The UK’s world-leading universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge, are among its most celebrated exports. In addition to their history of academic excellence, these institutions are at the forefront of technological innovation, and are home to some of the world’s most cutting-edge research and talent in AI.
But they lag behind the likes of Stanford and MIT when it comes to breeding entrepreneurs. To close the gap we need more than better spinout policies. We need a cultural shift.
In the last decade Stanford and UC Berkeley have created more than 3,000 companies that have raised $140bn, compared to 599 companies produced by Oxford and Cambridge that have raised a combined $23.3bn, according to PitchBook data.
Just imagine the value that can be created for the UK and European economy if we encourage talent to choose entrepreneurship instead of investment banking, consultancy or law.
I’ve spent time in both ecosystems as an alumni of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s entrepreneurship programme Stanford Ignite, s, and as the founder of the startup competition and incubator Oxbridge AI Challenge and Oxbridge AI X community that represents more than 300 AI teams and startups. I’m also an alum of the Impulse programme at the University of Cambridge.
I’ve seen first hand that the AI talent in Oxbridge can compete with anyone in the world, and fostering it can turn the UK into a world-leading AI entrepreneurial hub.
But to do this, the universities and their respective communities need to leave historic rivalries behind and foster greater collaboration, while also embracing the kind of pay-it-forward culture and appetite for risk that exists in the Bay Area.
Collaboration over rivalry
In any industry, there is a case to be made for healthy competition, and perhaps no academic rivalry is older and more famous than that between Oxford and Cambridge. But when it comes to building startups and supporting greater and faster innovation, the two institutions would benefit considerably from a closer collaboration.
It’s something the UK government is also taking note of — in January, chancellor Rachel Reeves announced plans for improved transport links between the cities, with the aim to create a “growth corridor” that she says could add £78bn to the country’s economy by 2035. This is a fraction of the true potential possible.
Cutting the two-and-a-half hour journey time between Oxford and Cambridge, which are less than 70 miles apart, would have obvious benefits. Historically Oxford-based founders have claimed that having fewer local early-stage VCs on their doorstep has put them at a disadvantage compared to their Cambridge-based peers.
We’re starting to see things change, with some VCs hiring dedicated scouts to find startups in both cities, in some cases travelling from Germany, US, Middle East and China to find gems.
Stanford and Berkeley are a great example of what can happen when two universities choose collaboration. Stanford’s John Hennessy and Berkeley’s David Patterson, for example, recently won the Turing Award for their combined work developing “RISC” architecture that runs many of today’s chips. This kind of collaboration is encouraged by initiatives like the University of California Exchange Program, which allows Stanford graduate students to attend Berkeley classes to earn credits towards their degree, allowing opportunities for cross exposure and learning across the two.
We’re beginning to see greater cross-institutional activity between Oxford and Cambridge, with entrepreneurs from both attending the same hackathons, startup competitions and communities, but the universities and the wider ecosystem can encourage this more.
Paying it forward
As well as intra-university collaboration, more intra-entrepreneurial collaboration for Oxford and Cambridge would encourage more startup creation.
What struck me most during my time in the Bay Area was the culture of “paying it forward” — in other words, offering help without any transactional expectations. At Stanford I was repeatedly told: “you’re here, it doesn’t matter where you come from, how can I help?”
During the 8+ months I spent in Palo Alto and San Francisco — places where living costs are infamously high — I only paid for rent for around three weeks. I slept on every sofa, bed and floor on offer as I worked on building my social impact startup Tuki.
People with experience were also super generous with their time. Industry veterans such as Terry Opdendyk, founding partner of Onset Ventures, and Adam Goldberg, former Lightspeed partner, gave me advice and shared their stories in order to help me learn as I built.
In successful innovation ecosystems there is a generational approach and a collective investment in growing the size of the pie for all, rather than just taking a slice.
Prepare to fail
Exposure to serial entrepreneurs and operators who’ve built impactful companies and gone through the trenches has another effect: it increases one’s appetite for risk.
Oxbridge houses some of the most exceptional minds in the world. While this intellectual firepower creates fertile soil for groundbreaking innovations, these high achievers often lack familiarity with failure and remain blind to its transformative value. This “fear” fosters short-term thinking, pushing talented individuals toward the perceived safety of corporate roles rather than the uncertain — but potentially revolutionary — path of entrepreneurship.
On the West Coast, the biggest tech companies in the world are surrounded by the wreckage of countless failed ventures. The failure of online grocery company Webvan led to the building of Kiva Systems, which when it was acquired by Amazon for $775m became an important part of its warehouse automation systems.
There is a well-known mantra: “If you were smart enough to come up with this idea, you’re smart enough to come up with another one.”
This startup mentality is now beginning to grow rapidly among Oxbridge students, spurred on by recent visits from founders like Monzo’s Tom Blomfield, Y Combinator’s Paul Graham and Notion’s Ivan Zhao.
Preserving what’s special
None of this is to say we should throw out what makes us great and unique. There are many elements of the Oxbridge experience that are hugely positive for developing the kind of thinking that creates great university-centric entrepreneurship.
One of these is the collegiate system that — when people from all walks of life are thrown into close quarter environments — serves as a high-octane cauldron for honing EQ, and increased absorption from others with different interests, and specialities, as well as networking skills.
Oxbridge also exists in a wider ecosystem of outstanding research universities, with UCL, Imperial, Manchester and Bristol all being accessible. This, in combination with UK academia’s strong links to Europe, make Oxbridge a remarkably diverse and dynamic place to launch a startup from.
With some tweaks to the cultural fabric — encouraging the risk-taking, collaborative and supportive spirit that has made the Bay Area so successful — these universities can become incubation chambers for thousands of deeptech startups that can go on to change the world.
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