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YC Research
- anigbrowl 11y agoWe’ll especially welcome outsiders working on slightly heretical ideas Are you going to require qualifications, or just sufficiently intriguing proposals?
- _pius 11y agoThis looks amazing ... a modern Bell Labs or Xerox PARC.
- dreamdu5t 11y agoBell Labs had an annual budget of over 3 billion since the 80s.
- sama 11y agoClearly if it seems promising we're going to up the funding significantly.
- suyash 11y agoThat is great news Sam! This is really exciting to see an incubator starting it's own research lab and on top of that, keeping it totally in the open source. I'm fascinated by Research work folks have done at Parc and Disney, you should have a look here and perhaps speak with someone at Disney as well: http://www.disneyresearch.com http://www.disneyresearch.com
- stock_toaster 11y agoJust curious, are you going to also have people filing grant proposals (with government agencies, etc), as an avenue of additional funding?
- r0naa 11y agoWell, I hope you are taking interns
- Natsu 11y agoAnd I hope you guys really do make the next Bell Labs :)
- csomar 11y agoYou are making a wrong correlation. Putting more money won't necessarily drive research forward. Most breakthrough researches and inventions were done with little money.
- go1979 11y agoI am a professional scientist and I have to disagree. 10 million is just seed cash that I'm sure will be magnified. But do not underestimate the cost of research. While a particular project that pays off seems (and is) a great return, salaries, equipment and conference travel consume a lot of money.
- adamnemecek 11y agoIt probably depends on the type of research that you do. Drug research is expensive. But I think that you can do something like Xerox PARC (it seems like YCR might be going for something similar) with relatively little money. It appears that in 2001 their budget was $65m (http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=86872 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=86872). I'm not sure if their budget was larger during the 70's but that's not that much money considering what came out of there.
- sbov 11y agoFrom what I can tell, back in the 70's Xerox PARC's annual budget that focused on computing was $10-14.5 million in today's dollars, which seems fairly cheap. But it took multiple years to develop it. This also feels like cheating because we're targeting extremely successful research. If we knew ahead of time which research would be successful it would be a lot cheaper to do.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- netheril96 11y agoBut it is inevitable to have a lot of unsuccessful research projects before one breakthrough. Similar to startups where most fail. Those "failures" add up to the cost pretty quickly, and you cannot avoid them.
- urs2102 11y ago@sama - are the members of these groups going to be selected by YC or will there be an application process similar to YC? This is awesome to see, maybe YCR could be the next Bell Labs or something (although Google probably has a hold on that now).
- sama 11y agoFor now they are going to be hand-selected by me (the area we are starting with requires pretty specific domain expertise). Not sure what we'll do in the future.
- urs2102 11y ago@sama - Interesting, I definitely think the toss up between meaningful research and high paying engineering work is very broken. You mentioned how compensation will not be determined based on conferences and papers, do you have any specifics on how you would measure "quality of output"? Will researchers be compensated differently based on said quality? (As often times the quality of research output is hard to gauge immediately without the greater context of time passing)
- sama 11y agoDefinitely still a work in a progress on how we'll measure it.
- materialsguy 11y agoARPA-E (The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, http://arpa-e.energy.gov/ http://arpa-e.energy.gov/) has some interesting models on how to encourage meaningful innovation tied to continued funding. Might be worth a look. Same with DARPA.
- srean 11y agoAny helpful teasers on what that domain might be ?
- imajes 11y ago@sama: is one of the intentions for this group to acquire patents, so that you may be able to use them in defense for YC companies?
- sama 11y agoNo--all IP developed is free to the world, so we wouldn't be able to use it defensively.
- myth_buster 11y agoApparently not. YCR is a non-profit. Any IP developed will be made available freely to everyone. We’re not doing this with the goal of helping YC’s startups succeed or adding to our bottom line.
- math 11y agoyou could allow free use of patents under a license that requires the entity doing so to also allow free use of their patents. If you believed the patent system is largely counter productive (as I do), this would be an awesome way of trying to address this a constructive way.
- mehrdada 11y agoThis is great. I am hoping things like this will shake the dynamics of publication-oriented credentialing and ultimately the value proposition of academia/academic research.
- myth_buster 11y agoThis thread [0] from couple of days back on Alan Kay's views on recreating Xerox PARC seems relevant. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10322929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10322929
- sama 11y agoWe talked to Alan at great lengths in the process of putting this together. He is the most insightful person I've ever met on how to structure an organization for great research.
- myth_buster 11y agoGlad to hear that! Some of his thoughts really resonated with me although they run counter to the current corporate research culture. I think Google managed to recreate something similar with their 20% projects
- shas3 11y ago> "recreate" Other companies have had the 15% / 20% culture, etc. long before Google. Example, http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1998/01/9858 http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1998/01/9858
- myth_buster 11y agoI'm not saying Google came up with 15/20% culture, all I'm saying is that they got some benefit from it just like Xerox got.
- nchammas 11y agoIs there a talk or discussion somewhere that touches on some of these insights into creating a great research organization?
- scobar 11y agoIn the article, he suggests finding Michelangelos. I imagine there are many who are clearly the right type, but many more non-obvious Michelangelos. Do you have (or intend to discover) a reliable way to foresee the best people even while circumstances influencing their lives have diverted them from the traditional outlets to look for such individuals? I assume there will be enough obviously great candidates wanting to "work" at YCR that you won't need to dig for hidden gems. I was just curious to know if it was something you'd considered. Sam, when I met you at Startup School last year, I wanted to be brief. The most important thing I wanted to communicate to you was my gratitude, and I thanked you for sharing your startup class. I'm blown away by and so grateful for the stuff you've been doing since. I'm very excited to see how these new projects work out. Thank you again man.
- jxm262 11y ago> We’ll especially welcome outsiders working on slightly heretical ideas (just like we do for the startups we fund) and we’ll try to keep things small—we believe small groups can do far more than most people think. What's the process for an outsider to get involved? This sounds like a really cool and much needed movement. Will more information be coming soon on how to apply/join/contribute?
- sama 11y agoWe'll have more info on this in a month or so!
- HorizonXP 11y agoThis sounds interesting. I'm curious to see what areas the research will be focused on. Are there plans to provide laboratory space for areas that require it? Would researchers be housed in some space in MV, or would they work out of their own space like YC startups?
- sama 11y agoThe first group will be in SF. TBD on other groups. But unlike startups we fund, these people work for a YC organization, so we will provide space etc.
- Schwolop 11y agoAs I keep chiming in whenever YC and location come up - please seriously consider Australia's East Coast. Like the valley, there is a big supply of world class universities and their graduates, and there's also great weather and quality of life that keeps people from wanting to leave. What's missing is an American style risk tolerance amongst the holders of capital. That's changing, but it's something YC could change even faster with an organisation like YCR. Our government has historically underfunded research, and even more often one side funds it then the other gets into power and cuts it again. As a result, there are lots of ex-academics looking for more interesting ways of earning a living!
- S4M 11y agoThat's great! Two questions: - Will the researchers need to be based in the Bay Area - AFAIK: not the best place to raise a family? - In the short term, how many researchers do you plan to hire?
- sama 11y agoYes, but we're coming in on the very high end of the comp scale. We're also considering doing things like YC guaranteeing 100% mortgages for the researchers--housing prices in the bay area are a joke. We're starting relatively small (on the order of 10) and grow from there at a reasonable rate.
- Fomite 11y agoWhile I'm somewhat skeptical of the idea (I'll admit I'm an academic researcher) this seems like a very good step - the Bay Area is becoming cost prohibitive.
- pboutros 11y agoThis is awesome. I'm really excited to see what groups are announced - this is going to gather some great minds!
- trevmckendrick 11y agoThis is a logical step in YC's path as the "new" university. It's a great experiment to run, and I can't think of better people to do it.
- fasouto 11y agoAwesome news. It's interesting to see new ways to fund research. BTW the "Read more" at https://ycr.org/ https://ycr.org/ point to the Y Combinator blog not to the post permalink. It will became confusing once you write a new post.
- gdb 11y ago(I put together https://ycr.org. https://ycr.org.) Yep, I'm planning on swapping in the permalink in a day or two, but just want to avoid making changes during this launch.
- hbhakhra 11y agoI like the idea of YC funding research. Bias free and politics free research can go a long way. A couple of questions though for @sama: 1. Where will the research be based? Is YC providing space to setup lab? 2. One of the problems I see with this is lack of fellow researches present on site making casual collaboration harder (compared to a research university campus). Have you thought of that? 3. Are you planning on funding researches with track records or people with high risk/high reward ideas that are relatively new?
- sama 11y ago1. SF for now. 2. Yes, eventually we'd like to have multiple groups in the same space just for this reason--I always think the interdisciplinary stuff is underrated. 3. Some of both, probably, but mostly we want to support people that the existing system does not support (e.g. people that are not yet famous)
- mizzao 11y agoInterdisciplinary work is incredibly hard to pull off in academia due to tribal affiliations. I think the MSR NYC lab (where I work), which consists of computer scientists, economists, and other social scientists, is one of the few places I've seen it actually flourish.
- tcpekin 11y agoI don't think interdisciplinary work has to be between fields that disparate to begin with either. From personal experience, I think there are definite benefits from just having different fields of engineering collaborate and share ideas.
- gone35 11y agoFWIW, two (partially self-serving) suggestions: 1. Try set up a lab in Cambridge at some point down the road. 2. Pay particular attention to CS theory: it's (arguably) high-impact and very cost effective --you can practically fund an entire generation of researchers in a subfield for a fraction of the cost of, say, a major interdisciplinary initiative. See for instance what the Simons foundation is doing at Berkeley[1]. Best of luck with what you're doing. You can end up actually changing the world in this way. [1] https://simons.berkeley.edu https://simons.berkeley.edu
- Geekette 11y agoInteresting. I am curious though, as to why YCR researchers will also receive equity in Y Combinator as part of their compensation? Especially given that both are organized separately and YCR discoveries won't be funneled through or used in YC. I am also assuming that YCR will pay market rate salaries.
- sama 11y agoAbove market salaries and also equity. We want to get the best people in the world, and I think YC equity is a pretty compelling thing to get. We're competing against e.g. Google, and Google stock is also a pretty compelling thing to get!
- Geekette 11y agoGotcha. So this is more about getting brilliant minds in media res, as opposed to discovering fledgling great researchers of tomorrow. Good lure; YC equity is probably increasingly more compelling than Google's!
- siong1987 11y agoHow liquid YC equity is? I assume that by getting google stock, someone can sell them easily in the public market. But how does it work with YC equity?
- _sentient 11y agoProbably somewhat less liquid with far greater alpha.
- rch 11y agoSeems like an effective system-level path around tech-transfer and licensing headaches. Open inventions feed innovative companies and back into research. Well done.
- phkahler 11y agoYou could drop the equity and just locate somewhere with a lower cost of living as incentive. I vote for Detroit area ;-)
- CPLX 11y ago> YC has a very high problem flux at this point What does this phrase mean in English?
- stdbrouw 11y agoJust replace "flux" with "flow" and you get the picture. If you're at YC you (presumably) encounter lots of different problems in lots of different contexts, which is often a good environment to foster creativity and inventiveness.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tlb 11y agoProblem flux means the rate of new problems that need solving. Theoretical breakthroughs are often inspired by real problems. For instance, information theory arose from practical problems of wartime communications. YCR will be in close proximity (geographic, organization, and intellectual) to lots of startups with interesting and worthwhile problems to solve.
- ihsw 11y agoA significant amount of proposals are too pie-in-the-sky to take seriously but still warrant attention. Honestly I'd like to see Kickstarter take a stab at this too, providing the general populace with an outlet to support research projects.
- koopuluri 11y agohttps://experiment.com/ https://experiment.com/ - Not sure what their numbers are though.
- mrdrozdov 11y ago@sama is this targeted towards pre-PhDs who are deciding between pursuing their PhD or working in industry, as well as post-PhDs who are full-time researchers?
- aresant 11y agoI love this idea. Not sure if this is driving your thinking but this would open a desperately needed alternative to Academia if you can scale this idea as successfully as you've scaled startups. I've watched my genius brother-in-law (PhD Materials Science & Chemistry / Biomimicry) be consumed by a very broken UC system over the past decade. Started with an exceptionally bright, curious, and inventive man who created breakthrough science in self-healing materials for the "benefit of the world" 10 years of grant fights, personnel struggles, under-served licensing resources, conflicting lab-vs-student priorities, etc has put him out the other end hopeless and disenfranchised. The world will probably lose one of their best "public" researchers to the bowels of commercial science as a result. Go for it Sam, good luck and excited to see what your first projects are.
- biswaroop 11y agoSeconded. This is brilliant. As a physics PhD student at MIT who's leaving to build a startup, I'm finding it a relief to leave a broken system. The academic community is fraught with politics, mismanagement, and inefficiency. Researchers are driven by a need to get published and get grant funding, not to expand the frontiers of human knowledge. Impact is currently measured by citation pagerank, and broader impact is undervalued. Outreach efforts (blogging, education) are consistently stigmatized [1]. This needs to change. I would love to see more transparency and accountability in research. I've seen Nature papers continue to be cited despite completely wrong conclusions (the 'erratum' was published as a separate paper in PRL). The arXiv was a great first step at opening up access to papers, but the large publishers continue to hold cartel-levels of control over scientific knowledge. I'm super excited about YC research. Would love to see a quantum computation division! [1] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/03/30/how-to-get-tenure-at-a-major-research-university/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/03/30/...
- matheweis 11y agoWow, I knew things were bad, but the education system must be well and truly broken when the students at one of the world's top research universities are leaving to build startups, and calling it a broken system on their way out. (No sarcasm intended; I couldn't find a way to say this better).
- dewitt 11y ago> "To start off, I’m going to personally donate $10 million..." Holy cow. That's real money. Sincerely very impressed by the commitment.
- leni536 11y agoReminds me of a great historical figure of Hungary, István Széchenyi. >Széchenyi gained a wider reputation in 1825, by supporting the proposal of the prime minister, Nagy, to establish the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Széchenyi donated the full annual income of his estates that year, 60,000 florins, towards it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istv%C3%A1n_Sz%C3%A9chenyi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istv%C3%A1n_Sz%C3%A9chenyi
- samstave 11y ago>The height of the bubble was reached in the winter of 1636-37. Tulip traders were making (and losing) fortunes regularly. A good trader could earn up to 60,000 florins in a month— approximately $61,710 adjusted to current U.S. dollars. With profits like those to be had, nothing local governments could do stopped the frenzy of trading. Then one day in Haarlem a buyer failed to show up and pay for his bulb purchase. The ensuing panic spread across Holland, and within days tulip bulbs were worth only a hundredth of their former prices. The tulip bubble had burst. Florins appear to be pretty steady with the dollar...
- Luc 11y agoThat was a different Florin, though perhaps it would be possible to find the exchange rate in 1825: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_gulden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_gulden
- aroch 11y agoI don't want to minimize the awesomeness of the YCR proposal, but $10m isn't really very much in the scheme of research. NIH alone funds to order of $25bil a year in science research. Public-private funding schemes probably fund an order of magnitude more every year. $10m is pretty much just enough to fund one reasonably sized group, doing advanced research, for about a year to a year and half. Seems to me that Sam is hedging so YCR can do its first round in about a year and get a bigger ask by pointing to the starting groups achievements.
- PabloOsinaga 11y ago@sama: how are you thinking about evaluating progress of the groups? it seems all the bureaucracy in the current research ecosystem derives from the fact that it is really hard to evaluate progress in research/science. So you form a committee of experts to evaluate if a given researcher is doing well, and that eventually leads to politics and bureucracy. what are you thoughts on evaluation?
- waterlesscloud 11y agoTIL that Sam Altman has considerably more personal wealth than I would have guessed, if I'd ever been inclined to guess. Anyway, this is very cool. Exactly the sort of thing that needs to happen to push the world forward in deeper ways. I'll be very curious to see what sort of teams they put together and just how fundamental and long term and heretical they go with their research.
- seiji 11y agoIf every poster here had their net worth attached to their username, you'd probably cry. We all realize founders maintain "a lot more" equity than employees, but it's almost like our brains aren't wired to recognize, remember, or rationalize how some people get really really rewarded more than others. With Sam being grand poobah of YC, he's on a life track to being a liquid-capable multibillionaire within 5-10 years after the current unicornpalooza goes through a few rounds of lofty exits. My propositions for SF to require all equity-exited techies to tattoo their net worth on their foreheads keeps getting shot down by anonymous "concerned citizens."
- samstave 11y agoHAHA - I thought the same thing. I ACTUALLY scrolled back up to the top of the article to see if it was truly posted by him after reading that line....
- vanessa98 11y agoDitto - would love to hear how he went from Loopt to that kind of wealth!
- quickpost 11y agoLooks like he was an angel investor in a lot of BIG startups, so not too surprising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman#Pre-YC_angel_investing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman#Pre-YC_angel_invest...
- ramon 11y agoNice, good luck! Good funding :)
- evanwarfel 11y agoSweet! We'll need more things like this if we want to see our share of societal progress. I have faith that more programs like this will blossom in the coming years. @sama -is this only for severely resource intense research projects? And do you envision this turning into an alternative to graduate school too?
- lfx 11y agoWell I always wanted to be in Y funded startup. Now my dreams become bigger - now I want get to YCR. Congrats Y team! I'm can't wait to see what you come up for next announcement!
- BinaryIdiot 11y agoI like this idea; it's pretty novel. Since there is just one group starting this off, which makes a ton of sense from a funding perspective, is this an MVP or a long term bet with regards to this specific group? Meaning if this group has trouble getting their idea off the ground in the next 1-2 months, do they get scrapped or are they going to have years to conduct their research? An idea for future research may be to do almost like a round of start-ups where a bunch of groups come to SF for 3 months but unlike start-ups you find the promising ones and keep them all and drop any that do not look promising. Basically thinking of ways to not put all your eggs in one basic. Naturally this becomes quite problematic if you're researching something highly complex that won't show signs of promise for a decade!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- hugh4 11y agoThe better yet native is to focus on quality of research outputs rather than just number. "Grant committees can't read, but they can count". Trouble with that is it doesn't scale. It's easy to do when you're funding a handful of researchers like YC, but impossible when you're funding thousands like NSF or NIH.
- alecco 11y agoWay to put your money where your mouth is! Kudos to Sam. You are a good man. Hope this delivers amazing results.
- pavornyoh 11y agoIt takes a special person to donate $10 million to a new project. You don't get enough credit Sam Altman. Good job and a very good idea. EDIT: Why am getting down votes for this comment? You must know that in this world not everyone is willing to part with their money and are not that giving. So relax before you down vote me promptly:)
- MrBra 11y agoI downvoted by mistake! I wanted to upvote.
- pavornyoh 11y agoIt will cost you a buck buddy:). I was about to weep after losing my hard earned karma point. (Just kidding).
- rsync 11y agoStop it. Don't discuss the scoring system or your downvotes or "not sure why downvoted, but ...". Don't interrupt the real discussion to meta-discuss the scoring system.
- pavornyoh 11y agoWe are not discussing the scoring system if you pay close attention. I made an initial comment and if it is misunderstood hence the edit of the original comment. Clarifying my comment does not take from the original discussion. Does it?
- superfx 11y agoWill this be structured in a way where there are groups headed by "PIs" that set the research agenda, and researchers working under them, or will you be pursuing a different model?
- choppaface 11y agoThere are a few YC technical founders who were fired by their non-tech co-founders for rather flimsy culture reasons. So far YC was pretty hands-off. What makes YC think it can be effective at managing researchers? Wouldn't that be much more a function of the YC director(s) of research than the program?
- sama 11y agoWe are extremely hands-off with the companies we fund. These people will actually be part of the YC organization.
- thanatropism 11y ago> There are a few YC technical founders who were fired by their non-tech co-founders for rather flimsy culture reasons. Is the reverse Zuckerberg a thing now? Can you share perhaps one example?
- zt 11y agoThe culture that exists between companies and founders in YC seems a better measurement of YC's success than the culture that exists inside any one of those companies. They run YC after all, not the companies themselves. I have seen some difficult divorces between founders (with various combinations of technical and non-technical), and although some might suggest that YC should arbitrate those disputes more proactively, I think their policy of being willing to talk things through but not vote their shares is the right balance for their relationship with the companies. But YC's success at fostering a positive, supportive culture between companies makes me quite optimistic that they can create a great environment when it's their responsibility.
- dtournemille 11y agoCan't view the ycr.org site. Flagged as malware by OpenDNS. https://malware.opendns.com/controller.php?url=ycr.org&server=yvr15&prefs=&tagging=&nref= https://malware.opendns.com/controller.php?url=ycr.org&serve...
- antognini 11y agoVery interesting! But exactly how fundamental is this research meant to be? Will there be any mathematicians working on projects not at all related to cryptography or physicists working on projects entirely unrelated to fusion? As an astrophysicist in the thick of applications for jobs in both industry and academia, I strongly identify with the points raised in the article. While I consider my research slightly heretical with the potential to solve many big problems in astrophysics, I don't have any illusions that it will really lead to any practical developments. So is this initiative meant to keep scientists like me working on the problems we're working on, or is it meant to prevent computer scientists working on a new way for cars to drive themselves from jumping ship and joining Google or Uber?
- freyr 11y ago> YC has a very high problem flux at this point From this statement and, more generally, YC's focus on creating high-growth businesses, I'm guessing they'll be focused on long-term research with potential to disrupt markets and have practical impact. > So is this initiative meant to keep scientists like me working on the problems we're working on, or is it meant to prevent computer scientists working on a new way for cars to drive themselves from jumping ship and joining Google or Uber? Are these the only options? You sound dismissive of scientists (computer or otherwise) working on solving practical problems.
- antognini 11y ago> You sound dismissive of scientists (computer or otherwise) working on solving practical problems. I don't mean to be dismissive of those working on solving practical problems! There's a good chance that will be me in the near future! I suppose my concern is more that people working on those sorts of things already have many more options and resources available to them. I just mean to state that if one grants that research without immediate practical application has some (perhaps qualitative) value for society, then the relative impact could be larger if it were focused more towards that kind of research. But of course the downside to that is that the resulting research...has no immediate practical application. None of this should be taken as criticism exactly since both strategies have their advantages (and it's not my money anyway), it's just not quite clear from the post what sort of research is going to be funded.
- mrdrozdov 11y agoThis article seems to have relevance. The Recurse Center is a YC company that recently began pursuing programming language research. https://www.recurse.com/blog/83-michael-nielsen-joins-the-recurse-center-to-help-build-a-research-lab https://www.recurse.com/blog/83-michael-nielsen-joins-the-re...
- arrel 11y ago> We’re not doing this with the goal of helping YC’s startups succeed or adding to our bottom line. Helping YC startups succeed might not be the primary goal, but it's silly to say the project isn't also aimed to help YC startups. Having access to a top quality research team can absolutely help startups succeed, so this is either disingenuous or surprisingly unimaginative.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoHow about "We’re not doing this with the goal of helping existing YC’s startups succeed". If this solves some big problem, and there are no new YC startups that come out of it, would indeed be unimaginative.
- rokhayakebe 11y agoIdeas: Free Global Health Care, Free Global Education, Government Management Software (A to Z), or Private Secondary Government.
- go1979 11y agoWill scientists at YC Research continue the common pattern of academic research/publications? Or are there some grander plans to disrupt traditional research?
- gdb 11y ago(I'm working with Sam on YCR.) It's pretty important that YCR groups have strong ties with the existing research communities — research collaborations tend to have a multiplicative effect. So I'd expect to see papers coming out of YCR. However, I'd also expect to see many other forms of communication (e.g. blog posts, code releases, etc). In general, we'll tune our efforts to achieve the best research results and impact, rather than to fit the existing incentive systems.
- pramodliv1 11y agoI love the accessibility and content of blog posts by members of Recurse Center. It would be amazing if scientists from YCR publish informal, yet rigorous posts for newbies.
- go1979 11y agoI was at SOSP until earlier today. During the Q&A of the Chaos graph processing system, there was discussion of a previous exchange between Frank McSherry and the authors of the work ... what was REALLY cool was that parts of the original exchange happened on Twitter and via blog posts and we were hearing about it at the conference some time later :)
- hugh4 11y agoUnless YC is promising to fund these researchers for life they'll pretty much have to, or else they'll never get back on the treadmill once the YC money runs out.
- sackofmugs 11y agoThat's not true. University professors have sabbaticals, and can also go on extended leave for multiple years and return just fine.
- napoleoncomplex 11y agoThis is fantastic. Addresses the completely broken aspects of doing research in academia, gives researchers access to top developers through the YC network, gives you a much better environment stress and pay-wise than if you're a researcher, and focuses on meaningful innovation. And the research will be free to use. Nailed it in so many aspects. @sama - since you mention that startups aren't good at solving certain types of problems, is this something you've always believed, or is it a realisation through your work at YC? Also was it inspired by the Shuttleworh Fundation in any way?
- thanatropism 11y agoIs this more targeted at semi-cofounders/early-employees that fall by the wayside (like Aaron Swartz, poor soul) or is the plan hiring top researchers (the way Google got Hal Varian and Peter Norvig)?
- sama 11y agoI was hoping to answer questions here for awhile but I'm getting pulled into a crisis so I have to go. I'm going to do an AMA on HN later this week (mostly to answer questions about applying to YC) and would be happy to answer more questions about YCR then.
- eli_gottlieb 11y agoYou know, normally I'm one of those jerks constantly criticizing the Silicon Valley Way of things. But this was a very good idea, I wish you the best of luck with it, and if, God forbid, my current employer went pear-shaped, it's the kind of place I'd love to work.
- j2kun 11y agoMy only question is where do I sign up? (as a young researcher who wants to work on important problems)
- onekiloparsec 11y agoSame question here. But I guess sign up page will arrive on due time. What a fantastic initiative anyway!
- dnautics 11y agoThanks! Was wondering if YC would eventually do something like this, given the path it seems to be taking wrt nonprofits... It was a huge pain setting up an independent nonprofit to do the research I wanted to do, then fundraising was hard again, and then I didn't raise enough money to pay myself... So good luck to everyone who applies to this.
- outericky 11y agoGood on you sama. This is one of those "for future generations" quests. It's nice to see people proactively shooting for the stars.
- zoba 11y agoThis sounds fantastic; I'm so glad to see it. I'm curious what areas of research will be chosen, and how. I wonder if there is any room for a voting style 'the community would like to see resources put behind this idea' decision making process. (On the other hand, its not the community's money, so do what you will :)). I'm guessing all of this will be in the Bay Area? It'd be great if there was a way for regular folks to help out with this. It seems to be something genuinely intended to help people and I'd love to contribute in some way.
- rw2 11y agoWhy not give YC a 7% ownership of the IP and YC the other 93%. That would definitely drive the more entrepreneurial scientists to work there and also allow YC to monetize products out it's own research. I have some ideas on technologies that are harder to create and takes time, but actually want to own the IP at the end.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> Why not give YC a 7% ownership of the IP and YC the other 93%. I suspect that one of these "YCs" is supposed to be someone other than YC, but its not clear which one.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mizzao 11y agoGreat news! Probably the only other non-university lab at the moment with this type of long-term basic research goal is Microsoft Research.
- rjurney 11y agoThis is the biggest news since YC started. The YC model works, but it isn't churning out disruptions like Xerox PARC did... ethernet, the laser printer, the PC. It tends to produce Reddits. This could fill that gap. Bravo...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- curiousfiddler 11y agoI just passively started looking around for a change. My criteria is exactly what's described here: "work that requires a very long time horizon, seeks to answer very open-ended questions, or develops technology that shouldn’t be owned by any one company." [1]. I have been unable to find very many places that will take non PHDs and let them participate in projects with these characteristics. I really do hope YCR relaxes the PHD constraint a bit. Look forward to it. 1. https://ycr.org/ https://ycr.org/
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ascendantlogic 11y agoYC Research, meet Megalith: http://progrium.com/blog/2015/10/05/the-next-10-years-megalith/ http://progrium.com/blog/2015/10/05/the-next-10-years-megali...
- rubidium 11y agoThe trick is to create a Bell Labs and not an Institute for Advanced Study. For programming related things (assuming that's the domain?), that's a hard line to draw. Getting regular interactions with the ycombinator classes would be one way to combat it. If you're wondering about the criticism of IAS, see this quote: "When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don't get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they're not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come. Nothing happens because there's not enough real activity and challenge: You're not in contact with the experimental guys. You don't have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!"
- mortdeus 11y agoWhat is the patent policy?
- softwarerocks 11y agoAs long as the people hired in are more hands-on and not the Sheldon Cooper types then it's a wonderful idea, especially that the good stuff will be made free for everyone. It's also quite endearing that you are putting so much of your own money into the idea.
- pw 11y ago> I’m going to personally donate $10 million Statements like this always turn me off. I guess it's because it breaks the illusion that Sam and everyone else at YC are normal people like most of us. They're not. They're INSANELY wealthy by any reasonable standard.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoI guess it's because it breaks the illusion that Sam and everyone else at YC are normal people like most of us. Not to sound contemptuous, but are there really people out there who consider the folks running YC "normal people?"
- pw 11y agoI feel like you're using "normal people" as pejorative. I meant it as "is able to relate to the day-to-day experience of most people in this country."
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoI'm definitely using it as you intended. "the day-to-day experience of most people in this country" is nothing like any of the things Altman, PG, Livingston etc... experience on a daily basis.
- outericky 11y agoI'd wager most HN readers can't relate to the day to day experience of most people in this country.
- AndyKelley 11y agoThis is extremely exciting and I will apply as soon as the application process is announced. I would love to get funded to work on this open source digital audio workstation I've been working on[1]. Its goals are perhaps a little too ambitious and 25 years is not an unreasonable timeline for realizing them. [1]: http://genesisdaw.org/ http://genesisdaw.org/
- abalone 11y agoDARPA, the publicly funded agency that generates most of the core tech that sustains Silicon Valley, has an annual budget of $3B. The National Science Foundation, which funds a large chunk of core science research, is $7B. Where would YC Research fit in this landscape? Would it be seeking government funds, and just offer a different institutional model than universities for hosting the research? Or would it be primarily based in private funding somehow (and how?)
- markbao 11y agoReminds me in some way of this tweet from PG last year: > Paul Graham (@pg) — Markets are usually quite clever but one place they break is in encouraging treatments rather than vaccines. Subscription revenue. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/498875418527543297 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/498875418527543297
- mdpopescu 11y agoAs someone else already replied, that's an incentive problem. If you change the incentives to "pay $X a month while healthy, pay nothing when sick" then the profit would be in the cure. Unfortunately, we switched from that a while ago (my understanding is that we used to do "pay while healthy" around the 1900s) and now the current way seems "normal".
- paxcoder 11y agoWhile what US has now is bad, your solution is not complete: One can imagine that in your scenario a doctor can claim you're not really sick, or lie that you have been cured. So what actually becomes profitable is not treating people.
- caskance 11y agoThat's essentially just the divide between fee for service and capitation, both common models. HMOs work the way you describe. ACOs have been around not as long (at least, by that name) but became big with Obamacare and essentially do the same thing.
- bartkappenburg 11y agoHow about getting less sick by using a cure? That's still sick but the cure works (but maybe not in the strict definition of 'cure').
- Fomite 11y agoExcept that tweet isn't really accurate - vaccine research is pretty active, and modern, new vaccines have made their makers a fair bit of money. Beyond that, vaccines are a "Pay $X per month while healthy" treatment - you have to treat everyone whether they're sick or not, and as long as humans keep breeding, you have a replenishing customer base unless we manage the (rare) feat of eradication. The problem is that modern vaccine targets are hard. Multiple strains, dangerous responses from partial immunity (Dengue), very rapid viral evolution (HIV, flu), etc.
- geebee 11y agoIt's easier to comment on something specific when you disagree than when you agree but that leaves a very critical trail after a while. Since I've been critical of Sam's airbnb position and expressed a lot of concern over the amount of power a VC would have in the "founder visa" posts in the past, I would like to chime in to say that YC Research is an intriguing and exciting development with a lot of money behind it. This has the potential to be pretty great.
- tacos 11y agoInteresting comments by pg 1322 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3622545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3622545
- silverlake 11y ago> We think research institutions can be better than they are today. I hope you'll expand on this. Is there something that YCR can do that academic research can't do? You might have more impact if you use that money to influence US and EU gov't to invest more in basic research. A 1% increase in annual gov't funding will be vastly larger than YCR's total budget. The Gates Foundation is tackling difficult health issues that aren't profitable for companies and neglected by poor governments. They've found an underserved gap. What's the gap that YCR is uniquely suited to tackle?
- omnisci 11y agoTo answer your first question, 1. they can move much faster than academic research. More money in basic research isn't going to fix the antiquated process in which academics live. It's also not going to help researchers learn how to budget properly, or learn to manage people. So that alone is a value add. A 1% increase in gov spending simply adds money without fixing a problem that currently exists....not really going to make a difference in my opinion(PhD research scientist)
- cossatot 11y agoI agree with this. The most interesting thing I got out of Paula Stephan's How Economic Shapes Science is that a few years' back, the NIH basically doubled its research funding and all that happened was a post-doc bubble and university admin hoovering up the money to build buildings.
- silverlake 11y agoI agree that academic science has problems, but YCR isn't going to have any impact on academic research, funding nor publications. My guess is that YCR will attempt to be a mini-Xerox PARC: 20 people working on interdisciplinary stuff in CS. It'll be fun, but it'll be small.
- omnisci 11y agoHow exactly are you so sure about this? And if it's small, that doesn't mean it can't have an impact. Also, perhaps I'm missing something, but it doesn't see like we have any real info about this, if you have more, I'd love to read it. It takes someone/something with some ability to make something happen. Are they going to change how all academic science is done? Probably not, but could they have an impact and begin a process in which academic science begins to respond/change? Yes, that is probable. Between YC and Google life science, things are happening...and it's going to take us (I'm assuming you are a scientist) to support this change.
- pg_is_a_butt 11y agocute.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- staunch 11y agoThis is the kind of thing Silicon Valley should be doing all the time. I hope Sam's guts is replicated rather than just admired by other investors. Even if it's not, this is a great thing.
- kfitchard 11y agoIt's an interesting point about fundamental research. The old industrial labs are dead and while academic institutions can do a lot someone in the private sector has to pick up the research mantle. Google X is a good example, but I think smaller efforts like this are much more interesting. If it's done right that is...
- hoorayimhelping 11y agoThis is amazing. Where do I sign up to help?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pcmaffey 11y ago"heretical" "dangerous" "free to everyone" Strong language. Especially coming from an organization that generally touts "ideas as useless." Well here's a model based exponentially upon the promise of "ideas." I sincerely hope you disrupt the current models, which have been severely hijacked by interest groups, short-term thinking, and governance. So yes Sam, you have some bold ideas (you're not yet sharing). Put $10m down to validate them and bring them to the world. You've earned the chance. And if you succeed, you'll create a new model that touts the power of ideas, takes responsibility for them, but does not own them. Whatever we can do to help.
- tlb 11y agoNo one at YC thinks that ideas are useless. Perhaps you're thinking of this [PG, 2005]: Actually, startup ideas are not million dollar ideas, and here's an experiment you can try to prove it: just try to sell one. Nothing evolves faster than markets. The fact that there's no market for startup ideas suggests there's no demand. Which means, in the narrow sense of the word, that startup ideas are worthless. This is specific to startup business ideas, not scientific ideas. And worthless != useless. Worthless (in the narrow sense) means you can't sell it for a lot of money.
- tdylan 11y agoResearch != Business idea
- ratsimihah 11y agoHey there! Can I apply to YC Research for my AGI research project? :)
- koopuluri 11y agoThere's repeated mention of academia being broken due to issues such as politics, and mis-aligned interests between researchers and their departments. What have been the changes over time in Academia that led to this?
- kd0amg 11y agoOne of the big ones is that funding has not grown with the number of researchers, so researchers must spend a larger and larger portion of their work time on competing to get the work funded (or a longer portion of their professional life waiting for their chance at actual research-focused employment).
- mpweiher 11y agoGreat idea! I decided not to go into academia many, many years ago, because a short look revealed that it seems to destroy the love of the subject matter more quickly than just about anything. Now that I am partly back working on my PhD, I am still glad I didn't make it my main source of income, because now I have the freedom to do real research, rather than gaming the system of academia with minimal viable papers and incremental research re-gurgitating old insights. ("Doing X in Smalltalk" 10 years later: "Doing X in Java" 10 years after that: "Doing X in JavaScript" Sigh).
- bra-ket 11y agothis is great, I'd love to see something similar to the Kavli Foundation growing from this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kavli_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kavli_Foundation
- subrat_rout 11y agoWould love to know which fields/areas YC will be focusing for research. Is it for only Computer Science? or Physics? Biomedical Science or behavioral economics? or combinations of few fields? And what kind of ideas/research will be given priority? Will it be bench/desktop based research projects or applied to people lives directly?
- pow_pp_-1_v 11y agoThis is really cool! I wonder, though, if YCR will accept donations? It will be nice if I could personally contribute to a research project. [Loong time lurker here. Couldn't help myself from commenting on this one.]
- amelius 11y agoCan we vote for projects somewhere?
- skoocda 11y agoPhenomenal undertaking! When you say "Shouldn't be owned by any one company" does that imply that these releases will all be open-source? Do you have plans to develop a new form of IP licensing to go along with the research?
- jondubois 11y agoI agree, making the world a better place doesn't pay well. Screwing the world over pays really well. I remember when I was in school people would often say that to get money, you have to find something you love doing and the money would come by itself. I don't know if that used to be true, but that is certainly no longer the case. In general, doing good is at odds with earning money.
- buro9 11y agoI'd love to see research on shaking up governments and the existing political process with technology. Now, there are flaws to the use of electronic voting systems and the level of transparency required, but that is not what I mean. What I mean is that every time I have run a large community the social structure that naturally emerges is not the one that we all allow ourselves to be governed by. I'd like to research how tech could be used to empower lay citizens to shape their society in the way that they imagine it should be. For example; I was interested in Google's internal experiment with voting transparency and delegation, and how it allows for a different kind of inclusive democratic process that isn't reflected in our existing systems. One of the moonshot goals of the forum/community startup I created was to start to provide tools to support communities that shaped their own political and social structures, with an express goal of training them in the possibilities of being engaged in their society and then letting them use the tools to shape the real world in the same way that they shaped online societies. Simply, I'd love to see research and later innovation into how societies and democratic functions could be. When we talk about changing the world, I really mean it.
- alexchamberlain 11y agoAbsolutely fantastic! It's nice to see Sam et al putting their money to good use. I really hope that we see some development of new types of programming languages. We seem to be stuck in a rut with procedural/OO/mostly-functional languages. Some research around flow based programming, especially related to machine learning. I can't help thinking we're missing something here...
- kevinalexbrown 11y agoTo be honest, the freedom to fail alone would make a huge difference. On one hand there's a lot of freedom for intellectual growth in academia - in the last few months I've used deep learning, assembled hardware under a microscope, performed neurosurgery and genetic engineering (this is somewhat standard for my field). On the other hand, I make less than I did as a new cable guy, won't make more for 10 years, and every postdoc and phd student in my lab works 7 days / week standard. And if I fail, I will probably be done career-wise. LOTS of talented people leave because they see startups as the 'safer' bet - at least if your startup fails you're not doomed.
- chm 11y agoWow, YC is realizing a dream of mine. Congratulations, it is a great idea!
- chm 11y agoWow, YC is realizing a dream of mine. Congratulations, it is a great idea!
- vickychijwani 11y agoSurely I'm missing something here. Won't giving YC equity to these researchers (who are working not-for-profit and releasing IP freely) incentivize research that benefits YC startups directly and hence increases the value of the equity held? Can someone explain why not? Honest question.
- keithwhor 11y agoDoesn't Elon Musk encouraging other people to use Tesla's battery IP help drive the electric vehicle market to maturity faster, creating more opportunity for Tesla to succeed? The market is still the market. Not sure we should look this gift horse in the mouth. George R. Price figured out altruism can be reduced a math equation decades ago, it doesn't mean we can't embrace the good that comes out of decisions like this. :)
- vickychijwani 11y agoSorry if my comment came across as needlessly pessimistic. I was super-excited when Elon Musk made the Tesla "open-source" announcement, as I was yesterday when I read this. That comment was just me trying to apply my meager knowledge of startup economics here :)
- DasIch 11y agoYC startups don't grow on a tree in the YC garden and YC is what most startups want to get into. It makes much more sense to make that research widely available, chances are good for YC that the startups that do something useful with it will join YC at a later point. Even if they don't, a growing technology industry helps everyone, YC included.
- brudgers 11y agoIf I were to hazard a guess. the equity is intended to make working as a researcher similarly attractive to the equity grants available when going to work for a startup. Given the diversity of YC's portfolio it's probably much more likely to create wealth than any single startup. To me, if YC is creating a research group for the long term, then long term financial stability for the researchers is probably the way to go.
- vickychijwani 11y agoSurely I'm missing something here. Won't giving YC equity to these researchers (who are working not-for-profit and releasing IP freely) incentivize research that benefits YC startups directly and hence increases the value of the equity held? Could someone explain why not? Honest question.
- interknot 11y agoThis sounds like a great idea, and I can't help but think of this as a very "Valley" take on Renaissance-style patronage. Here's hoping this effort has similarly transformative results!
- SalmoShalazar 11y agoAs a researcher, this is very exciting news. I can't wait to see what areas of research YC will be directing their efforts towards. I hope the world of genomics/genetics gets a nod!
- vtlynch 11y agoLove the epic lack of perspective in this thread
- moinnadeem 11y agoHi. Seventeen-year old high schooler here, I love this idea. (@sama, anyone else behind YCR): All my life I had wanted to go into industry, follow that classic Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel dream that many CS High Schoolers go into. But recently, I got into research. The CollegeBoard opened up a class called AP Research I am now in, and I spent my last summer researching Machine Learning at my local private university. I was surprised by how much I loved it, the math behind it fascinates me (context: am currently taking Adv. Diff Eq and Linear Algebra my Senior Year.) I am now trying my own Deep Learning algorithms and working on my paper. I have always been conflicted between industry and academia, since all of my fellow HS CS friends just want to found companies in industry. Things such as YCR make research a bigger dream for youth, whom I would currently argue are too under-exposed to it. It just doesn't seem as glamorous to them. Thank you for YCR, it reminds me of the cool things research can do. I can't wait to hopefully apply one day.
- FD3SA 11y agoIf you're into any field of applied AI such as Machine Learning, you'll have no trouble transitioning from industry to research and vice versa. It is a very flexible skill set and there is a lot of demand for it. Just go the best university you can and take as many ML and AI courses possible, there really isn't much you can do wrong. Good luck.
- eachro 11y agoWill YC Research only focus on applied research ideas? Specifically, I'd like to know about whether or not researchers in pure math, theoretic cs, theoretical physics, etc will have a place at YC Research.
- guelo 11y agoThis seems weird. They'll fund open ended research and then what? Are there any metrics to guide the outcomes? Why would the average super rich guy want to put any money into this?
- Dowwie 11y agoAre there plans for peer review and highly rigorous verification of results prior to publication? Hopefully YCR busts some of the myths perpetuated by industry.
- jrmo 11y agoMy academic friends and I are constantly talking about how we need startups to counter/disintermediate the constantly growing administrative overhead at universities. Without viable alternatives there is just no pressure to keep administrative costs from balooning. This is a great start and I hope to see more like it.
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- pitchups 11y agoAmazing! This may have far greater impact than all of YC's billion dollar unicorns in terms of making the world better!
- anonbiocoward 11y agoWould you be willing to let someone just participate? I have multiple lines of research and my physics background allows me to reach further into biology and computation than most biology types. And for a variety of reasons I don't quite have the same funding problems most people have, but I would really like to work with the groups you are able to put together. I would be happy to fill out the same application. Your log files should be able to unmask me but for additional reasons I'd rather not publicly associate my claims above with my identity.
- it_learnses 11y agothis is awesome. I'm just finishing my masters, and would love to do phd in the same area, but the TA grant is measly. no way I can do that right now.
- bholdr 11y agoI wrote a blog post awhile back, I wonder whether YC is after a similar thing... http://yansh.github.io/articles/phd-distruption/ http://yansh.github.io/articles/phd-distruption/
- earlyadapter 11y agoAfter the collapse of Bell Labs and the inefficiencies at the University level, this is an effort that can truly impact change. True fundamental innovation takes 15+years... stable ecosystems (govt policies, strong economies etc) are needed to foster this type innovation. YC is definitely a stable environment to foster fundamental inno. Fundamental innovation also creates new methodologies in two or three areas, whether it be technology, market or implementation. Everything else is incremental innovation (new tech enhancing products in a known market), this can be achieved in 1 to 3 years. Kudos YC!
- glxc 11y agoDE Shaw gave away his hedge fund empire to start DE Shaw Research. He similarly used his own money to start a privately funded research lab. He is their Chief Scientist.
- zatkin 11y agoI want some evidence that you're actually a PhD student at MIT before I start believing that the education system there is broken.
- selimthegrim 11y agoIt took me about 90 seconds to find him[1] given what he said about himself - why so suspicious? [1] http://www.rle.mit.edu/uqg/people.htm http://www.rle.mit.edu/uqg/people.htm
- zatkin 11y agoHis comment is near the top, so if everyone who reads it starts believing what he has said but he isn't actually an MIT student, people will suddenly believe that MIT's educational system is broken. But we now have evidence, thanks to your post, that it's true. At least from his perspective.
- arjunnarayan 11y agoI mean, I didn't go to MIT, but I just finished a PhD in CS from UPenn, and I'll attest that he's not wrong. Perhaps excessively pessimistic on it, but like, what he's expressed is not an uncommon sentiment. Like you'd hear the same thing from like a third of the grad students I personally know (across the entire spectrum of top-20 CS departments). I myself was fairly ambivalent on my own PhD, but ended up finishing it because 1) I had some strong publications early on in my grad career (first 2 years) so it made it much easier to get to the eventual finish line without much hassle. 2) I'm not a US citizen, and graduating means that the immigration pathway gets a lot easier (EB-1 green card application instead of EB-2, for instance, and since I'm from India that's a huge difference). 3) My advisor let me study/work on what the hell I wanted in my final 2 years (essentially some macroecon + finance research at the Wharton school, and spending a bunch of time reading up and working on large scale graph computation) so the opportunity cost was low to "finish up" the main line of thesis work, with the understanding that any future academic career was out of the question.
- 11y ago
- simonebrunozzi 11y agoSam Altman is personally donating $10 Million to YCR. This is one of the greatest thing he could do to show some honest generosity towards the world. Bravo.
- dschiptsov 11y agoIs there any way to participate remotely? I am not applicable for any visa in so-called "developed" countries - too old and without higher education (lack of which does not imply much in some cases, as one might see).
- markhelo 11y agoI love this idea. However I am not too surprised that YC is doing this. YC is a different kind of corporation. Instead of hiring engineers, they hire startups. And just like any well established company, they are now investing in R&D. Make no mistake, there will be a commercial bent to the R&D that YC does and there is nothing wrong about that. R&D should not be just about publishing papers but advancing new ideas in the market too. So overall I hope this takes off and they bring ground-breaking research out of this venture.
- graycat 11y agoHope YCR works. Suggestion: Get a board of advisors who have had a lot of experience managing research, and let them occasionally advise you on opportunities and pit falls. I got an applied math Ph.D., just to improve the good career I already had going in applied math and computing, had no intention of being a professor, but for a while, having to do with my wife in her long illness, I was a professor. The biggest problem I had in research was just getting the mathematical word processing done. The typing was much more difficult than the research! I published some papers in some good journals and never had a paper rejected or needing significant revision. I could have done a lot more in research, but I was really interested just in making money. For research in academics, that is, the STEM fields, I have long had a suggestion: Borrow from research in medicine! Why, how, in what respects? Sure: Research in medicine also has a clinical side, and a lot of the research, applied research intended to connect with applications, very much needs the clinical side. E.g., instead of all the seminars being professors and students presenting solutions still looking for applications, have about half the seminars with people from the real world outside academics present problems looking for solutions. Have professors with their students attack such problems. That way could get some problems to work on, simple, medium, and really difficult and important, e.g., P versus NP just from applications of optimization to, say, vehicle scheduling or communications network design. E.g., I was working on something applied and rediscovered k-D trees -- a few years earlier and I would have been the inventor of k-D trees. And there are other examples of starting with a real problem from the real world and getting good results for that problem, getting a good research problem, and getting some good research progress. Besides, such research already has one application and, thus, is much more likely to have two or many more than two. Have an expectation that a professor pursuing applications is a professional and needs to practice their profession. And the students need to be there also as apprentices. Also, have codes of ethics, standards on how revenue is to be distributed, and professional peer review of the clinical practice. For more, it would help if the venture capital community were ready, willing, and able to evaluate original research intended as the crucial core of startups.
- hpvic03 11y agoThis is great. I always considered getting a PhD and becoming a researcher, but decided to remain an engineer for the time being because I've heard so much about how the academic research system is broken, both with politics and low pay. If this model works, it might not only help existing researchers be more productive, but it might motivate other people considering this career to actually do it instead of other careers.
- djabatt 11y agoYC is being brave and smart ... again. Keep it up.
- j0e1 11y agoGreat job Sam! YC isn't any more only about starting new companies and making them profitable. But about improving lives for everyone on the planet. And to do that >'YCR is a non-profit.' Just brilliant!
- ralucam 11y agoThis is such an insanely great idea. This (alongside with the YC Fellowship and the classic YC program) makes us really have no excuse for not doing something great, that matters for us and for the world. Wow, YC, well played.
- tefo-mohapi 11y agoSounds good. Would love to see what comes out.
- Ind007 11y agoThanks for making me feel good in the morning.
- Fede_V 11y agoI think this is absolutely amazing. sama has written multiple times about the 'distractions' that pull founders away from building beautiful products. Things like attending conferences, networking, fundraising, etc... Conservatively, the academic equivalent of those things takes up at least 80%+ of the time of a professor's time - and the more successful you become, the less time you actually dedicate to research. In the life sciences, it's not uncommon to have PIs with 30+ people in their groups, and they might be barely aware of the kind of research that's being done in their lab. I cannot emphasize enough how thrilled I am by this. One tiny concern: it's currently much easier to get H1B visas for researchers working in educational institutions than it is for people working in private for profit companies. Is there any way YC can spin this research into a legal status that would allow it to recruit researchers through the 'easier' academic H1B pipeline?
- liedra 11y agoI hope there will be an independent ethics review committee or similar. The modern concept and frameworks of Responsible Research and Innovation might be a helpful starting point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsible_Research_and_Innovation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsible_Research_and_Innov...
- micheljansen 11y agoI get really excited about this. I left academia for the bureaucracy, and found R&D to often be too short sighted. Best of luck!
- andyjohnson0 11y agoFirst, this is really great. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works in practice. "We plan to do this for a long time. If some of these projects take 25 years, that’s perfectly fine with us. " Building an institution that supports this kind of long-term commitment is going to be a challenge. While there are plenty of organisations that work over those timescales, very long-term projects seem to me to be unusual - and not just because results are increasingly expected in the short-term, but because 25 years is about half of a long career and few people (imo) have the commitment and self-belief to embark on such a project. I can think of some, like SETI [1] and Mass Observation [2], but they tend to be highly distributed. The danger might be that you end-up with something like the Institute for Advanced Study [3] with its debatable productivity record. Nevertheless, this is a massively positive announcement from YC. We need more stuff like this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_in... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-Observation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-Observation [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Advanced_Study#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Advanced_Study#C...
- emanuelev 11y agoJ Strother Moore would disagree with you, the development of ACL [1] is going on from 40 years! [1] http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/moore/acl2/acl2-doc.html http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/moore/acl2/acl2-doc.html
- andyjohnson0 11y agoAn interesting project - thanks for pointing it out. I'm not saying that such long-term projects are impossible, just that they are rare due to institutional and human reasons. And because they are rare, we don't have much experience with how to design successful support institutions.
- emanuelev 11y agoYes I do agree with you. ACL is just an example of as the devotion of one or two persons can bring unexpectedly successful results. Achieving the same in bigger organisation is a much harder challenge.
- humility 11y agoCongratulations on this great endeavour! I've frequently mulled setting up website like patreon to help support and accelerate crucial research, which is seeing less and less progress these days. I'm glad YCombinator took note of this problem too!
- netcan 11y agoWow! This seems cool and potentially very useful. A lot of "how do we fix academia" discussions might be (kind of) asking the wrong questions. Academia is a very wide cover over a lot of varied things. That cover is an institution. It has values, rules and ways of doing things. There might not be anything wrong with the institution per se, rather its success has brought to many things under its cover. For people, idea or pursuits that don't really belong there, it seems broken. Take publishing. Publishing is a great practice and a lot of the conventions around it are really useful. But, it's not the only way to make information available, accessible, trustworthy, etc. There are other ways that might make more sense for some other project.
- pjf 11y agoHow to apply?
- quantum_state 11y agoThis is simply brilliant n fundamentally good ... as a former Bell Lab researcher in fundamental physics, I hope this will allow people with profound ideas to pursue the ideas ...
- lacerta 11y agoHow do we search and see if the area where I currently do research in is something that YC Research would focus on in the near future? I am finishing up a MS in ChBE with a focus on designing materials using computational methods (eg. DFT) and would like to continue with similar projects.
- aswanson 11y ago"You can't fall in love with the one thing being the hub for all things to come." Agree, now tell that to the dev responsible for tracking everything I do on my PC outside of Internet Explorer to be tracked in its search history, forcing me to revert to an older version.