11–20 of 115 posts
I wonder what these differing qualities are, then. It sounds very generic, but I've found it to be true. If I spend time thinking about what's the best way forward, then just do it, relentlessly and persistently, and with a healthy disregard for cynicism and disbelief from others, I get a lot done. It also reminds me of the concept of "taking ideas seriously": https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Q8jyAdRYbieK8PtfT/taking-…
I've worked with researcher/founders a lot; many of the people from my PhD program (Biophysics, UCSF) went on to start companies (Amyris, Zymergen) and we had strong educational pathways to learn how to start biotech companies. The two groups of people are definitely drawn from a highly overlapping distribution, although many scientists would make poor founders, and vice versa.
I wonder what these differing qualities are, then. It sounds very generic, but I've found it to be true. If I spend time thinking about what's the best way forward, then just do it, relentlessly and persistently, and with a healthy disregard for cynicism and disbelief from others, I get a lot done. It also reminds me of the concept of "taking ideas seriously": https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Q8jyAdRYbieK8PtfT/taking-…
The most obvious is that researchers care about finding truth for its own sake even if that truth doesn't have any commercial value, and founders care about producing a product for a market, even if that means ignoring some truths.
I'd love to hear a bit more about the differences. I've spent my adult life in research environments (academic, nonprofit and industrial R&D) and while much of the activity seems entrepreneurial (particularly grant writing), the overarching structural differences between building something for profit vs. for the public good makes a lot of aspects of building a business a bit mysterious to me.
> the overarching structural differences between building something for profit vs. for the public good makes a lot of aspects of building a business a bit mysterious to me. Lack of respect for traditional authority, entrenched interests, and boundaries would be my take. Forgiveness > permission mindset, with a healthy risk tolerance above baseline. Founders take their research and drive towards profitable exploitatio…
This is an interesting take. A lot of researchers are pretty anti-authoritarian, at least initially, and the scientific process involves a lot of tearing down existing knowledge and rebuilding. We all really, deep down want to prove everyone else wrong.
However, when the funding comes from institutional sources, there are certainly limits on how rebellious one can actually be.
Furthermore the peer review process encourages a kind of camaraderie and politics where you compete with each other, and are actively tasked with finding fault in everyone else's work, but you are also stuck with them for decades, so you don't want to screw anyone over too hard, because their turn to review your grant proposal will come around soon.
> Founders take their research and drive towards profitable exploitation of that knowledge relentlessly.
Yeah, this latter part is what I've never really gotten. My goal is always to take my research and drive relentlessly towards... more research. Ideally while freely disseminating the products and tools used so that others can do the same, thereby letting everyone share in the fruits of the labor.
I’ve never heard of the phrase “problem taste” until this post, so if Sam just coined that phrase, well done! This is such an important issue in the startup world. The most common mistake that founders I’ve worked with make is that they focus on the wrong problem or even worse focus on too many problems. Having good “problem taste” is critical for anyone who wants to start a successful company or publish breakthrough…
The basic idea is that you need to work on an important problem. But an important problem isn't what you think (e.g. time-travel, teleportation, antigravity, etc.) -- instead it is a problem for which there exists an "attack".
I'd love to hear a bit more about the differences. I've spent my adult life in research environments (academic, nonprofit and industrial R&D) and while much of the activity seems entrepreneurial (particularly grant writing), the overarching structural differences between building something for profit vs. for the public good makes a lot of aspects of building a business a bit mysterious to me.
Is anyone else offput by the phrase "best people"? I get (or at least hope) it's a shorthand for "best at their respective job of researcher/founder," but it really seems to reduce people's innate worth and goodness to this single dimension in a somewhat unnerving way.
I'd love to hear a bit more about the differences. I've spent my adult life in research environments (academic, nonprofit and industrial R&D) and while much of the activity seems entrepreneurial (particularly grant writing), the overarching structural differences between building something for profit vs. for the public good makes a lot of aspects of building a business a bit mysterious to me.
There's awfully skinny budgets for most research these days and so much focus on 'success' (short term ROI) and '[financial] sustainability' (translating research into products/services in business form).
This is growing ever more true even in basic research, which is IMHO absurd. It's growing to the point it might as well just be 'D' with higher risks, less flexibility, and lower rewards which is making entrepreneurship more alluring.
I don't know who is going to fund long term research if the federal government doesn't. I suppose we can rely on the international market to produce research and hope it's useful. Businesses tend to be highly risk averse anymore.
I’ve never heard of the phrase “problem taste” until this post, so if Sam just coined that phrase, well done! This is such an important issue in the startup world. The most common mistake that founders I’ve worked with make is that they focus on the wrong problem or even worse focus on too many problems. Having good “problem taste” is critical for anyone who wants to start a successful company or publish breakthrough…
I'm not sure if the phrase itself is novel. The idea of having good taste in problems is certainly not; and is very useful -- Richard Hamming (cited by Sam Altman) spends a great deal of time talking about how to choose problems [1]. The basic idea is that you need to work on an important problem. But an important problem isn't what you think (e.g. time-travel, teleportation, antigravity, etc.) -- instead it is a pro…
A small point only tangential to the main point of this post, but something I've noticed about Sam's writing before: Is anyone else offput by the phrase "best people"? I get (or at least hope) it's a shorthand for "best at their respective job of researcher/founder," but it really seems to reduce people's innate worth and goodness to this single dimension in a somewhat unnerving way.