Stanford totally dissed New York City today by dropping its bid to build a tech campus on Roosevelt Island. What happened to all the lovey-dovey intercoastal necking that was so irritating to local contenders for the project? The city repeatedly highlighted the bid from the prestigious Stanford in speeches and press releases. But did Bloomie then say Stanford was “desperate” to build a campus in New York, during a talk at MIT? The negotiations fell apart suddenly; Stanford’s delegation was in New York and reportedly negotiating as late as yesterday. An announcement by Stanford took its competitors by surprise. Even the city did not have a statement ready, suggesting perhaps even they didn’t know. All signs point to: the city dropped the ball.
Fred Wilson was pleased; but what did the Twittersphere think? Turns out, most were sad to see Stanford go.
Omid Ashtari, former sales and biz dev at Google, currently biz dev for @foursquare in Europe:
This really sucks: Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus via @Betabeat betabeat.com/?p=24415
— Omid Ashtari (@thecoolgeek) December 16, 2011
Eric Hippeau, co-founder and former CEO of The Huffington Post:
Huge missed opportunity for NYC RT @betabeat: Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus via @Betabeat betabeat.com/?p=24415 — Eric Hippeau (@erichippeau) December 16, 2011
Andrew Hill, product manager at LinkedIn in San Francisco.
Pulling back is the right move for the University. RT @betabeat: Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus betabeat.com/?p=24415
— Andrew Hill (@hillens) December 16, 2011
Shai Goldman, Silicon Valley Bank.
Unfortunate, now I’m rooting for the Cornell/Technion proposal “@betabeat: Stanford Pulls Bid for NY Tech Campus betabeat.com/?p=24415” — Shai Goldman (@shaig) December 16, 2011
Nihal Mehta, angel investor and CEO of LocalResponse:
would LOVE to hear the backstory RT @nitashatiku: BREAKING: Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus via @Betabeat bit.ly/ttaKFK
— nihal mehta (@nihalmehta) December 16, 2011
Harry Heymann, lead engineer at Foursquare.
@betabeat very disappointing news — harryh (@harryh) December 16, 2011
Momentum, mysterious Twitter account
@Stanford it was going top be such an awesome move. reconsider 🙂
— Momentum (@mmntum) December 16, 2011
Julia Claire, LiveIntent
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO RT @betabeat: Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus betabeat.com/?p=24415” — julia claire (@hooliaclaire) December 16, 2011
Over on Hacker News, one user wrote: “Surprising indeed. It seems strange that they would take the proposal this far before withdrawing for financial reasons, or fear of losing. Surely there is a more interesting bone of contention here that didn’t become evident until late in the process.”
To which another replied: “Maybe the data from the online courses came in during the meantime and Stanford realised that they could grow the university exponentially without opening new campuses?“
