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The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

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Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#91

Post by an_opabinia »

Andyfilms wrote: post #29
woeirua wrote: post #25

The reason you don't see more startups in the hard sciences is not due to the lack of hybrid talent as this article surmises. It's because: 1 - VCs are reluctant to fund capital intensive startups that have time horizons for exits that are significantly longer than software based startups. 2 - The product lifecycle is so much longer, which makes it inherently much riskier. In many cases it can be years before you eve…

This, 100%. The author says how difficult it is for multidisciplinary teams to come together when they don't understand each others skillsets--but the same applies to the investors themselves. When you start talking about these complicated ideas, there comes a point where unless the investor is involved in the industry they're investing in, they simply won't understand the true impact of it. My company is trying to r…

> there comes a point where unless the investor is involved in the industry they're investing in, they simply won't understand the true impact of it.

Equity financing is a bad measuring stick for this. But really, when you're competing with, "Buy gold because it's shiny!" - that would have earned investors 26.6 percentage points liquid return YTD - can you really fault people for being skeptical of complex ideas as a class of investments?

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#92

Post by distant_hat »

wenc wrote: post #37
woeirua wrote: post #25

The reason you don't see more startups in the hard sciences is not due to the lack of hybrid talent as this article surmises. It's because: 1 - VCs are reluctant to fund capital intensive startups that have time horizons for exits that are significantly longer than software based startups. 2 - The product lifecycle is so much longer, which makes it inherently much riskier. In many cases it can be years before you eve…

Biotech startups are also subject to the fickle nature of living organisms. When I was in grad school I knew a bunch of grad students who worked on biotech/bioengineering experiments. They would have to take care of their experiments like they were pets, nurturing them and making sure they were well taken care of, because if they died on you, that's months of effort down the drain. Vacations had to be carefully plann…

The problem with finding jobs is that the work is far less translatable to other fields unless you take care to make things general which is not really encouraged in academia. As a Physics, Math, or computational PhD you can apply your skills to any domain with a few weeks of learning. You can't really apply PhD level mice work or yeast work to another domain that quickly.

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#94

Post by m463 »

woeirua wrote: post #25

The reason you don't see more startups in the hard sciences is not due to the lack of hybrid talent as this article surmises. It's because: 1 - VCs are reluctant to fund capital intensive startups that have time horizons for exits that are significantly longer than software based startups. 2 - The product lifecycle is so much longer, which makes it inherently much riskier. In many cases it can be years before you eve…

I suspect that if elon musk had not self-funded, well, nothing would have happened.

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#95

Post by salt-licker »

woeirua wrote: post #25

The reason you don't see more startups in the hard sciences is not due to the lack of hybrid talent as this article surmises. It's because: 1 - VCs are reluctant to fund capital intensive startups that have time horizons for exits that are significantly longer than software based startups. 2 - The product lifecycle is so much longer, which makes it inherently much riskier. In many cases it can be years before you eve…

There’s a lot of startups purporting to bring hard science to market but most of them are incompetent or snake oil and it’s very difficult for software engineers (or investors) to identify the diamonds in the rough with 0 domain expertise. Meanwhile many of these startups suffer from a lack of exceptional software engineering that is often necessary to solve novel cross-disciplinary problems from first principles.

It would be a boon for society if it were common for great programmers interested in hard problems to take a year off from their lucrative dead-end big tech co careers and study a subject outside of CS that they’re interested in, so at least they’d be able to evaluate the feasibility and importance of technical challenges in that field and apply their skills at a point of high leverage in that domain.

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#96

Post by jjgreen »

jvvw wrote: post #90
klhugo wrote: post #54

I'm in the middle of a PhD myself, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I actually agree with the author, certain fields are just very complex to develop a solid understand without proper mentoring and support you would get as a grad student. That said, maybe the real issue is not the fact we need two PhDs each, but the question I want to raise, do PhDs need to take 4/5/6 years? (I'm not even considering the case…

The UK has 3-year PhDs. I was 24 when I submitted my thesis!

At least 3 years. I knew a guy in Manchester who was on his seventh year, the funding ran out so he'd spent the previous three years living in a cupboard in the department.

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#97

Post by mnky9800n »

salt-licker wrote: post #95
woeirua wrote: post #25

The reason you don't see more startups in the hard sciences is not due to the lack of hybrid talent as this article surmises. It's because: 1 - VCs are reluctant to fund capital intensive startups that have time horizons for exits that are significantly longer than software based startups. 2 - The product lifecycle is so much longer, which makes it inherently much riskier. In many cases it can be years before you eve…

There’s a lot of startups purporting to bring hard science to market but most of them are incompetent or snake oil and it’s very difficult for software engineers (or investors) to identify the diamonds in the rough with 0 domain expertise. Meanwhile many of these startups suffer from a lack of exceptional software engineering that is often necessary to solve novel cross-disciplinary problems from first principles. It…

The amount of startups I've encountered in Norway that will "solve" the problem of oil exploration with neural networks is ridiculously high. And they are all run by people with no o&g background but a brand new "data science" masters degree.

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#98

Post by imtringued »

theferret wrote: post #31

The author's point is valid - innovation requires more knowledge as the tech that required less knowledge gets built. Today we face the "dual phd" problem, tomorrow the tri. Obviously that is not sustainable. If society is to continually innovate, you need to stop building innovative systems and start growing them. One approach to this is true AI; not improving your NLP algorithm by 10% with 3x the math complexity IE…

Yeah, if innovation requires people to receive more and more institutionalized education, then expect innovation to stop eventually.

From what I have seen cross disciplinary innovation usually happens because someone's interest in one domain has created a demand for a solution that can only be fulfilled with a different one. It's rarely about being skilled in both domains, it's about committing yourself to something a single domain expert has no interest in.

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#99

Post by james_s_tayler »

Igelau wrote: post #41
Andyfilms wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, 100%. The author says how difficult it is for multidisciplinary teams to come together when they don't understand each others skillsets--but the same applies to the investors themselves. When you start talking about these complicated ideas, there comes a point where unless the investor is involved in the industry they're investing in, they simply won't understand the true impact of it. My company is trying to r…

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Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#100

Post by foldr »

Balgair wrote: post #81
klhugo wrote: post #54

I'm in the middle of a PhD myself, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I actually agree with the author, certain fields are just very complex to develop a solid understand without proper mentoring and support you would get as a grad student. That said, maybe the real issue is not the fact we need two PhDs each, but the question I want to raise, do PhDs need to take 4/5/6 years? (I'm not even considering the case…

5+ Years PhD programs are completely unnecessary. After quals, you should do some research and write that up. The research may take a year, it may take two, it depends. Write it up and publish it. Do that again, maybe, it depends. One of many hiccups is in the submitting and review process. It takes ages . Sure, some areas are less, some are more, but three year long submit/review periods are not unheard of. Reviewer…

> It's nutters.

Indeed. And the dirty secret of this process is that it has little to do with ensuring research quality (although it does usually succeed in filtering out very bad research as a side effect). Its main purpose is to simply make it difficult to publish, so as to preserve the CV value of a publication in a given journal.

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