I wrote a blog post awhile back, I wonder whether YC is after a similar thing...
http://yansh.github.io/articles/phd-distruption/
YC Research
291–300 of 389 posts
Re: YC Research
#292I 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…
They are losing me. Almost 15 years and twice as many grant submissions. I'm writing a grant atm (a fucking good one), and I hope not to be around to be turned down for it. I'm literally pitching investors between experiments.
Re: YC Research
#293This sounds interesting. I'm curious to see what areas the research will be focused on. Are there plans to provide laboratory space for areas that require it? Would researchers be housed in some space in MV, or would they work out of their own space like YC startups?
The first group will be in SF. TBD on other groups. But unlike startups we fund, these people work for a YC organization, so we will provide space etc.
As I keep chiming in whenever YC and location come up - please seriously consider Australia's East Coast. Like the valley, there is a big supply of world class universities and their graduates, and there's also great weather and quality of life that keeps people from wanting to leave. What's missing is an American style risk tolerance amongst the holders of capital. That's changing, but it's something YC could change even faster with an organisation like YCR.
Our government has historically underfunded research, and even more often one side funds it then the other gets into power and cuts it again. As a result, there are lots of ex-academics looking for more interesting ways of earning a living!
Re: YC Research
#294@sama - are the members of these groups going to be selected by YC or will there be an application process similar to YC? This is awesome to see, maybe YCR could be the next Bell Labs or something (although Google probably has a hold on that now).
For now they are going to be hand-selected by me (the area we are starting with requires pretty specific domain expertise). Not sure what we'll do in the future.
Hand-selecting a bunch of famous folks results in IAS Princeton effect which has the criticism of producing nothing significant. Usually the approach of hiring a towering/inspiring figure with an emerging research view works well (like FB did). They bring along a bunch of rookies and experts, and set up research groups quickly and rather smoothly.
Re: YC Research
#295After the collapse of Bell Labs and the inefficiencies at the University level, this is an effort that can truly impact change.
True fundamental innovation takes 15+years... stable ecosystems (govt policies, strong economies etc) are needed to foster this type innovation. YC is definitely a stable environment to foster fundamental inno.
Fundamental innovation also creates new methodologies in two or three areas, whether it be technology, market or implementation. Everything else is incremental innovation (new tech enhancing products in a known market), this can be achieved in 1 to 3 years. Kudos YC!
Re: YC Research
#296DE Shaw gave away his hedge fund empire to start DE Shaw Research. He similarly used his own money to start a privately funded research lab. He is their Chief Scientist.
Re: YC Research
#297@sama - are the members of these groups going to be selected by YC or will there be an application process similar to YC? This is awesome to see, maybe YCR could be the next Bell Labs or something (although Google probably has a hold on that now).
Microsoft Research is also an excellent organization for CS related research.
MSR has published lots of great papers but it has not yet replicated the success of PARC or Bell Labs by any means. I am not sure why this has happened, but it has been pretty obvious to everyone in the research community. Google, which came in with a research agenda pretty late, has more or less single handedly pushed the boundaries of industrial research in the last decade.
Re: YC Research
#298I want some evidence that you're actually a PhD student at MIT before I start believing that the education system there is broken.
Re: YC Research
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bell Labs had an annual budget of over 3 billion since the 80s.
You are making a wrong correlation. Putting more money won't necessarily drive research forward. Most breakthrough researches and inventions were done with little money.
But it is inevitable to have a lot of unsuccessful research projects before one breakthrough. Similar to startups where most fail. Those "failures" add up to the cost pretty quickly, and you cannot avoid them.
Re: YC Research
#300Earlier 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…
I wouldn't want to be sheltered from such a fact but being reminded of it is jarring and changes my feeling towards YC.
Why would this change your feelings toward YC? I don't understand why, in yours eyes, someone's wealth would affect the validity of their contributions.