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Be in a field where tech is the limit

mathiaskirkbonde.substack.com

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Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#41

Post by giantg2 »

Do you want to know the real "problem"?

It takes a long time to develop biotech, test it, approve it, market it, and make money. There is also a limited market (ie the people sick with that condition, specifically in rich countries). The reason tech companies make money, grow/iterate, pay more, is because they are in a field that does not require the same oversight and moral safety obligations (maybe they should to an extent) as well as being marketable to basically everyone in rich countries.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#43

Post by 2bitencryption »

> Biotechnology sounds to me much like computing in the 60’s.

One thing I've always wondered about biotech... I imagine there are many non-obvious correlations and interactions in medicine, which would be easily detected using nothing more advanced than Excel-spreadsheet level data analysis.

Making up an example: people with a certain DNA trait/allele who also have a diet with a high amount of XYZ tend to not develop disease ABC as frequently as most people. Even if we don't know the pharmacological reason why that is, it would still massively benefit lots of people, right?

So it always seems to me like tech from 2007 was ready to tackle this problem. Dump in a bunch of anonymized data, find correlations, repeat.

But I feel like I never hear anything about this type of work. Is it happening, but not publicized much? Is it actually not as simple as it sounds? Does nature simply not work in this way?

Even if 95% of diseases are just "bad luck", I assume that other 5% is made up of environmental factors we don't yet understand, but could easily learn using well-known data processing techniques?

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#44

Post by _Wintermute »

d3ntb3ev1l wrote: post #23

I worked in bio tech for 4 years. Amazing people and problems. Worst pay, top heavy salaries. When a phd makes 80k a year and a “ML/AI” data scientist is lucky to make 100k you won’t find any progress like software They need to cut the top heavy executive bloat, respect the mid tier with better pay

I worked as a post-doc at a pharma company in Europe, our research-based department was in need of a software engineer as our collection of crappy R/python scripts couldn't actually be linked up to any equipment or processes.

HR asked what sort of salary range we were looking at, we suggested that we won't get any decent candidates for less than 70k EUR and were laughed out of the room and they decided on a 50k limit. I've since left, but I'm pretty sure they've still not manage to hire a software engineer.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#45

Post by amackera »

guhcampos wrote: post #42

Wife is a PhD Animal Geneticist, but works as government inspector on slaughterhouses. Makes 3-4 times the money her research colleagues do. I'm not even sure what to think of it, honestly.

In every way I think about it, this difference in salary seems justified. I can't imagine inspecting slaughterhouses is very fun or rewarding, but it's super important for society.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#46

Post by lumost »

guhcampos wrote: post #42

Wife is a PhD Animal Geneticist, but works as government inspector on slaughterhouses. Makes 3-4 times the money her research colleagues do. I'm not even sure what to think of it, honestly.

research is a sporadic discipline. A top tier researcher working on a choice problem with relatively predictable returns ( or at least the perception of predictability ) will make substantially more than someone working on a problem of debatable business value or with lower odds of success.

In the case of research positions, the funding situation has oversaturated the market in most entry level positions - turning negotiation and career advancement into a trial by fire.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#47

Post by globular-toast »

whateveracct wrote: post #2

i think going in a field where they'll pay you plenty without noticing you barely spend time working is the play the brightest don't spend their time & energy making others wealthy

I did that for a year or so in finance. Realised I was wasting my one life. I want to be useful.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#48

Post by rawtxapp »

beambot wrote: post #31
rawtxapp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use your free time to build stuff, save the money to bootstrap and when your project gains traction, leave and build your own things so that you're not making someone else wealthy. The brightest absolutely do spend their time and energy making others wealthy (ex: I would consider most senior eng at FAANG to be bright and although they are definitely rich, they are not wealthy). I suspect that's because of the cycle o…

Or different people just have different value functions, and many of them don't care about "wealth maximization" when they're already comfortably in the 1%...

For sure, everybody has different goals in life, but the thing is they are creating wealth, just not for themselves is all.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#49

Post by ftruzzi »

2bitencryption wrote: post #43

> Biotechnology sounds to me much like computing in the 60’s. One thing I've always wondered about biotech... I imagine there are many non-obvious correlations and interactions in medicine, which would be easily detected using nothing more advanced than Excel-spreadsheet level data analysis. Making up an example: people with a certain DNA trait/allele who also have a diet with a high amount of XYZ tend to not develop…

I've found myself thinking the same. Maybe researchers don't have the data and/or the platform? Not sure who records what they eat, and if they do they don't share it?

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#50

Post by kemiller »

I think he's got it exactly wrong — the reason we have seen a lot of "non-tech tech" companies is that software still fundamentally kinda sucks. We have become so used to it we don't always notice, but software is a fragile nightmare to work with. It's like trying to build skyscrapers with tinkertoys, and it's a miracle we can do as much as we do. Software needs a leap; AI/ML might be the start of it, not sure yet.
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