[HN Gopher] University of Florida gets around $20M from Gatorade...
___________________________________________________________________
University of Florida gets around $20M from Gatorade profits every
year
Author : Anon84
Score : 239 points
Date : 2021-09-19 12:06 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehustle.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehustle.co)
| elzbardico wrote:
| An university sponsored by Blando(tm). This is so America!
| benatkin wrote:
| Brawndo. Indeed, straight out of Idiocracy!
| paulcole wrote:
| When I was there (2001-2005), the campus had a contract w/ Coca
| Cola where all the vending machines on campus were Coke products
| only - only exception was that there were Gatorade machines
| everywhere.
|
| Go Gators!
| jacquesm wrote:
| I find this kind of connection between commerce and university
| a bad influence.
| paulcole wrote:
| What drinks should they have for sale on campus?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Whatever the students request, and with the size of a
| typical university that's probably a fairly large
| selection, as long as it can be sold before the best-before
| date it should be fine.
|
| Note that that no doubt will include the products of the
| companies that now have the monopoly.
| deserted wrote:
| So how should they should stock a 12 can vending machine?
|
| Coke Pepsi Diet Coke Diet Pepsi
|
| etc
| [deleted]
| rsj_hn wrote:
| in what way?
| kube-system wrote:
| These types of contacts are very common at US universities.
| They're bad in that students might have fewer choices of
| sugary beverage on campus. But it's not like these deals are
| influencing academics or anything. These deals mostly amount
| to the director of food service getting a better deal when
| stocking the concession stands and the dining halls.
|
| If you deal in any kind of bulk good, you will typically sign
| a contract with your distributor with some sort of terms.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| If you think university is not a business you have some
| growing up to do.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Well, but on the bright side "it got electrolytes!"
| phasetransition wrote:
| Long ago I received my undergraduate degree from the University
| of Florida (UF). I remember when I started college, UF provided
| us a document that was entitled the IP passport, looked like a
| passport, and had all the IP related details you ever wanted to
| read about (which wasn't much for an 18 year old kid). But it was
| all there in plain language.
|
| UF had (has?) 3 major IP breadwinners, Gatorade, Sentricon
| termite bait, and a glaucoma drug. Likely as a result, they had a
| sophisticated IP licensing and commercialization operation.
| Later, when I went to Georgia Tech, I discovered their technology
| licensing services were rather amateur in comparison.
|
| There was a time when University of Florida and Florida State
| University, both state schools, were top 10 ranked for revenue
| from technology licensure. A professor at Florida State first
| developed the synthetic chemistry for the drug Taxol.
| NetBeck wrote:
| A recent alumni gift from NVIDIA's cofounder will "Build
| Fastest AI Supercomputer in Academia" for UFL.[0] When I was
| researching colleges to attend, Florida seemed amazing for in-
| state tuition. Florida is still ranked one of the best states
| for higher education.[1]
|
| [0] https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/07/21/university-of-
| flori...
|
| [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
| states/rankings/education/h...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Ironically, wikipedia lists the history as UF originally
| turning down a patent offer.
|
| Then, when Robert Cade commercialized it and demonstrated
| sales, they sued him for a cut. The two parties settled on 20%
| for UF, plus reinvestment of some of the proceeds in Cade's
| research at the school. [0]
|
| So apparently all schools are amateur at commercialization. UF
| just has more experience than most.
|
| And generally, it seems like most universities do better
| spinning applied research and licensure off into an associated
| organization, who can focus on that. E.g. Ames, Argonne, JPL,
| LLNL, Lincoln Lab, ORNL
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cade
| geoduck14 wrote:
| >So apparently all schools are amateur at commercialization.
| UF just has more experience than most.
|
| The professor that originally created the buckey ball
| (forerunner to carbon nano tubes) was at a community College,
| and he didn't realize what he had done. Then a nearby
| university (the one you are thinking of) saw his research and
| recognized what was happening - so they bought it and
| expanded it. The university professors eventually got a Nobel
| prize out of it.
| busyant wrote:
| > Then, when Robert Cade commercialized it and demonstrated
| sales, they sued him for a cut.
|
| Someone once told me that no one gives a shit about your IP
| until you start making money.
|
| If you start making money, then people will remember one of
| the following: a) your patent is invalid because they
| discovered it before you or b) they helped you with your
| discovery and they deserve a slice.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > they helped you with your discovery and they deserve a
| slice.
|
| Using the "Gator" trademark entitles UF to a slice.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| The word Gator is not a trademark, it's a common term for
| an alligator that dates back hundreds of years. "Florida
| Gators" is, within the context of football, athletics and
| academics.
| gyc wrote:
| > So apparently all schools are amateur at commercialization.
| UF just has more experience than most.
|
| I knew an engineering professor at a large state school with
| a renowned engineering program and one of his biggest
| complaints was how incompetent the
| licensing/commercialization office was at the school compared
| with, say, Stanford.
| slap_shot wrote:
| > Likely as a result, they had a sophisticated IP licensing and
| commercialization operation
|
| Because UF fucked up the Gatorade deal so badly.
|
| I went to UF and worked for a seed investment fund that spun
| technology out of UF's research labs (and later one of their
| portfolio companies).
|
| Their research to company pipeline is a beast because they're
| deathly afraid of making that mistake again.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| When I was a child the NFL was still drinking Kool-Aid, and
| only the Gators had Gatorade.
|
| Other schools were envious and there was pressure to release
| it. It's hot down there in the SEC.
|
| By the time I got to the University they were starting to rake
| in the bucks on the Gatorade and there was an emerging culture
| where there was widespread pressure to "invent new things or
| new ways of making the same old things".
|
| It didn't usually work out and has long since faded, but it was
| an exciting time, not exactly shared by other universities,
| even some of the most prestigious.
|
| This was quite strong in the Chemistry department where
| competition was very fierce in this respect, which could be
| seen as unsustainable at the time.
|
| So when I was still a teenager I realized it was already too
| late and there would have to be a way to own my own inventions
| other than academic research, that had to be crossed off the
| list early.
|
| It looked like a pretty smooth track but it was not headed
| where I wanted to go.
|
| Therefore no PhD, no Bell Labs, no IBM, etc.
|
| I forked early without resources which always seems premature,
| but in hindsight it was almost already too late for
| entrepreneurial effort alone to allow me to later launch
| without outside capital.
|
| Interestingly, none of the other most lucrative university
| royalties today are nearly as many decades old as Gatorade.
| clairity wrote:
| i still drink gatorade all these years after being
| indoctrinated into it through basketball (via marketing
| agreements with schools), where we made it from powder in
| 10-gallon coolers. i still highly recommend making it from
| powder, so you don't pay the premium to transport water
| needlessly. it's also roughly 10x cheaper that way, and you
| can make it (much) less sweet, which is better for
| hydration/replenishment.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| My employer has the packets in every port location so the
| field operators can always have some when they are out
| climbing the cargo tanks and boarding the ships.
|
| If they haven't got bottled water then potable water is OK
| too, just need to carry an empty Gatorade bottle in the
| truck.
|
| I guess Amazon workers would need two empty Gatorade
| bottles then, and _really_ need to keep track of which is
| which.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Interesting enough, you can order the large things of
| powdered Gatorade for in-store pickup from Target, but they
| don't have it on the shelves. They don't want anyone to buy
| it, but if you're going to buy it online then they'd rather
| sell it to you. On their website they list it as being on a
| "secret shelf" that doesn't actually exist in the store.
|
| As long as it's 50% diluted, it's still as good as all of
| the more modern products for most use cases.
| [deleted]
| roland35 wrote:
| When I was a student at University of Florida, they didn't have -
| grades (i.e. A-, B-, etc). I heard it was due to a faculty
| protest against grade inflation, which in the end benefited me
| since a 90.0% was a full A on the 4.0 scale!
|
| It looks like they have minus grades again, but I can't find any
| sources online - this was in the 2000's.
|
| Also, it looks like the "New Engineering Building" is now just
| "Engineering Building". Maybe naming rights are still available
| if someone wants to donate a few million?
| meowkit wrote:
| Yes they have minus grades.
|
| NEB is still called NEB or the "ECE" building along with
| Larson/Benton Halls.
|
| There is the new Herbert Wertheim Engineering Lab which is the
| "New"est Engineering Building. The Malachowsky Data Science
| Building is under construction south of the Reitz Union,
| replacing the parking lot at the top of the Center Drive hill.
|
| Source: Finished masters in 2019.
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| Sounds like the protest wasn't very effective!
| Maursault wrote:
| Probably unrelated, but New College of Florida [1], once part
| of the University of Southern Florida, never used grades.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_College_of_Florida
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| When I was at UF they often didn't give an A+ every semester
| or even every year, even though it had always been considered
| top attainment by an outstanding student. It could not bring
| your GPA above 4.0 anyway.
|
| New College, Nova University, and FAU were considered to be
| the destinations for the experimental high school students
| who attended the original Nova from 7th through 12th grade.
| The high school had a bizarre stanine grading system that
| could not directly translate to mainstream ratings.
|
| This was years before they invented "Middle School" for
| everyone else to replace Junior High.
| internet2000 wrote:
| What does Frost Glacier Freeze Gatorade taste like?
| wibagusto wrote:
| Hurricane Matilda.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Woolly Mammoth piss.
| esalman wrote:
| With that kind of free money in its coffer, you'd think factulty
| and students would get a cut of the share and be better off. Yet
| one of the most high-profile cases of grad student suicide in
| recent years happened over there-
| https://www.wuft.org/news/2021/04/23/university-of-florida-p...
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| From your link it doesn't sound like the suicide was due to
| financial reasons.
|
| Regardless, $20m split tens of thousands of ways also doesn't
| go very far. On the order of like $300 per person per year.
| t-writescode wrote:
| That's not much money at all for a large institution. This
| statement seems a bit ... tripe in light of real world
| complexities.
| esalman wrote:
| That's a lot of money for graduate researchers who make <30k
| a year.
| Grakel wrote:
| Trite? Tripe is something else.
| northwest65 wrote:
| Tripe is also another slang word for bullshit.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Are you suggesting this person's mental health issues and other
| contributing factors would have all gone away had he been
| handed a check for a few hundred dollars?
| nikkinana wrote:
| Tax the rich and learn to code.
| durnygbur wrote:
| Producers of sweetened coloured caffeinated water have far too
| much influence on American economy. But that's your backyard so
| why should I care. Then you agressively push this sewage down the
| throats of kids over here, and here start the problems. Hope this
| will sink you Idiocracy-style.
| gatronicus wrote:
| I hope they use some of that money for a study regarding the
| nutritional value of Gatorade fed plants.
| dhosek wrote:
| And then proceeds to replace tenure track teaching positions with
| adjuncts paid poverty-level wages.
| whoknowswhat11 wrote:
| It depends on the field.
|
| Center for Latin American Studies Director is around $210K -
| Carlos De La Torre Espinosa.
|
| Others make a lot more - would be curious if this includes some
| type of payout that is not standard
|
| UF DAVID NELSON PROFESSOR $957,900.00 UF BRIAN HOH PROFESSOR
| $942,946.10 UF LEON HALEY PROFESSOR $874,750.00 UCF DEBORAH
| GERMAN PROFESSOR $850,000.00 UF THIAGO BEDUSCHI PROFESSOR
| $830,000.00 UF MARK SCARBOROUGH PROFESSOR $812,528.74 UF TOMAS
| MARTIN PROFESSOR $801,940.00 UF GILES PEEK PROFESSOR
| $781,740.00 UF PHILIPP ALDANA PROFESSOR $750,236.01 UF WESLEY
| FUCHS PROFESSOR $731,587.09 UF THOMAS BEAVER PROFESSOR
| $705,956.38 UF PAUL DOUGHERTY PROFESSOR $702,960.00
| dhosek wrote:
| The existence of highly-paid tenure track faculty does not
| change the fact that too many classrooms are led by adjuncts
| who could make more at McDonald's than they do teaching.
|
| Your argument is akin to saying that poverty isn't an issue
| in the U.S. because Bill Gates.
| metaphor wrote:
| Can't speak for your alma mater (or am I??), but during my
| time at UF, adjuncts in engineering simply weren't a thing;
| never took a course taught by one for anything lower
| division either...YMMV, I suppose.
|
| Somewhere in between, full-time lecturers (called
| "instructional professors" these days?) were and still are
| exceedingly rare (albeit probably safe to assert all ECE
| alumni of roughly the past 2 decades were _Schwartz 'd_
| and/or _Gugel 'd_ in some capacity).
| tubby12345 wrote:
| Must've been a long time ago because now there's an army
| of non-tenure faculty teaching classes for every
| engineering department and in CISE. Whether they get paid
| less than they would at McDonald's is another matter but
| without a doubt they are a cost cutting measure (along
| with online classes and various other edtech BS like
| proctoring services).
| xnyan wrote:
| >instructional professor
|
| The fancy/official term for this is usually Lecturer.
| It's a permanent position that's usually not equal to
| professor in power and prestige, but it's permanent, the
| pay can be good and you don't have any expectation of
| research.
|
| Graduate students and adjunct professors have largely
| taken over this responsibility because they are much
| cheaper.
| metaphor wrote:
| > _The fancy /official term for this is usually
| Lecturer._
|
| Not sure about that[1], but acknowledged.
|
| Graduate TAs were par for any course with a lab component
| or recitation, even courses that were taught by a
| lecturer; never felt like I was somehow being shorted
| opportunity in those though. It's the infamous adjunct
| part that my experience draws a blank on.
|
| [1] https://fora.aa.ufl.edu/docs/10/2019-2020/Faculty%20S
| enate%2...
| da-bacon wrote:
| Those are mostly doctors. Any school with a decent med school
| will have top earners like this.
| tkojames wrote:
| Yes and they should get paid that much. When I went to
| school at University of California we would look up the
| salaries of our teachers. Most of the highest paid people
| were football coaches. But a few doctors making around 1.5
| million. Looked the person up they invented a way to do
| liver transplants. They have done over 800 transplants over
| there career at the school. They also taught how to do the
| surgery. That is money well spent.
| metaphor wrote:
| Other than Fuchs (who is the current UF president), everyone
| you listed is a MD.
| [deleted]
| addicted wrote:
| All those salaries put together are only about 50% more than
| what UF pays the football head coach alone. ($7.6mm)
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Their football program makes more than double the profit of
| Gatorade royalties, though.
| BarryMilo wrote:
| Isn't it kind of weird that we need to sell "juice
| rights" in order to fund education?
| xyzzyz wrote:
| You prefer the European model, where, instead of
| universities directly seeing where their money comes
| from, it's instead laundried through the government,
| which collects the taxes from juice makers, construction
| workers, night clubs, and booze sales, then commingles
| everything together and gives it to universities, so that
| they don't see how their bread is being buttered, and can
| keep pretending it's pure and untainted by real world
| considerations?
|
| Either way, unless you eliminate government subsidies,
| education _is_ paid for by getting a cut on the
| productive industries. I in fact prefer the UF getting
| royalties from juice, because at least they _earned_ it.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| And it provides a clearer feedback mechanism. Maybe give
| promotions / tenure to the juice inventors (in this case,
| Robert Cade's team)?
| infocollector wrote:
| Policies and politics like these, made the University of Florida
| kill its Computer Science program [http://tiny.cc/y5bjuz] -
| almost. So when you "Go Gators", perhaps its time to look at the
| UF contracts for hiring faculty.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Florida has uniquely toxic politics for a variety of reasons.
| swarnie wrote:
| Because their representative is a drugged up pedo?
|
| Edit: I'm sorry to whoever flagged this, Matt Gaetz is
| fucked. Just like those underaged girls he molested.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Because the worst examples from every other state move to
| Florida.
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| The only state worse off is California.
| rout39574 wrote:
| Alumnus (of the CISE department) and staff (not of the
| department) here.
|
| I interpreted that move as more internal politics. The EE and
| CISE programs for "doing computer stuff" compete with each
| other for dollars and mindshare. The squishyness of the CS
| tracks (there's an engineering and a liberal-arts track both)
| also complicates the picture.
|
| My angle is, the reasons quoted to the press for any of these
| decisions is a deliberate fabrication. Don't make inferences
| about how the university functions from the press releases. It
| might be different at other multibillion-dollar businesses, but
| somehow I expect not.
| some_random wrote:
| There must be something about CS programs that makes
| Universities hate them, the one I went to was horribly
| underfunded and I've heard similar complaints from people from
| other schools.
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| It's been that way since the beginning. I went to a small
| school in Northern Indiana in the mid/late 80s. The board
| refused to invest in any computer technology other than the
| DEC they had because they felt that computers were a passing
| fad.
| ModernMech wrote:
| There's a lot of politics involved. All the students want to
| take CS classes because they understand it can be a path to a
| high lying career. This leaves other less popular departments
| scraping to justify their existence.
|
| Basically the gap in demand is huge, but the gap in funding
| can never be proportionate because it would mean other
| departments barely get anything. So the CS department is
| perpetually underfunded, but e.g. the philosophy department
| probably has more money than it really needs based on natural
| demand (demand is artificially propped up by required
| courses)
| xmprt wrote:
| In my (albeit biased) experience, the CS department has super
| high demand (everyone is trying to switch into it or apply to
| it) but to the university, it's just 1 out of 100 different
| departments so it feels underfunded compared to the demand it
| has.
| mynameishere wrote:
| Here's his link in non-obfuscated format:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/pggwv7/university-of-florida...
|
| And here is a video of the announcement:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFiTXdq6UDo
| Clubber wrote:
| I remember that. I believe it was pushback that the state
| government was cutting funds and UF wanted to make a media
| splash to bring light to the situation. UF has a CS department
| as seen here:
|
| https://catalog.ufl.edu/UGRD/colleges-schools/UGENG/CPS_BSCS...
| chrisco255 wrote:
| No it was purely a university political issue, not a state
| funding issue. The UF CISE was a revenue a producing
| department and more than made up for its costs in tuition and
| grants.
| hn_smarky wrote:
| They did not end up killing the CS program.
|
| In fact in recent years, CISE has really helped to propel UF.
| See: [https://news.ufl.edu/2021/06/top500-rankings/].
| chrisco255 wrote:
| That's a cool story about Chris Malachowsky donating $80M for
| the supercomputer. Chris is one of the cofounders of Nvidia
| and a UF alum. I met him in 2012 when I went to school there
| (he did a talk then). Very approachable, down-to-earth guy.
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(page generated 2021-09-19 23:00 UTC)