"Observation bears this out: within the US, towns have become startup hubs if and only if they have both rich people and nerds. Few startups happen in Miami, for example, because although it's full of rich people, it has few nerds. It's not the kind of place nerds like."
"However, merely creating a new university would not be enough to start a silicon valley. The university is just the seed. It has to be planted in the right soil, or it won't germinate. Plant it in the wrong place, and you just create Carnegie-Mellon.
To spawn startups, your university has to be in a town that has attractions other than the university. It has to be a place where investors want to live, and students want to stay after they graduate."
And are they academically and intellectually free from Griffin? Can CMU itself or their Florida school do things and have programs that violate Griffin's beliefs?
And I wonder how CMU intends to handle the limits to academic freedom and other l freedoms in Florida. Maybe being a private university will insulate them? At the heart of this issue: Why is it important to Griffin to put the school in Miami, FL? There are obvious political possibilities.
Freedom isn't incidental; it's the core of what America is and it drives unprecedented innovation and prosperity, among other things.
Also, as someone else posted: How much is this a CMU campus, and how much a Griffin campus for which he paid to use the CMU name?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/us/3-billion-donation-car...
People giving you money often want something in return. If the something is unstated, be very suspicious. For $3B you could be giving them something priceless - your reputation, independence, or merely your soul. Big numbers tend to blind people; the bigger the number the more wary you should be.
The most fundamental negotiating advice is that you should always be willing and able to walk away from the deal. 'No' is always an option.
That said they're building a new campus so they'll be able to admit more students.
But yeah this Griffin guy could give the place a bad name. (Full disclosure, I did a postdoc at the SCS.)
$2B for new Miami campus (could have been in NYC, but well ...) $1B - split w $500M for CS Dept - for Pittsburg campus
"CMU Miami will invert the traditional higher education model by organizing learning and inquiry around societal challenges rather than academic majors. It will be entirely designed and built — from first blueprints to final beam — to drive revolutionary breakthroughs that address society’s defining challenges."
Renaming after this guy?
Miami?!
thats a good thing.
also a cmu grad claiming the morality of the money going into education and naming rights matter is hilarious.
both its founders were worse than ken, and again at least hte money went to something good.
His son was even better.
Wait, I guess this is someone else?
You went to a school who's founder was a robber baron (Carnegie) who deployed the army to put down a strike [0] and who's other founder (Mellon) caused the Great Depression [1] and whose family funded Trump 2 [2].
Alternatively, be happy CMU has more capital to continue to build programs.
Edit: can't reply
> To be fair, the Trumper is a different Mellon
It's the same family and Timothy Mellon is a direct descendent and heir of Andrew Mellon's
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike
[1] - https://time.com/archive/6757394/the-cabinet-death-of-mellon...
Honeydew you even realise, the Trumper is some useless offspring from the 3rd or 4th degeneration. Like, the Tiffany Trump of Mellons. A petty pilferer among robber aristocracy. He probably never locked out a workforce in his whole life.
Their contemporary equivalents seem to be interested in speedrunning a revolution that ends badly for everyone.
Musk's narcissism is unsurpassed in that he forsees a legacy that excludes the entire human race, except for those aboard his space expedition.
But Bill Gates has something of the Carnegie trajectory about him. I think there is actually a Gates building at CMU.
? You can't go back in time either (though I don't mean to assume!). The moments we're dealing with are now and the future.
If your argument is, 'they did it before therefore it's a good idea or ok now', I don't know what to say to you. Perhaps you are a prisoner of the past, which prevents us from moving forward.
It was suppose to also include a large campus in the Loop but that floundered for years and was eventually cancelled when UIUC decided to instead be a partner in the new quantum computing center on the south side.
The Quantum Exchange being in South Side occured becuase it's tied to Argonne, Fermilab, and by extension UChicago.
Once you climb high enough the ladder everyone basically has the exact same interests, especially in cities like Chicago.
Something something 1871, ChicagoNEXT, Techstars Chicago, UChicago, Northwestern, UIUC, Purdue
It's the same way Penny (JB's sister and former Secretary of Commerce under Obama) and Ken donate oodles to Harvard because it is their undergrad alma mater (eg. Pritzker Commons, Pritzker Hall, Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences).
Also, Ken couldn't control Rauner given that Rauner was equally wealthy (he founded and chaired GTCR with Carl Thoma of Thoma Bravo fame).
Pritzker and Rauner is basically two sides of the same coin where both were essentially retired but in the same circles and decided to compete because of personal ambition.
What a complete waste of human capacity if so.
The world is competitive. It is what it is.
To have the power to affect change you need power.
If someone wanted to live hedonically, you don't need to be a billionaire - a $15-20M net worth would be more than enough.
Those who make the jump from VHNWI to UHNWI have a whole different mindset and viciousness.
JB's philanthropy tends to target Duke and Northwestern (his alma mater).