Caltech Start-Up Culture

lizzardfire
Fri, 20 Mar 2015 17:42:02 +0000

Okay, so the broader question (to what extent do Caltech students engage in entrepreneurial activities) is a good one. Most Caltech students go to grad school, so the undergrad population doesn’t have the same “let’s make a web startup” vibe that Stanford does. That being said, going into a startup after that rigorous academic career is quite common. If you’re curious, talk to the Entrepreneurship club (http://eclub.caltech.edu/about.html). Many of my Caltech friends and acquaintances are now involved in great startups. A few examples: Quora (founded by Adam D’Angelo), Interana (Bobby and Ann Johnson), Kuna (Haomiao Huang), Nomiku (Abe Fetterman), Roominate (Bettina Chen).

Re: OTT and NSF, pretty much all research universities have this.

Go to Caltech if you want to get a rigorous and complete scientific education. If you’re less into hard and complete and more into just taking what you need to build your startup (nothing wrong with that) I’d look into a different school.