Lakeside University is a business school founded by Ma Yun and some business leaders. The main purpose is to cultivate business leaders and entrepreneurial elites. Enrollment targets are also business operators. Not academic education.

West Lake University is a research university supported by the state and funded by the people, with the aim of cultivating top talents. It is a standard university in the full sense. It belongs to academic education.

Lakeside University only focuses on business administration courses, while West Lake University focuses on training talents in all disciplines of science and engineering.

Therefore, although the two universities have similarities on the surface, they are actually irrelevant.

West Lake University was established on the basis of Zhejiang West Lake Institute of Advanced Studies from 2065438 to March 2005. Drawing lessons from the scale of California Institute of Technology and Stanford University's school-running philosophy, and according to the school-running orientation of "high starting point, small but refined, research-oriented", science and engineering are emphasized.