[nickbarnwell]

> It's funny, because it seems to me that a lot of the talent coming out of UW CSE isn't going to make it into the valley in any meaningful way.

This, exactly, has been my sentiment since starting at UW. There are plenty of capable, intelligent people who seem to have never written code prior to starting on the CS track. On the whole, the undergraduate program seems to have a very myopic focus. CS is not Biochemistry or Particle Physics - the equipment requirement is $50 for a used Ti-83 to learn BASIC on and catch the bug.

> but it seems like they're never going to have someone they can point to as a success like, for example, Harvard, Stanford, or MIT. I think that's the reason why their reputation is a lot more quiet.

I think the canonical success is Jeff Dean...who went there for graduate school and was immensely successful beforehand. For what it's worth, Harvard doesn't have too many success stories either. Both Gates and Zuckerberg dropped out, and it's a school with a reputation for fostering careers more than entrepreneurship. In many ways, it's more similar to UW than UW is to Stanford.