<p>First off, those people you spoke with sound really ignorant (and the Ivy League is just an athletic conference - Cornell can stand on its own academic rigor no matter who’s across the badminton court). </p>
<p>I think Cornell is well positioned for two reasons:</p>
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<li><p>Younger generations (40ish and below) increasingly want to live in vibrant cities that are walkable, bikeable, and transit-oriented. You won’t see another suburban Silicon Valley. Even in tech hubs like highway corridors outside Boston and DC, you’re seeing a migration of start-ups into the city or inner-ring suburbs. New York City is obviously perfectly positioned for this emerging lifestyle and has already skyrocketed as a tech start-up capital.</p></li>
<li><p>There’s no replicating Silicon Valley because it houses the fundamental commercial infrastructure for the web - the big, broad businesses that manage vast amounts of information and provide the tools to access that information. The next phase of web commercialization is technologies catering to specific industries or services. NYC is the epicenter of more industries than anywhere else, so Cornell will be perfectly positioned to capitalize on that phase of the web’s development. That phase needs to happen where non-tech industries already are.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So, yes, I think this could be very good for Cornell. Recognizing this shift toward cities, the school has long been trying to increase its “urban brand” by building satellite campuses and bolstering the medical school with a billion dollar renovation in Manhattan. This is a very natural and logical next step where Cornell already has a sizable footprint at what I think is a perfect time in the evolution of technology. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have a rise like Duke and UPenn saw over the past couple decades.</p>