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If you know great scientists solving important problems, please encourage them to apply :) That said, great research projects do not necessarily translate into

by paul 11y ago

If you know great scientists solving important problems, please encourage them to apply :) That said, great research projects do not necessarily translate into great startups. People doing fundamental research with no clear path to market likely aren't a great fit for the program at this time.

w1ntermute 11y ago
Your problem is that great (life) scientists solving important problems have no interest in (or need for) YC. They'll just go to Noubar Afeyan, Bruce Booth, or Bob Nelsen.
- jrkelly 11y ago
  Mmmmm. Flagship (Noubar's shop) mostly incubates it's own companies (same with 3rd Rock) and uses VC partners as founding CEOs -- so if you are a missionary founder it's not really a fit. In general the pharma VC ecosystem is way more "professional executives"-minded. It's a stark contrast to tech venture ecosystem that goes for young founder leadership. So if you are a great, recently graduated life scientist solving important problems and want to build your own company I'd still consider YC.
  - w1ntermute 11y ago
    I don't think that young founder-driven companies make sense in biotech. Young founders do well in tech because business model innovation requires contrarian thinking, which young people (who are naive and lack preconceptions) are more likely to do. Also, software engineering can be learned at home for very little money, on one's own, even at a very early age. In biotech, once the technology has been developed, the innovative component has largely been completed. And it's the top scientists that have the institutional knowledge and non-dilutive funding to make that happen. The reason there are so many unmet needs in healthcare isn't for lack of trying or a lack of original thought in the top academic research labs - you can be sure that Bob Langer isn't just trying to up his h-index. That said, you are right that a recent graduate won't be able to found a company in that model. That's mostly irrelevant though, since recent graduates are rarely capable of creating scientific breakthroughs on their own.
    - jrkelly 11y ago
      Who do you think is doing the hands-on work in Bob Langer's lab that leads to that scientific breakthrough (hint - it's not Bob). No reason that recently graduated PhD/postdoc can't start a company built on their work. The pharma VC ecosystem has a blind spot for these sort of founders - I'm glad YC is an option for them.
      - w1ntermute 11y ago
        > No reason that recently graduated PhD/postdoc can't start a company built on their work. Except for the minor problem that any IP generated through their work is owned by the university. And if the IP's valuable, it typically flows straight into the hands of Flagship, Polaris, Third Rock, & co. The professor might have a say in what happens to the IP, but the students and postdocs have zero leverage with the TTO. And how could they? They are replaceable cogs in the machine (and often in the US on a student/work visa) - Bob Langer is not.
        jrkelly 11y ago
        I won't go down the pharma IP rathole, but I don't think this problem is intractable. There are many inventions that aren't CRISPR where TLO is happy to have the student who invented it run with it. Funding is a much bigger limiter than IP in my experience.
        w1ntermute 11y ago
        > There are many inventions that aren't CRISPR where TLO is happy to have the student who invented it run with it. And my original point was that Paul Buchheit's request that "If you know great scientists solving important problems, please encourage them to apply" was unrealistic. YC isn't going to get the crème de la crème of scientists or scientific innovations - they're getting what's discarded by the TTOs. To be more precise, nobody's going to get the top scientists (they're going to go right back to their labs) and the biotech VCs are going to get the top innovations (for which they often have an informal licensing option with the inventing professor before the academic research even begins). There's a record amount of funding in biotech right now, but why spread it evenly? Might as well just run dozens of trials in parallel for therapies derived from a single technology.
bbgm 11y ago
I suspect that's one of the differences between the CS world and life science world (again broadly speaking). In CS, there tends to be a pretty large gap between academic projects and commercial software projects both in terms of the expected output and the goals. For the life sciences that's not the case. Even in commercial companies you end up doing a lot of fundamental research or you acquire it via partnerships or IP acquisition. There are some aspects of biology that likely translate better to the tech model. But for most aspects, especially anything to do with therapeutics, it is essentially impossible to avoid the hard slog. No software is going to change how you study efficacy and toxicity in animal models and human testing. With more targeted therapies the complexity only goes up. I think YC should invest in the life sciences, but it should be a different model, perhaps an innovation on the existing tech transfer model, perhaps building an incubator that ends up being an IP funnel for pharma, or to provide some competition in an underserved area, but the software mindset is generally going to fail.

by paul 11y ago

w1ntermute 11y ago

Your problem is that great (life) scientists solving important problems have no interest in (or need for) YC. They'll just go to Noubar Afeyan, Bruce Booth, or Bob Nelsen.

jrkelly 11y ago
Mmmmm. Flagship (Noubar's shop) mostly incubates it's own companies (same with 3rd Rock) and uses VC partners as founding CEOs -- so if you are a missionary founder it's not really a fit. In general the pharma VC ecosystem is way more "professional executives"-minded. It's a stark contrast to tech venture ecosystem that goes for young founder leadership. So if you are a great, recently graduated life scientist solving important problems and want to build your own company I'd still consider YC.
- w1ntermute 11y ago
  I don't think that young founder-driven companies make sense in biotech. Young founders do well in tech because business model innovation requires contrarian thinking, which young people (who are naive and lack preconceptions) are more likely to do. Also, software engineering can be learned at home for very little money, on one's own, even at a very early age. In biotech, once the technology has been developed, the innovative component has largely been completed. And it's the top scientists that have the institutional knowledge and non-dilutive funding to make that happen. The reason there are so many unmet needs in healthcare isn't for lack of trying or a lack of original thought in the top academic research labs - you can be sure that Bob Langer isn't just trying to up his h-index. That said, you are right that a recent graduate won't be able to found a company in that model. That's mostly irrelevant though, since recent graduates are rarely capable of creating scientific breakthroughs on their own.
  - jrkelly 11y ago
    Who do you think is doing the hands-on work in Bob Langer's lab that leads to that scientific breakthrough (hint - it's not Bob). No reason that recently graduated PhD/postdoc can't start a company built on their work. The pharma VC ecosystem has a blind spot for these sort of founders - I'm glad YC is an option for them.
    - w1ntermute 11y ago
      > No reason that recently graduated PhD/postdoc can't start a company built on their work. Except for the minor problem that any IP generated through their work is owned by the university. And if the IP's valuable, it typically flows straight into the hands of Flagship, Polaris, Third Rock, & co. The professor might have a say in what happens to the IP, but the students and postdocs have zero leverage with the TTO. And how could they? They are replaceable cogs in the machine (and often in the US on a student/work visa) - Bob Langer is not.
      - jrkelly 11y ago
        I won't go down the pharma IP rathole, but I don't think this problem is intractable. There are many inventions that aren't CRISPR where TLO is happy to have the student who invented it run with it. Funding is a much bigger limiter than IP in my experience.
        w1ntermute 11y ago
        > There are many inventions that aren't CRISPR where TLO is happy to have the student who invented it run with it. And my original point was that Paul Buchheit's request that "If you know great scientists solving important problems, please encourage them to apply" was unrealistic. YC isn't going to get the crème de la crème of scientists or scientific innovations - they're getting what's discarded by the TTOs. To be more precise, nobody's going to get the top scientists (they're going to go right back to their labs) and the biotech VCs are going to get the top innovations (for which they often have an informal licensing option with the inventing professor before the academic research even begins). There's a record amount of funding in biotech right now, but why spread it evenly? Might as well just run dozens of trials in parallel for therapies derived from a single technology.

bbgm 11y ago

I suspect that's one of the differences between the CS world and life science world (again broadly speaking). In CS, there tends to be a pretty large gap between academic projects and commercial software projects both in terms of the expected output and the goals. For the life sciences that's not the case. Even in commercial companies you end up doing a lot of fundamental research or you acquire it via partnerships or IP acquisition. There are some aspects of biology that likely translate better to the tech model. But for most aspects, especially anything to do with therapeutics, it is essentially impossible to avoid the hard slog. No software is going to change how you study efficacy and toxicity in animal models and human testing. With more targeted therapies the complexity only goes up. I think YC should invest in the life sciences, but it should be a different model, perhaps an innovation on the existing tech transfer model, perhaps building an incubator that ends up being an IP funnel for pharma, or to provide some competition in an underserved area, but the software mindset is generally going to fail.