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Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

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Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#71

Post by [deleted] »

vonmoltke wrote: post #53
squeaky-clean wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're both making different points. Yes, a PhD is a lot of work (I'd assume, haven't got one). Maybe more work than a startup. But it's not "hard" work in the sense that you don't have a 90% chance of your thesis being rejected despite you trying your hardest. You don't have to be scared of Google catching wind of your thesis and publishing a better version before you can finish it. Your advisor doesn't take…

> But it's not "hard" work in the sense that you don't have a 90% chance of your thesis being rejected despite you trying your hardest. Nor do you have a 90% chance of failing in your business venture despite you trying your hardest. Going from the statistic "90% of businesses fail" to " you have a 90% chance of failure when starting a business" is an incorrect deduction. The latter only follows from the former if bu…

[deleted]

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#72

Post by dnautics »

gbrown wrote: post #38
jondubois wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked on some pretty big projects and did a lot of research. That was easy. Part of the reason why it was easy was because I knew that if I put in the effort, I would almost certainly pass the course. At uni, if you're smart, the odds are always stacked firmly in your favor. Failing a PhD thesis during the defence is apparently a 'rare occurrence' in most universities. By contrast, the odds of your startup not fai…

You do not have the experience or expertise to justify your claims; a PhD thesis is in no way like doing a regular research project, or passing a course in university. The reason why failing a PhD thesis defense is rare is because your adviser should prevent you from defending until the product is sufficiently strong. Many, many, many more people fail by dropping out of a PhD program during their dissertation than fa…

It's worth noting that some PhD students get passed because their advisors feel bad for them after they drop 8 years in the program and the advisors are too incompetent to actually bring up a student through the PhD with a successful project.

I've seen it happen five or six times (usually it's the same group of professors) at a top-tier research institute.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#73

Post by lukeHeuer »

gohrt wrote: post #68
pb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the most successful founders are introverts. Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Bill Gates, none of them are very extroverted, but they've started some of the most valuable companies in the world. Of course if you are so introverted that you are unable to make eye contact or talk to people it will be a problem, but most of us are not that extreme.

Why do you think they are not extroverted? Bill Gates was a famously in-your-face person when dealing with employees, partners, and competitors.

Being an extrovert or an introvert has nothing to do with shyness. You can certainly be introverted and not very shy. Bill Gates is a great example of that.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#74

Post by [deleted] »

jondubois wrote: post #13

I didn't go as far as PhD, but when I came out of uni, I knew nothing about life or work. I really wouldn't recommend anyone to try to launch their own startup right out of uni (especially not alone). When I think back to it; if I had succeeded with my first startup right out of uni, I would have had a seriously distorted view of life. My idea of 'hard work' has changed a lot since then. Staying up till 3am a few tim…

[deleted]

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#75

Post by tjl »

etendue wrote: post #57
squeaky-clean wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're both making different points. Yes, a PhD is a lot of work (I'd assume, haven't got one). Maybe more work than a startup. But it's not "hard" work in the sense that you don't have a 90% chance of your thesis being rejected despite you trying your hardest. You don't have to be scared of Google catching wind of your thesis and publishing a better version before you can finish it. Your advisor doesn't take…

The attrition rate for a PhD program isn't 90%, but 50% is not unknown; my own was around 30% (measured from matriculation to defense, my class year). Some students were forced out of the program, others left on their own accord. Also, it is unusual for a dissertation to be outright rejected because of how it reflects on the advisor and committee: the committee is (supposed to be) kept up to date on the student's pro…

I've known students who defended their thesis and were told to do major revisions. Typically, it's because their thesis supervisor didn't do their job properly as they should know not to send that student to defend.

You're right in that they weed Ph.D. students out earlier, during their comprehensive exam. How it's done varies from department to department and university to university. My comprehensive was a lengthy oral exam by my committee with two rounds of questions. The first on background and the second on the written thesis proposal I submitted. I went for 3.5 hours straight, basically until the committee wanted lunch.

Equating a research group to a startup isn't a bad analogy. One of the professors in my department basically uses his students to do research for his company. He even makes them sign over the IP rights to him. Other professors have a continuing line of research across a number of students. Even my Ph.D. thesis was the latest in a number of theses on the same topic, each getting progressively more advanced. My thesis basically finished that line, with other related ones opening up as a result.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#76

Post by tjl »

arcanus wrote: post #33
pyromine wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear lord, I've started writing all of my mathematics homework in LaTeX, it's not even remotely reasonable. Though interestingly, having to be more deliberate in my operations do make me have a much more rigorous understanding of what I'm doing.

> it's not even remotely reasonable. What is more scary: I exclusively write LaTeX equations in emails, raw to my colleagues. We have all been working with it for so long it is a native language. Math does funny stuff to your brain.

Most of my colleagues did this too. I know I've done it with my supervisor. It's just easier when you're trying to write out something complex and everyone who you're writing to knows how to read it without difficulty.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#77

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

0.5% getting 'professor' positions is just nonsense. Just click the link so see some useful discussion, but it's ridiculous at its face: the average professor is not graduating 200 PhD students. The figure is probably closer to 20 for most fields, which gives a more reasonable 5%. Then you have to consider that many programs offer tenured research positions, but don't take on doctoral students.

Finally, consider that, upon entering a doctoral program, many students don't intend on academia at all. That number drops by the time they complete their dissertations, too.

Ultimately, I'd give a rough figure of 1 in 4 qualified and motivated PhDs getting a suitable tenure-track position in a reasonable timeframe (~4-5 years). Maybe one in five or six will get tenure, in the end. Which is still terrible when you think about it, but the odds aren't nearly as ridiculous as some would claim.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#78

Post by Chyzwar »

etendue wrote: post #57
squeaky-clean wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're both making different points. Yes, a PhD is a lot of work (I'd assume, haven't got one). Maybe more work than a startup. But it's not "hard" work in the sense that you don't have a 90% chance of your thesis being rejected despite you trying your hardest. You don't have to be scared of Google catching wind of your thesis and publishing a better version before you can finish it. Your advisor doesn't take…

The attrition rate for a PhD program isn't 90%, but 50% is not unknown; my own was around 30% (measured from matriculation to defense, my class year). Some students were forced out of the program, others left on their own accord. Also, it is unusual for a dissertation to be outright rejected because of how it reflects on the advisor and committee: the committee is (supposed to be) kept up to date on the student's pro…

Nope, research groups/projects at uni is all about milking money from grants. Running startup is all about making money for investors. Direction is different and risk much lower.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#79

Post by tjl »

dnautics wrote: post #72
gbrown wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not have the experience or expertise to justify your claims; a PhD thesis is in no way like doing a regular research project, or passing a course in university. The reason why failing a PhD thesis defense is rare is because your adviser should prevent you from defending until the product is sufficiently strong. Many, many, many more people fail by dropping out of a PhD program during their dissertation than fa…

It's worth noting that some PhD students get passed because their advisors feel bad for them after they drop 8 years in the program and the advisors are too incompetent to actually bring up a student through the PhD with a successful project. I've seen it happen five or six times (usually it's the same group of professors) at a top-tier research institute.

The external examiner should allow that to happen, if they're doing their job. The whole point of the external examiner is so professors can't just collude to pass people.

I've seen a number of things happen during a defence, but not this. The worst was seeing two professors (one of whom was the candidate's supervisor) on the committee argue with each other while the candidate just had to watch. It took a lot of work for the chair to reign them in. I think it was difficult for the chair because they were arguing in German and the chair didn't speak it since he wasn't from the German department (my friend was getting her Ph.D. in German literature).

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#80

Post by throwaway729 »

sidlls wrote: post #21
sremani wrote: post #6

I really do not understand the cynical posts here, but given the path for Ph.D.s trying to get tenure is getting more difficult. Deep Science ventures are providing a path ahead. I understand the writer is vested in his venture. I was watching the ultra-endurance documentary the one in Tennesse, he was telling its usually people with Masters or PhDs who excel at this because they are used to planning and preparation.…

That "grit" is entirely within an academic context and does not necessarily translate outside of that context. It's also debatable whether a PhD absolutely implies an above average IQ (or even whether that is a meaningful trait). As for correlation with success, I wonder if you could elaborate? What measures "success"? What studies are you referring to? What confounding issues (if any) are accounted for?

> That "grit" is entirely within an academic context and does not necessarily translate outside of that context

Do you have any particular reason for stating this? Having been in both environments, I actually think that academic grit translates outside of academia more fluidly than the other way around.

Conjectured reason: most academic projects have a horizon of 5-20 years to market and require large amounts of very mundane and uninspiring work. There are infinite distractions within academia. A successful academic project isn't going to make anyone rich, and even if it does, that person probably won't be you. Also, the pay is terrible.

Startup and even corporate life are very different in almost all of those dimensions. Projects succeed or fail fast. There are few distractions, especially for individual contributors. There's still routine work, but usually routine in the sure-to-succeed way rather than the sure-to-fail-and-be-repeated-10x-times way. A successful project can easily make you a valuable person -- either on the job market or in terms of actual net worth. And even if everything hits the fan, you're receiving a reasonable salary and building your career.

> It's also debatable whether a PhD absolutely implies an above average IQ

That is certainly true.

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