MIT, CalTech, Cornell and the Others

 

 

Not Your Typical Brainiac

 

 

 

I can be entranced by reading about the silly success some people achieve. It's those people who are born at the right moment with a decent amount of cleverness. You can be awed by Einstein, but he was a once in a 1,000 years freak of nature. Of course he was famous. To me, someone like Gates of Microsoft seem more approachable.

I read the financial news. Most of it is bullshit and you have to sift through that to find the diamonds. I read last week Cisco Systems, a computer company out of Silicon Valley, was laying off 4,000 people. That on top of a past 5,000 from a year earlier. Guess things aren't too happy at Cisco.

I never knew what Cisco was really, so I read up on them. I Googled it and read their story. It's amazing at how some people can rise to the top and not always morally either.

Cisco Systems was founded in December 1984 by two members of Stanford University computer support staff. Leonard Bosack who was in charge of the computer science department's computers, and Sandy Lerner, who managed the Graduate School of Business' computers.

What the two did was to quit Stanford and start their own company with the “intellectual property” of the networking system they built for the University. A few months later, Stanford found out and became batshit over the theft. They threatened lawsuits and fire and brimstone on those two. But, for some reason, Stanford just licensed the use of the networking idea.

In less than ten years, Cisco becomes a Megacorp and the two original entrepreneurs sold off Cisco for $170 million.

All I could think of was the luck, the brains and the absolute balls it took to just walk away from a company with “their” property, use it for a start-up company and then watch it lift off like a rocket.

These triumphs can happen, but it's rare. Not everyone with brains, standing in the right spot at the right moment and having the gumption always propels you to stardom. I swear it's still one hell of a Lottery.

*****

 

I told this story to Paul, an acquaintance, who then responds with a similar one. I never knew he worked for MIT up in Boston working their in-house video, commercials and other media. He alerted to a little known secret up there, the student's rather high suicide rate.  The competition between the students was severe enough to make some, who failed to make the grade, fling themselves off some tower on campus. Then again, look at these kids, they competed since seventh grade to be accepted at MIT long before they took their first orientation at that college.

“They all go there, knowing that there are only a few slots available in the science world to become a “star,” so many go balls to the wall studying, working to maintain a 4.00 GPA throughout their college career and then to even shine brighter than that” he tells me.

He adds, “Did you know, MIT will not grade their freshman students? It was adopted to help curtail the competition and suicides there. They wanted to remove any rating system that would entice the kids to compete any harder. If you don't know the score, you can't really know what's going on. It's when you hit your sophomore year you find out.”

He tells me a funny, though sick, story about MIT and suicides.

“MIT is like Brown, everything is brought to the kids there as they are fairly rich to begin with. Clothing, restaurants and entertainment, you name it. One night they brought this comedian in and I had to set up the stage, the lighting and such. I stayed behind, leaning against the back wall to hear this guy's routine. His first joke emptied half the auditorium!”

“The comedian said, 'I hear there are many suicides at these high pressure colleges. You'd think, with kids as smart as you...you would know better!'”

“I nearly guffawed when I heard that. True, it's sick but funny at the same time. A lot of kids walked out of the auditorium because of that joke ” Paul said.

Paul ends his story with this,

“You know where most of these kids end up, after graduating? There are a precious few who become stars, win the Nobel, but most, they end up working as very smart drudges, making some good money at defense plants. They are upper middle class worker bees.”