[afridi]

Author of the original post here. To start of I'd just like to clarify that I'm a student at the University and have no ties to any of the administration.

The goal of the post was not to try and take credit for the successes of alumni, I rather wrote it to highlight how some of our alumni have gone on to do great things. I decided to write it after an experience I had this summer while I was interning at a VC firm in NYC. While there, I met the managing partner for one of NYC's biggest VC firms (I'll leave it unnamed) who basically said: 'oh, you go to UIUC.... they've produced one famous tech entrepreneur (Marc Andreessen), maybe you can be the second'. That's a sentiment I saw echoed throughout my time there and through previous experiences (especially on the East Coast).

In terms of the helping alumni with their ventures after graduation, I'd argue that the school has actually done a lot to help founders through the resources and early-stage funding available (a lot of these have sprung up recently). It's hard to compare it to Stanford/MIT/Harvard which are based in thriving tech cities where alumni and VCs can hop by on campus whenever.

Update: I'd also love to know (from everyone that sees this) what programs other universities have done to help alumni after graduation. Just because UIUC hasn't already done this doesn't mean we (students and alumni) can't start it. Just take a look at the awesome stuff that alumni from Harvard do for their community (http://harvard.splashthat.com/). It's entirely alumni managed + organized.

[joezydeco]

'oh, you go to UIUC.... they've produced one famous tech entrepreneur (Marc Andreessen), maybe you can be the second

Let's get history straight first. UIUC didn't turn pmarca into an entrepreneur. Jim Clark did that.

[jjtheblunt]

Andreesesen is overly celebrated because of his extreme luck, and is certainly not the first. Look up John Bardeen and Nick Holonyak for examples.

[afridi]

The school actually does highlight John Bardeen and Nick Holonyak a ton! John Bardeen was the first person mentioned on my tour of the college of engineering and Nick Holonyak gave the keynote at my ECE orientation.

My posts were meant to highlight entrepreneurship which is why I didn't mention them (they'd be in a class of amazing innovators who studied/worked at UIUC). There's also a ton of awesome alumni that have gone on to be C level execs at big companies, but again they were omitted because these posts were specifically targeted at entrepreneurial alumni.

[eldavido]

Be that as it may, they forgot Max Levchin and the entire Paypal Mafia. That's a pretty large omission IMO

[afridi]

Max Levchin and many of the other members of the Mafia (Luke Nosek, Jeremy Stoppelman, etc.) are mentioned in the post.

They are also not forgotten on campus. Max was on campus last year and there was a ton of excitement in the college of engineering among students.