Rendering of the new tech campus by Cornell and Technion.

Wired has another post-mortem on the city's decision to award the New York applied sciences campus grant to Cornell and Technion over other contenders including Stanford. NextJump founder Charles Kim was on the board that reviewed proposals. “Stanford was inherently conflicted from day one,” Mr. Kim told Wired. “If you want to be number one, Silicon Valley has to be number two.”

Stanford's proposal was strong, Mr. Kim said. But the university's allegiance to the Bay Area tech hub was too strong, he said, preventing the school from fully committing to a New York school.

Cornell, on the other hand, was nothing but hungry for the opportunity, he said.

Wired's Tim Carmody has no new insight into why Stanford pulled its bid at the last minute, however.