something for an entire semester.

Software startups are an anomaly. If consumer electronics didn't conveniently happen to make inroads for you (as it did with computers and video equipment), the barrier to entry for MOST technical disciplines tends to be as high as ever.

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