Maybe I'm wrong, my understanding is that betabeat is a NY tech advocacy site, their about page pretty much says that and admits they engage in boosterism. And it kind of follows that NY tech advocacy is pretty much all about the financing angle, hence my seeing their NY tech boosterism as fundamentally NY VC boosterism.
Anyway, I found the quote interesting and kind of highlights that there is something of an irreconcilable major cultural mismatch between the scenes on each coast, which may have been an issue with Stanford pulling out. I thing west coast entrepreneurs often don't realize the extent to which east coast people don't think the same at all about tech and business. As the author pointed out, he didn't see much value in Stanford seeding their point of view regarding technology and entrepreneurship to the east, he thought the greater value was in Stanford learning their perspectives about fashion and high finance instead. Those are things he sees as more valuable than using star wars metaphors for designing robots, not seeing that there is utility in research and research can sometimes be made fun. Star Wars is not the only influence on the west coast, there is also the very major influence of Star Trek devices on Apple's entire current business model since we've been seeing iPads on west coast produced TV programs since the 1980s and Siri since the 1960s. New Yorkers, as is evidenced by the comments, see that stuff as a bunch of stupid childish geek stupidity which they have contempt and disdain for. Getting bailouts, buying jet airplanes, and having servants are what proper adults should be interested in. Hah, I guess you can tell which coast I favor, I'm biased as well.