America 1982-Chapter 603 - 134: The Rise of Stanford

Stanford University was possibly even more eager for its students to succeed than the students themselves, as it understood this might be the best opportunity for the century-old institution to leverage emerging industries and vault from a regionally renowned college into a globally recognized one.

Yale University almost monopolized the American political and academic dynasty, Harvard University controlled traditional American business and related academia, while The University of Chicago held sway over the American legal academic world.

In order to compete with these established powerhouses, Stanford University went all in on the burgeoning computer and internet industry.

So far, it seemed that Stanford University’s goal of taking a shortcut to success was nearly within reach. With almost two decades of no-expense-spared investment and various policies supporting the related industry, Stanford’s computer science programs had achieved a leading position among American universities. The Stanford Industrial Park, also known as the illustrious Silicon Valley, has given rise to ninety publicly traded companies related to the computer industry, 60% of whose founders were Stanford alumni.

These enterprises also provided jobs for a large number of Stanford graduates each year and made donations to their alma mater from time to time, ensuring that Stanford had ample funds to invest in education for relevant professions.

The consequence of this virtuous cycle was that all of America’s top scholars in the computer industry were attracted to Stanford University. For example, a professor who was a member of the National Academy of Engineering might have only $100 for research on gigabit networking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, if a Stanford graduate who had started a business in Silicon Valley realized that this research might greatly benefit his company’s future development, his approach wouldn’t be to poach the professor with a high salary, but to donate a large sum of money to his alma mater, Stanford University. Then Stanford, with a checkbook greatly exceeding $100 and the promise of a more liberal research environment, would entice him to relocate there. At Stanford, they’d extract his expertise to nourish and foster more professionals branded with Stanford’s prestige.

In other words, as long as he agreed to work at Stanford, any stringent conditions could be satisfied.

Old guys like Tommy, Quinn, and others spoke of were coaxed to stay by exactly such means—Winton Sev was one of them.

Although referred to as an old guy by the students in private, Winton was actually just forty-five years old. However, due to severe hearing impairment, he had developed the habit of speaking loudly at home to communicate clearly with his family. Even now, wearing a hearing aid, he hadn’t corrected this habit, often speaking to his students as if he—deaf himself—presumed they were equally hard of hearing.

Every time Tommy heard his voice calling out from the office to the lobby, asking students to help with errands, he had the bizarre feeling that he was in The Big Bang Theory, with Howard’s mother yelling at Howard.

Strangely, the loud voice was only used within his office. Once he stepped out, he would immediately become gentle and refined—an English gentleman of perfect decorum. This stark contrast in demeanor led students to speculate in private on numerous occasions whether there was some kind of radiation within his office that caused a split personality.

This individual, with titles, duties, and identities outnumbering the Mother of Dragons from Game of Thrones by more than a dozenfold, chose to spend most of his time at Stanford, not just because he was a true-blue Stanford alumnus, but also because Stanford University had shown him more sincerity than The University of California, The University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The University of Illinois, and several other universities.

They went out of their way to repurchase the antiquated PDP-1 computer from NASA, which Winton Sev utilized to write software for the Apollo program, and which contained a version of the game Spacewar! that Winton Sev had covertly installed as a diversion while working for NASA.

Transferring this outdated behemoth from NASA to Stanford cost less than $20,000, yet the gesture was priceless. After all, no other university took such a thoughtful interest in Winton Sev’s hobbies, and thus, the touched Professor Winton Sev chose to stay at Stanford for teaching and research.

For Winton Sev, where he worked made little difference, but for Stanford University, the distinction was stark. With Professor Sev becoming a permanent fixture at Stanford, it meant that the resources from his other affiliations would also lean towards Stanford.

For instance, as the Chief Scientist of the Information Processing Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an institution established by The Department of Defense to develop new technologies for military use, Sev’s involvement was significant.

The Information Processing Technology Office, under the Department of Defense’s original plan, was to lease land from the research park at MIT for collaboration. However, due to Chief Scientist Winton Sev’s decision to remain at Stanford, this center was ultimately situated in the Stanford Industrial Park, also known as Silicon Valley.

Bear in mind, this was an agency directly overseen by the Pentagon, not some penny-pinching organization like the National Science Foundation that strictly budgeted every dollar. In the minds of the top brass at the Pentagon, the concept of budgeting might as well be alien to them.