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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

#121

Post by Tainnor »

not2b wrote: post #66
pnathan wrote: post #13

The solution involves large companies, not startups. You have an infrastructure and a pool of highly qualified applications that aren't going make or break their personal finances on these problems. These are classic coordination problems, and it requires people skilled at this aspect. Large companies don't talk about their work in this area much for a while for a variety of reasons. Bell Labs was a thing once.... It…

Unfortunately large companies invest much less in longer-term research than they used to. Bell Labs was a thing ... once.

can confirm. went to join a former startup right after the acquisition by a big company. it was a complicated product that would have required years of investment to pull off. instead, the company basically killed all the innovation, micromanaged everything, always wanted immediate results and didn't understand the complexity of what we were doing. we were all let go after 2 years and the project was transitioned to another team that had little knowledge about the product. some months later, they acquired our competitor.

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#122

Post by rdtwo »

distant_hat wrote: post #92
wenc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And the pay is shit a PhD level biologist in a major Corp with you years experience will get paid as much or less than a recent grad at FAANG company

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#123

Post by rdtwo »

unishark wrote: post #55
sorethescore wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so true. A mentor of mine has been developing a new cancer therapy with a physicist for over a decade. He's spent millions of dollars and all he has to show for it at this point is a machine for rats that can kill cancer better than the standard of care, for rats. He's building a machine for humans now but by the time he's done he'll have probably invested close to $10M all by himself just to have a single pr…

There's also reproducibility issues in biotech research. Investors are reluctant to believe anything works anymore until they see successful human trials.

And human trials cost billions

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#124

Post by vervez »

neltnerb wrote: post #118
vervez wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in seeing citations for the known death valley. This is the second time I've heard this anecdote but have never seen the evidence.

Oh, no one would probably bother to cite it because it's right there in the request for proposals in black and white and they explicitly talk about it repeatedly at the SBIR conferences. You finish your phase 1 in 9 months to a year depending. Then you apply for phase 2 which takes 3-6 months to review and fund. That's the death valley I mean, the lag between finishing phase 1 and starting phase 2. If you don't have…

The way I've seen startups make it work is to save part of the indirect for the worst-case scenario of no bridge funding for the 3-6 month period. If you are able to get into an accelerator that takes a small cut and aligns with your area, the amount of indirect saved (.4*250k) available could be sufficient to bridge a low-cost org for 3-6 months. Even then, it's still a gamble as to whether you'll receive the Phase II in that time.

As for timeline, you're able to apply for the Phase II to kick in right as the Phase I is ending. I've seen that work but it requires planning and long hours to perform research and write the next phase proposal. There's also direct to Phase II for ~$2m in one grant.

If you have outside responsibilities and don't want to risk that bridge, you could try and submit the direct to Phase II, which would also help develop your idea to pitch to VCs in clean-tech space.

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#125

Post by madhadron »

crmrc114 wrote: post #8
madhadron wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An actress basically invented FHSS Mind you, said actress, Hedy Lamarr, was a fairly brilliant, self taught electrical engineer.

I just wanted people to have to google it and learn if they did not know, and here you are ruining that game for me! Anyhow nice film on this for anyone interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombshell:_The_Hedy_Lamarr_Sto...

Sorry to ruin your fun.

Re: The dual PhD problem of today’s startups

#126

Post by krageon »

ethanbond wrote: post #112
krageon wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A model that has coherency over multiple paragraphs? I don't think that's currently possible - but if I'm wrong about that I'd love a link to a study or a library if you have one. Natural language processing is something I'm very interested in.

...did you miss the entire GPT3 hype wave?

Evidently :) Thanks!
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