[Noted]

Huh? Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder of NVIDIA donated the money for the building. It's named after him and one of the auditoriums is named after NVIDIA. It's not like they offered up the naming rights to an auditorium for corporate bidding.

[Johnny555]

"It's not like they offered up the naming rights to an auditorium for corporate bidding."

Isn't that exactly what they did? "Give us $30M and we'll name a building after you". The only difference is that when you donate enough to build a building, you get your name on it in perpetuity, not just a fixed term. Oracle reportedly paid $20M - $30M over 10 years for naming rights to the Oakland Coliseum.

Not that there's anything wrong with it as naming academic buildings after donors has a long history.

[scott_karana]

> Not that there's anything wrong with it as naming academic buildings after donors has a long history.

A Jen-Hsun Huang Auditorium would have been infinitely preferable to NVIDIA Auditorium.

One points concretely to a mortal man whose efforts benefited the school during a specific time in history. The other is a context-free, effectively-indefinite tie to a faceless, immortal corporation.

In 100 years, which might retain more meaning? Or even in twenty? ;)

[scott_karana]

Hah, turns out there's a "Jen-Hsun Huang School of Engineering Center" at Stanford. That's much nicer.

[smarks]

Not coincidentally, the NVIDIA Auditorium is in the Huang Engineering Center.