That is indeed how things work. I can think of a few 'good' media-relevant examples, including e.g. that recent super-quick cart project [1], that reach beyond the more vanilla startup-spinoffs or basic media efforts.

1 https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2023/09/fro...

I took courses online from ETH Zurich before the formula was "perfected" and I'd say they were ahead of the curve in quality, concise but info-dense educational content.

I had no idea what ETH means 2 years ago, I thought it's ethereum club in switzerland or something. Then I kept hearing about it, noticing people wearing ETH stuff.

obviously I don't know if it's university or people there because I haven't been there, but I keep hearing about ETH Zurich in different areas and it means something