College Discussion - View Single Post - Berkeley VS Stanford -- which is better and why :)

sakky · 05-14-2008, 10:30 PM

I can agree that most established companies probably are indifferent between Berkeley vs. Stanford.

But I'm not talking about that. The truth is, most companies are not "made up of engineers from a lot of lower-tier schools", for the simple reason that most companies (in SV) are startups. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of startups in the Valley, with new ones being founded every week. Like I said, most startups don't have formal hiring practices because they can't. After all, when you're still just two guys in a garage somewhere, you don't have the time or expertise to run a formal hiring screen. At that stage, you end up hiring through your social network, i.e. your friends, something that has been documented time and time again by numerous researchers (i.e. Saxenian). Social networks are, far and away, the most prominent method that startups use to hire.

Furthermore, it is (sadly) indisputable that, for various reasons, there is more entrepreneurial activity around Stanford than around Berkeley. The upshot is that Stanford engineers have greater opportunity to join startups than do Berkeley students via social networks. The Berkeley engineer may be just as good, or even better, than the Stanford engineer, but that doesn't matter if he doesn't even know about the startup when it is young, which is precisely when you want to join a startup. Certainly, the early employees of Google - the bulk of whom were Stanford buddies of Sergey or Larry - aren't complaining. Sure, a Berkeley grad has ample opportunity to join Google now,but you don't really want to join Google now, you'd want to join Google back in 1998.

05-14-2008, 10:30 PM	#35
sakky Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 9,897	I can agree that most established companies probably are indifferent between Berkeley vs. Stanford. But I'm not talking about that. The truth is, most companies are not "made up of engineers from a lot of lower-tier schools", for the simple reason that most companies (in SV) are startups. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of startups in the Valley, with new ones being founded every week. Like I said, most startups don't have formal hiring practices because they can't. After all, when you're still just two guys in a garage somewhere, you don't have the time or expertise to run a formal hiring screen. At that stage, you end up hiring through your social network, i.e. your friends, something that has been documented time and time again by numerous researchers (i.e. Saxenian). Social networks are, far and away, the most prominent method that startups use to hire. Furthermore, it is (sadly) indisputable that, for various reasons, there is more entrepreneurial activity around Stanford than around Berkeley. The upshot is that Stanford engineers have greater opportunity to join startups than do Berkeley students via social networks. The Berkeley engineer may be just as good, or even better, than the Stanford engineer, but that doesn't matter if he doesn't even know about the startup when it is young, which is precisely when you want to join a startup. Certainly, the early employees of Google - the bulk of whom were Stanford buddies of Sergey or Larry - aren't complaining. Sure, a Berkeley grad has ample opportunity to join Google now,but you don't really want to join Google now, you'd want to join Google back in 1998.