[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.