Vinod Khosla has seen a lot in his decades at the top of Silicon Valley. He’s not impressed by what he saw at Stanford over the weekend.
The billionaire venture capitalist and Sun Microsystems co-founder lashed out on X at student protesters who walked out of Stanford’s 135th commencement ceremony while Google CEO Sundar Pichai was delivering the keynote address.
Khosla called their behavior “biased, idiotic, short-sighted and very selfish,” reserving particular contempt for what he described as “the stupidity of these Stanford students to take the greatest opportunity for equality in humanity ever… and go walk out on Google and Sundar Pichai that’s pioneered that.” The post quickly ricocheted across social media, drawing both fierce agreement and sharp pushback.
What happened at Stanford
The protest unfolded Sunday at Stanford’s commencement ceremony, attended by over 20,000 people, including nearly 3,600 graduating students. As Pichai — himself a Stanford alum — took the stage, between 100 and 200 students stood and exited the venue together, carrying Palestinian flags, blowing whistles, and chanting “Free Palestine.”
