Stanford professor claps back: Musk's engineers were all trained in academia

anshulkundaje · x · 2026-10-20

Stanford genetics professor Anshul Kundaje got into an X exchange over the value of academia. When a user implied world-changing discoveries come out of entrepreneurial garages like Elon Musk's, Kundaje shot back asking whether Nobel laureates and thousands of other major discoverers came out of Elon's garage. He noted that the engineers and scientists at Musk's companies were largely trained in academia, mocking the critic for not understanding academia's role — a snapshot of the ongoing academia-vs-industry debate in the AI era.

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