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Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon
11–20 of 58 posts
Re: Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon
#12I was a little puzzled how Ithaca would factor in (~4 hours away) but apparently there's a satellite "Cornell Tech" campus on Roosevelt Island. Clearly the local talent available helps when factoring where to locate, but I can't help but cynically think that this story is a retcon to distract from the public subsidies. It's telling that there's no quote from any Amazon employee that substantiates the headline's claim…
I agree with your general cynicism :-) Cornell Tech was established a few years back as an interdisciplinary grad school on Roosevelt Island that brings together a lot of STEM disciplines (as well as business. Cornell Med School is also in NYC. It's an increasingly common pattern; see MIT's recent announcement of an AI school.
Stanford tried pretty hard to get this campus but, among other things, it's probably fair to say that there was a pretty heavy thumb on the scales in Cornell's favor given that it's a significant university in New York state.
Re: Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon
#13I'm going to be a Visiting Professor there in 2019, and I'll be teaching a deep learning course. One interesting thing about Cornell Tech is that the faculty all work in an open office space, and I think that's to embrace start up culture. Faculty have "huddle" rooms for meetings. At my home institution, I spend 20 hours per week in meetings. Faculty do have dedicated huddle rooms, though.
Why embrace the bad parts of startup culture (open plans)? Seems cargo cultish: open plans exist as a cost control measure, and make it easier to grow/shrink. Academia has endowments and tends to have a more stable labor force.
Re: Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon
#14I'm going to be a Visiting Professor there in 2019, and I'll be teaching a deep learning course. One interesting thing about Cornell Tech is that the faculty all work in an open office space, and I think that's to embrace start up culture. Faculty have "huddle" rooms for meetings. At my home institution, I spend 20 hours per week in meetings. Faculty do have dedicated huddle rooms, though.
honest question: Do you think open offices are or should be an "embraceable" aspect of start-up culture?
Are the common activities of faculty compatible with rows of desks, no privacy and constant interruptions? I'm thinking about administrivia and deep, contemplative thought.
The only (perhaps) valid use-case I've seen for open office is highly collaborative tactical execution. The minute you need individual thought-space or strategic focus it's a massive hinderance.
Re: Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon
#15There is basically nothing mentioned about Amazon in this article. And it ignores one of the few unique elements that may have attracted Amazon, the Jacobs institute's new intellectual property policy.
The key nugget is early in the article: Dan Huttenlocher is the dean of this campus and is on Amazon's board.
(BTW I've known Dan for over 35 years and don't mean to imply there's anything improper -- quite the opposite)
Re: Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon
#16I'm going to be a Visiting Professor there in 2019, and I'll be teaching a deep learning course. One interesting thing about Cornell Tech is that the faculty all work in an open office space, and I think that's to embrace start up culture. Faculty have "huddle" rooms for meetings. At my home institution, I spend 20 hours per week in meetings. Faculty do have dedicated huddle rooms, though.
I'm a Cornell alum (Comp Sci undergrad, Class of 2001.) For my current startup, we go to Cornell Tech to recruit. I'm taken aback at the campus -- it is beautiful, just the right blend of remoteness in an urban setting, and I think it would be a great place to study. The various buildings and diverse meeting/sitting/study places is great and I think will get even better as the campus builds out.
Re: Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon
#17I was a little puzzled how Ithaca would factor in (~4 hours away) but apparently there's a satellite "Cornell Tech" campus on Roosevelt Island. Clearly the local talent available helps when factoring where to locate, but I can't help but cynically think that this story is a retcon to distract from the public subsidies. It's telling that there's no quote from any Amazon employee that substantiates the headline's claim…
I agree with your general cynicism :-) Cornell Tech was established a few years back as an interdisciplinary grad school on Roosevelt Island that brings together a lot of STEM disciplines (as well as business. Cornell Med School is also in NYC. It's an increasingly common pattern; see MIT's recent announcement of an AI school. Stanford tried pretty hard to get this campus but, among other things, it's probably fair t…
Stanford dropped out before submitting their bid because Cornell got a big donation that Stanford wasn't able to match. Stanford was actually the clear favorite before that happened.
Re: Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon
#18New York made New York appealing to Amazon. Snark aside, it’s unlikely one can link Amazon’s decision to a single factor. New York being what it has has a large number of assets in its favor: a huge, mobile workforce, strong business community, strong sales community, deep tech pool, a strong transit system, legitimately a world-class city...
New York is definitely a world-class city, but Amazon had the opportunity to attract talent to make a city that is not currently a world-class city into one but instead selected an already established one
Re: Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon
#19I'm going to be a Visiting Professor there in 2019, and I'll be teaching a deep learning course. One interesting thing about Cornell Tech is that the faculty all work in an open office space, and I think that's to embrace start up culture. Faculty have "huddle" rooms for meetings. At my home institution, I spend 20 hours per week in meetings. Faculty do have dedicated huddle rooms, though.
honest question: Do you think open offices are or should be an "embraceable" aspect of start-up culture? Are the common activities of faculty compatible with rows of desks, no privacy and constant interruptions? I'm thinking about administrivia and deep, contemplative thought. The only (perhaps) valid use-case I've seen for open office is highly collaborative tactical execution. The minute you need individual thought…
I wonder this too. My guess is it could be similar to programming-- there's times when it's just me and my computer-- everything else is a distraction. Other times though, I'm working with others, asking questions, helping people or socializing. I have friends at places where they have offices, and I work on an open-office space: we each like and dislike different aspects of our respective setup.
From my experience in college (anecdotal observations), there's professors who seem to spend a lot of time working with others. They were solving problems with grad-students or at meetings-- though there's some I always found alone in their offices too. I'm sure this varies by person and by field, but I'd be interested in knowing if the open office is working for the faculty here.
Re: Cornell Graduate School Helped Make New York Appealing to Amazon
#20There is basically nothing mentioned about Amazon in this article. And it ignores one of the few unique elements that may have attracted Amazon, the Jacobs institute's new intellectual property policy.
That's because the article is primarily about Cornell Tech HELPING make New York appealing, not Cornell Tech as the causal reason. The piece is much more about Cornell Tech than about Amazon's decision.