>StartX companies must have at least one founder with a Stanford affiliation. The majority of StartX companies have a founder who is currently or was previously an undergraduate or graduate student at the school.<p>In the world of academia, it <i>matters</i>, for some reason, that a founder have a Stanford affiliation.<p>I like startup culture specifically because it doesn't import this kind of nepotism. Or for that matter any of these academic institutions. Once StartX takes Stanford's money and plays by the rules of the academic world, it extends the rules of Stanford's admissions committee onto StartX's investments (equity or not).<p>I <i>like</i> that diversity doesn't matter in the startup world, generally speaking. I <i>like</i> that you don't have to do something charitable or socially-conscious. I like that you don't need a high SAT score or play a varsity sport. I like that startup culture doesn't really have a place for people like that—academic grants do!<p>Academic grants are so enormously generous and follow such significantly different standards of accountability that you can't really say that Stanford's $1 million are the same as NEA's $1 million.<p>It would be nice if one dollar meant the same thing everywhere, but if the standards by which that dollar is granted differ, it's hard to objectively compare two startups as routinely as we do by the capital they raise, the growth they experience and the revenue they generate.<p>No doubt my elitism is also an academic import. I get that. At least don't call what Stanford funds a startup. No equity? Not a startup anyhow. Don't mix me in with the folks who got where they are under Stanford's priorities, Stanford's standards of accountability and Stanford's money.<p>Long story short: taking funny money is bad for the business.