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YC Research

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Re: YC Research

#301

Post by jonsterling »

lightcatcher wrote: post #276
gone35 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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[…

Serious question: In what ways is CS theory high-impact? I'm particularly interested in any arguments that complexity theory is high-impact (beyond the very useful insight that there are some problems for which no polynomial time algorithm is known). I have a pretty good idea of the impact of cryptography and randomized linear algebra (sometimes considered CS theory), but am also interested in hearing about other fie…

type theory has broad applicability, since it serves as the basis for all modern programming languages design and research. another nice example is kripke logical relations, which can be used to give a model for a programming language in which you can prove certain safety lemmas for critical code.

Re: YC Research

#303

Post by coffeemug »

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.

> 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?

That's equivalent to saying "won't paying in U.S. dollars to these researchers (who are working not-for-profit and releasing IP freely) incentivize research that benefits the U.S. Federal Reserve directly and hence increases the value of the U.S. dollars held?"

Obviously not the same scale, but you get where I'm going with this. Indirect incentives don't quite work that way.

Re: YC Research

#305

Post by wfo »

matheweis wrote: post #162
biswaroop wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wow, I knew things were bad, but the education system must be well and truly broken when the students at one of the world's top research universities are leaving to build startups, and calling it a broken system on their way out. (No sarcasm intended; I couldn't find a way to say this better).

Academics isn't really that bad. It's full of many of the smartest people in the world trying to do things which are fundamental but aren't seen by the market as important and can't be funded any other way besides charity. Sometimes it doesn't go that smoothly and there's some bureaucracy like in any organization (people are constantly fighting very hard to cut what little funding there is so academics have to fight over it) but it's really not all doom and gloom like some people make it out to be.

Graduate students tend to love to complain as much as possible about things that aren't that bad (I know I was one) and people leaving something idealistic often have a compelling need to try and put it down in any way they can to justify their decision to give up on the idealistic goals and try to make some money -- which is why you see so many "goodbye academia, you are broken" posts and blog entries. And some people have genuinely bad experiences like at any job -- bad manager, particularly low funding, bad co-workers, you're going to have a bad time.

That being said YC research sounds amazing. Basic research was funded by charity from the superwealthy (or only carried out by the independently wealthy) for most of human history, the model works. Researchers tend not to look into areas or find results which are bad for their backers. It's good to have some public and some private sector; we need to balance out the conflict of interest a bit.

Re: YC Research

#306

Post by sackofmugs »

hugh4 wrote: post #116
go1979 wrote: post #76

Will scientists at YC Research continue the common pattern of academic research/publications? Or are there some grander plans to disrupt traditional research?

Unless YC is promising to fund these researchers for life they'll pretty much have to, or else they'll never get back on the treadmill once the YC money runs out.

That's not true. University professors have sabbaticals, and can also go on extended leave for multiple years and return just fine.

Re: YC Research

#307

Post by omnisci »

silverlake wrote: post #269
omnisci wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer your first question, 1. they can move much faster than academic research. More money in basic research isn't going to fix the antiquated process in which academics live. It's also not going to help researchers learn how to budget properly, or learn to manage people. So that alone is a value add. A 1% increase in gov spending simply adds money without fixing a problem that currently exists....not really goin…

I agree that academic science has problems, but YCR isn't going to have any impact on academic research, funding nor publications. My guess is that YCR will attempt to be a mini-Xerox PARC: 20 people working on interdisciplinary stuff in CS. It'll be fun, but it'll be small.

How exactly are you so sure about this? And if it's small, that doesn't mean it can't have an impact. Also, perhaps I'm missing something, but it doesn't see like we have any real info about this, if you have more, I'd love to read it.

It takes someone/something with some ability to make something happen. Are they going to change how all academic science is done? Probably not, but could they have an impact and begin a process in which academic science begins to respond/change? Yes, that is probable. Between YC and Google life science, things are happening...and it's going to take us (I'm assuming you are a scientist) to support this change.

Re: YC Research

#308

Post by noobermin »

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 was reading the article, and it made my blood simmer, as articles like this do. Then, I looked at the comments which referred to Sean Carroll, and I couldn't believe it. The fact he claims his textbook, a fantastic intro to GR and now a standard accessible text, was a mistake with regards to his life in academe is so disheartening, it makes you wonder how science actually continues in the present, hideous environment.

Re: YC Research

#309

Post by zatkin »

selimthegrim wrote: post #302
zatkin wrote: post #298

I want some evidence that you're actually a PhD student at MIT before I start believing that the education system there is broken.

It took me about 90 seconds to find him[1] given what he said about himself - why so suspicious? [1] http://www.rle.mit.edu/uqg/people.htm

His comment is near the top, so if everyone who reads it starts believing what he has said but he isn't actually an MIT student, people will suddenly believe that MIT's educational system is broken. But we now have evidence, thanks to your post, that it's true. At least from his perspective.

Re: YC Research

#310

Post by wodenokoto »

myth_buster wrote: post #8

This thread [0] from couple of days back on Alan Kay's views on recreating Xerox PARC seems relevant. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10322929

At first I thought about that too, but as I got further I was reminded about an article about the person to first theorize the Higgs Boson, and how he had only published a few articles in his entire career.
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