Oxford instituted a fundraising freeze. They knew the org could have gotten oodles funding from any number of strange tech people, they disliked it so much they didn’t care.
I wonder how much they disliked it and how much they felt it was just using the Oxford brand and cheapening it. Only a slight but a qualitative difference. You can pump out all the awful shit you want at Oxford, but cheapen the brand with the increasingly zany antics of your dorky club and they might at least look twice.
I would guess that their personal reach over the name is pretty limited by a number of factors, including that the town itself has quite a significant similar claim itself. “Oxford Brookes” university, for example, is not a part of Oxford the Ancient University, but it certainly helps their brand to be next door (and as far as I know it’s a perfectly fine institution as far as these things go).
The issue with the Future of Humanity Institute would be almost the other way around: that as long as it’s in-house, the university can hardly dissociate themselves from it.
Surprised they didn’t just do the agile thing and seek direct financial support from Peter Thiel.
Oxford instituted a fundraising freeze. They knew the org could have gotten oodles funding from any number of strange tech people, they disliked it so much they didn’t care.
I mean they could have cut ties entirely with Oxford.
I wonder how much they disliked it and how much they felt it was just using the Oxford brand and cheapening it. Only a slight but a qualitative difference. You can pump out all the awful shit you want at Oxford, but cheapen the brand with the increasingly zany antics of your dorky club and they might at least look twice.
Has Oxford gone after the Scientologists calling their personality quiz the “Oxford Capacity Assessment” or something similar?
That’s named after Oxford, MS, wink wink
I would guess that their personal reach over the name is pretty limited by a number of factors, including that the town itself has quite a significant similar claim itself. “Oxford Brookes” university, for example, is not a part of Oxford the Ancient University, but it certainly helps their brand to be next door (and as far as I know it’s a perfectly fine institution as far as these things go).
The issue with the Future of Humanity Institute would be almost the other way around: that as long as it’s in-house, the university can hardly dissociate themselves from it.
formerly Oxford Polytechnic, then universitised in 1992
In Cambridge, there’s a sign at the train station with a quiet joke…