The University of Minnesota is one of the most sucessful institutions in the country at churning out start-up companies. A national study places the U forth among 142 major research universities in the number of companies it spun off in 2000. The U helped create 11 companies that year, placing it behind M-I-T, the University of California System and the California Institute of Technology. University of Minnesota President Mark Yudof says the U's ranking is not an accident: