[quanticle]

The fertile environment for software tech companies in Gainesville and Florida as a whole will be severely damaged.

Is Gainesville really that fertile a ground for software startups? Moreover, will reducing research funding at University of Florida necessarily make the existing environment for startups worse? For example, what if the savings are invested into a greater emphasis on teaching?

[achompas]

Is Gainesville really that fertile a ground for software startups? Moreover, will reducing research funding at University of Florida necessarily make the existing environment for startups worse?

UF has a very strong entrepreneurial community. Grooveshark[0] and Hype Machine[1] were both founded by Gator alums.

I can imagine that reduced research --> lower quality RA opportunities --> reduced interest from undergrads, thus shrinking the number of undergrads interested in CS or tech startups.

[0]http://grooveshark.com/

[1]http://www.hypem.com

[ja27]

I sure wouldn't say fertile, but there's a growing bit of support there for tech startups. UF is generally the big engineering school in Florida, though USF (Tampa) and UCF (Orlando) have gained on it. They're big state schools grinding out undergrads, but it gets a lot harder if you lose all your grad students.

http://innovationgainesville.com

[wtvanhest]

Also, what happens in Gainesville will have no effect on what happens at UCF, FSU etc. Each of those schools are 2 hours drive from each other.

People in Silicon Valley don't worry about what happens in LA.

[checker]

Keep in mind that "software tech companies" is a superset of startups.