YC Research • Hacker News Board

Re: YC Research

#281

Post by grkvlt » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 12:42 AM UTC

gone35 wrote: post #210

sama wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. SF for now. 2. Yes, eventually we'd like to have multiple groups in the same space just for this reason--I always think the interdisciplinary stuff is underrated. 3. Some of both, probably, but mostly we want to support people that the existing system does not support (e.g. people that are not yet famous)

FWIW, two (partially self-serving) suggestions: 1. Try set up a lab in Cambridge at some point down the road. 2. Pay particular attention to CS theory: it's (arguably) high-impact and very cost effective --you can practically fund an entire generation of researchers in a subfield for a fraction of the cost of, say, a major interdisciplinary initiative. See for instance what the Simons foundation is doing at Berkeley[…

> Try set up a lab in Cambridge at some point down the road

MA or UK, though? Both would be awesome, I think, but I don't believe YC has any offices outside the US at the moment...?

Re: YC Research

#282

Post by cossatot » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 12:50 AM UTC

no_flags wrote: post #256

cossatot wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily the 'brokenness' of the system that forces people out but the consequence of producing PhDs faster than new positions are being created. "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here". No one expects that all high school students will become high school teachers. Why should it be the same for PhDs? A lot of what is wrong with the academic system is this expectation, which is bewilderingly pr…

When I was in grad school I think most people were aware of how tough it is to get a tenure track faculty position. Many students had no aspiration of going into academia and planned to go directly to industry. This was in mechanical engineering, an inherently practical subject, so maybe the field makes a difference. Kudos on trying to make it as an independent researcher though. That's a really cool idea. How has it…

I've registered with SAM (System of Award Management) so I can get grants directly. I still collaborate sometimes with academics, writing papers and grants, and minor consulting for them. I'm also still an affiliate of my post-doc school so I have an email address and journal access, but I think you can basically buy library access from a school for a decent price.

I spend about half my time or a little less on consulting, but it's been very research-oriented consulting so far, with few restrictions on publishing results. There are and will be ups and downs (most of my consulting is in energy) but I bill a lot more than I pay myself so that smooths it out a bit.

So far most of the non-consulting research has been unpaid but I try as much as is practical to get funding for it at some point--make a minimum viable product to write a grant upon and if it doesn't work out then make it publishable and iterate or move on. I like strategy, it combines well with dreaming. I have some moonshot ideas too, but most things can be broken down into units digestible for peer /grant review.

I'm finding that there are a lot of theoretical problems that are also practical problems. I also feel like I am doing research all the time, but a lot of time is spent building tools and skills to do new things, and less of my time is spent actually learning new things about the earth than I would like. But I guess that's research...

Re: YC Research

#283

Post by santaclaus » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 12:57 AM UTC

silverlake wrote: post #215

> We think research institutions can be better than they are today. I hope you'll expand on this. Is there something that YCR can do that academic research can't do? You might have more impact if you use that money to influence US and EU gov't to invest more in basic research. A 1% increase in annual gov't funding will be vastly larger than YCR's total budget. The Gates Foundation is tackling difficult health issues…

I imagine researchers in YCR will have way fewer administrative obligations than a researcher at a University. No classes to teach, no committees to sit on, no students to act as an amateur psychologist to, no grants to apply for (although this could be a disadvantage - the process of writing a grant often forces ideas to crystalize).

Re: YC Research

#284

Post by projectileboy » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 1:01 AM UTC

Imscaredofsama wrote: post #205

pw wrote: post #127

> I’m going to personally donate $10 million Statements like this always turn me off. I guess it's because it breaks the illusion that Sam and everyone else at YC are normal people like most of us. They're not. They're INSANELY wealthy by any reasonable standard.

The whole sama thing doesn't compute for me and has negatively impacted my otherwise stellar view of YC. He dropped out of Stanford, founded Loopt (which raised $30 million and then acqui-sold for $43 -- and I'm sure Sequoia got the bulk of it), was then made a YC partner and finally appointed president. His Wikipedia page says he's made some angel investments in successful companies like AirBNB, but my question is:…

If you haven't noticed the acceleration of YC from the moment Sam took over, I feel like you've not really been paying attention. From scaling up the numbers, to outreach to females and minorities, to the increased transparency, and the YC Fellowship and now this, you really believe you're just watching someone collect golden eggs? Do you realize how hard it is to grow a community? And how easy it is to screw it up? If Paul Graham was Steve Jobs, then Sam Altman is Tim Cook, and more.

Re: YC Research

#285

Post by jrmo » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 1:01 AM UTC

silverlake wrote: post #215

> We think research institutions can be better than they are today. I hope you'll expand on this. Is there something that YCR can do that academic research can't do? You might have more impact if you use that money to influence US and EU gov't to invest more in basic research. A 1% increase in annual gov't funding will be vastly larger than YCR's total budget. The Gates Foundation is tackling difficult health issues…

For one, it can be leaner; tenure-line faculty to student ratios are unchanged while adminstrator-to-student ratios more than doubled in the last 25 years. "There are now two nonacademic employees at public and two and a half at private universities and colleges for every one full-time, tenure-track member of the faculty." Yet we have to take out our own garbage.

[1] http://necir.org/2014/02/06/new-analysis-shows-problematic-b...

Re: YC Research

#286

Post by DasIch » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 1:09 AM UTC

vickychijwani wrote: post #226

Surely I'm missing something here. Won't giving YC equity to these researchers (who are working not-for-profit and releasing IP freely) incentivize research that benefits YC startups directly and hence increases the value of the equity held? Can someone explain why not? Honest question.

YC startups don't grow on a tree in the YC garden and YC is what most startups want to get into. It makes much more sense to make that research widely available, chances are good for YC that the startups that do something useful with it will join YC at a later point. Even if they don't, a growing technology industry helps everyone, YC included.

Re: YC Research

#287

Post by brudgers » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 1:14 AM UTC

vickychijwani wrote: post #226

Surely I'm missing something here. Won't giving YC equity to these researchers (who are working not-for-profit and releasing IP freely) incentivize research that benefits YC startups directly and hence increases the value of the equity held? Can someone explain why not? Honest question.

If I were to hazard a guess. the equity is intended to make working as a researcher similarly attractive to the equity grants available when going to work for a startup. Given the diversity of YC's portfolio it's probably much more likely to create wealth than any single startup. To me, if YC is creating a research group for the long term, then long term financial stability for the researchers is probably the way to go.

Re: YC Research

#288

Post by Imscaredofsama » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 1:21 AM UTC

projectileboy wrote: post #284

Imscaredofsama wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole sama thing doesn't compute for me and has negatively impacted my otherwise stellar view of YC. He dropped out of Stanford, founded Loopt (which raised $30 million and then acqui-sold for $43 -- and I'm sure Sequoia got the bulk of it), was then made a YC partner and finally appointed president. His Wikipedia page says he's made some angel investments in successful companies like AirBNB, but my question is:…

If you haven't noticed the acceleration of YC from the moment Sam took over, I feel like you've not really been paying attention. From scaling up the numbers, to outreach to females and minorities, to the increased transparency, and the YC Fellowship and now this, you really believe you're just watching someone collect golden eggs? Do you realize how hard it is to grow a community? And how easy it is to screw it up?…

The golden goose thing was obviously an exaggeration. I think he's done a good job. And I'm sure the pressure is intense. I definitely couldn't do it.

But the older I've gotten, the more I've realized that life is about opportunities. If you want them, you have to put yourself in the position to get them (as sama did). More importantly, you have to make the best of them (as sama has). But many, many people who don't deserve opportunities get them (inheritance, for example) and many, many people who do deserve them, don't get them. They did all the right things... they simply were never given a shot by bosses, would-be cofounders, investors, etc. (Cue "Lose Yourself".)

A question I've been pondering a lot recently is the power of talent and whether or not it'll eventually rise to the top. How efficient is our society at finding "the best"? I tend to believe that someone as ridiculously talented as, say, Elton John, will always emerge. But then you hear the story of how someone like Matthew McConaughey was discovered (director of Dazed and Confused found him in a bar at 2am and said come to the set tomorrow -- zero acting experience) and you want to slap yourself.

And if you get into the genetic and familial lotteries (how smart you are, how good looking you are, are you black?, etc), then you'll just go completely crazy when you realize how unfair the world is.

In any case, from his answer, it looks like sama is a talented guy who put himself in the right position to succeed and is now an outlier on the normal curve. Good for him. It's gotta be somebody, might as well be him.

Re: YC Research

#289

Post by rcthompson » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 1:44 AM UTC

biswaroop wrote: post #148

aresant wrote: post #36

I love this idea. Not sure if this is driving your thinking but this would open a desperately needed alternative to Academia if you can scale this idea as successfully as you've scaled startups. I've watched my genius brother-in-law (PhD Materials Science & Chemistry / Biomimicry) be consumed by a very broken UC system over the past decade. Started with an exceptionally bright, curious, and inventive man who created…

Seconded. This is brilliant. As a physics PhD student at MIT who's leaving to build a startup, I'm finding it a relief to leave a broken system. The academic community is fraught with politics, mismanagement, and inefficiency. Researchers are driven by a need to get published and get grant funding, not to expand the frontiers of human knowledge. Impact is currently measured by citation pagerank, and broader impact is…

I've been wondering if academia is really fundamentally broken, or whether it's just horribly distorted due to some combination of underfunding and overpopulation, resulting in way too much competition for scarce resources.

Re: YC Research

#290

Post by majani » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 1:44 AM UTC

vanessa98 wrote: post #214

majani wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would you want to be sheltered from such a basic fact of life? Anyway, if it's any consolation, 10m is probably not small change for Sam. His biggest liquidity event so far was 40m for Loopt, so 10m is definitely a considered investment for him. He probably wrote it in an off the cuff manner to set a precedent for the mentality towards the fund. Basically signaling to other investors not to think about putting mo…

He got 40M from selling Loopt? Didn't Loopt raise 40M? How does Sam have 10M lying around?

According to the press releases from the Loopt exit, they had raised 17m at that point, and 9.8m of the acquisition was the golden handcuff for the employees. So sama probably doesn't have 10m just lying around and is probably pulling some financial acrobatics to get it, but he's putting on a brave face by quoting the amount nonchalantly.