6 ms·

@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 cou

by 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 ago
For 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 ago
    Definitely still a work in a progress on how we'll measure it.
    - materialsguy 11y ago
      ARPA-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 ago
  Any helpful teasers on what that domain might be ?
  - BinaryIdiot 11y ago
    Sam has expressed his desired to get really good AI to become a thing. Since YC does a ton of tech I'd bet $10 it's AI. But of course this is just my useless speculation :)
    - nmrm2 11y ago
      Nuclear would also make sense? AI might make more sense becaues nuclear seems like a hard place to do "heretical" research, but what do I know
      - acidburnNSA 11y ago
        Nuclear makes sense. The fluid-fueled nuclear company he's the chairman of (Transatomic) is considered at least slightly heretical by the nuclear industry, which is used to its solid fuel water-cooled reactors. They also use used nuclear fuel (i.e. transuranics in nuclear waste) as fuel, which could be called heretical because recycling nuclear waste was once outlawed in the US by Jimmy Carter (but it no longer is illegal).
        hugh4 11y ago
        Trouble is that the amounts of money we're talking about don't go far in nuclear research.
        acidburnNSA 11y ago
        I think $10M can go pretty far in basic feasibility studies needed for the Transatomic reactor. You need a bunch of diffusion couple experiments and hydride stability studies. Lots of furnaces, fume hoods, and surrogate fission products. But you're right that when you get to major component qualification then yeah, $10M is nothing.
        acidburnNSA 11y ago
        I meant UPower, not Transatomic. Whoops!
- rsync 11y ago
  "For 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." Two words: baseband processor. The world really, really needs a fully open baseband processor.
  - cambion 11y ago
    It's true that we need an open baseband processor, but I wonder if this qualifies as the sort of blue-sky research that I'm guessing they'll want to focus on? My feeling is that the software to accomplish this is already largely there, but the hard part of getting a design to the fab and actually getting anyone to adopt it isn't. I think there would also be a number of regulatory hurdles to cross, since this would end up being essentially an SDR, and the FCC (for example) already seems to fear wide public availability for those.
    - Natsu 11y ago
      They only care if you can make it work on channels it shouldn't, they don't care whether the code that controls it is open or not. But yes, an open processor could help with a lot of open networking problems, even though it seems more like an engineering matter than research per se.
  - tlb 11y ago
    It really does. But that seems like a mission for a startup, not a research organization. The challenges are more engineering and business than science. If someone wants to apply with an open baseband processor startup, applications are due Oct 13!
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    I thought the issue there was primarily legal, not technical. We have OsmocomBB, but it's limited to the 2G standard and comes with a ton of usage caveats pertaining to regulatory compliance and legality.
- chimtim 11y ago
  Hand-selecting a bunch of famous folks results in IAS Princeton effect which has the criticism of producing nothing significant. Usually the approach of hiring a towering/inspiring figure with an emerging research view works well (like FB did). They bring along a bunch of rookies and experts, and set up research groups quickly and rather smoothly.
exgrv 11y ago
Microsoft Research is also an excellent organization for CS related research.
- arasmussen 11y ago
  Do they have similar policies with regards to openness as YC's research lab?
  - p4bl0 11y ago
    In my experience, MSR researchers publish openly just like people in "regular" academia. I think the main difference is that they are better paid.
    - srean 11y ago
      But who gets to own the IP ?
      - pavpanchekha 11y ago
        MS
  - Qworg 11y ago
    MSR publishes continuously, both in journals and in white papers. It is part of the evaluation. (Source: I work at MSR)
  - raphman_ 11y ago
    MSR publish a lot but try to get patents on potentially valuable research first.
    - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
      Like literally any research organization or university anywhere today.
gozo 11y ago
"YCR could be the next Bell Labs" Eh. That a pretty huge jump. Look, most new "tech" companies research is mostly PR, internal and external. If you're doing something you have little experience in and therefor can't evaluate, which success you aren't dependent on or necessarily benefit from and everyone will say how cool it is regardless then it's extremely hard to not cut corners and achieve real success. Still exciting, but I wouldn't underestimate the challenge.
- mizzao 11y ago
  MSR has been around for a while, with quite a bit of freedom, and still is a far cry from the accomplishments of Bell Labs (maybe time will tell, though.)

by urs2102 11y ago

sama 11y ago

For 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 ago
  Definitely still a work in a progress on how we'll measure it.
  - materialsguy 11y ago
    ARPA-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 ago
Any helpful teasers on what that domain might be ?
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  Sam has expressed his desired to get really good AI to become a thing. Since YC does a ton of tech I'd bet $10 it's AI. But of course this is just my useless speculation :)
  - nmrm2 11y ago
    Nuclear would also make sense? AI might make more sense becaues nuclear seems like a hard place to do "heretical" research, but what do I know
    - acidburnNSA 11y ago
      Nuclear makes sense. The fluid-fueled nuclear company he's the chairman of (Transatomic) is considered at least slightly heretical by the nuclear industry, which is used to its solid fuel water-cooled reactors. They also use used nuclear fuel (i.e. transuranics in nuclear waste) as fuel, which could be called heretical because recycling nuclear waste was once outlawed in the US by Jimmy Carter (but it no longer is illegal).
      - hugh4 11y ago
        Trouble is that the amounts of money we're talking about don't go far in nuclear research.
        acidburnNSA 11y ago
        I think $10M can go pretty far in basic feasibility studies needed for the Transatomic reactor. You need a bunch of diffusion couple experiments and hydride stability studies. Lots of furnaces, fume hoods, and surrogate fission products. But you're right that when you get to major component qualification then yeah, $10M is nothing.
      - acidburnNSA 11y ago
        I meant UPower, not Transatomic. Whoops!
rsync 11y ago
"For 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." Two words: baseband processor. The world really, really needs a fully open baseband processor.
- cambion 11y ago
  It's true that we need an open baseband processor, but I wonder if this qualifies as the sort of blue-sky research that I'm guessing they'll want to focus on? My feeling is that the software to accomplish this is already largely there, but the hard part of getting a design to the fab and actually getting anyone to adopt it isn't. I think there would also be a number of regulatory hurdles to cross, since this would end up being essentially an SDR, and the FCC (for example) already seems to fear wide public availability for those.
  - Natsu 11y ago
    They only care if you can make it work on channels it shouldn't, they don't care whether the code that controls it is open or not. But yes, an open processor could help with a lot of open networking problems, even though it seems more like an engineering matter than research per se.
- tlb 11y ago
  It really does. But that seems like a mission for a startup, not a research organization. The challenges are more engineering and business than science. If someone wants to apply with an open baseband processor startup, applications are due Oct 13!
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  I thought the issue there was primarily legal, not technical. We have OsmocomBB, but it's limited to the 2G standard and comes with a ton of usage caveats pertaining to regulatory compliance and legality.
chimtim 11y ago
Hand-selecting a bunch of famous folks results in IAS Princeton effect which has the criticism of producing nothing significant. Usually the approach of hiring a towering/inspiring figure with an emerging research view works well (like FB did). They bring along a bunch of rookies and experts, and set up research groups quickly and rather smoothly.

exgrv 11y ago

Microsoft Research is also an excellent organization for CS related research.

arasmussen 11y ago
Do they have similar policies with regards to openness as YC's research lab?
- p4bl0 11y ago
  In my experience, MSR researchers publish openly just like people in "regular" academia. I think the main difference is that they are better paid.
  - srean 11y ago
    But who gets to own the IP ?
    - pavpanchekha 11y ago
      MS
- Qworg 11y ago
  MSR publishes continuously, both in journals and in white papers. It is part of the evaluation. (Source: I work at MSR)
- raphman_ 11y ago
  MSR publish a lot but try to get patents on potentially valuable research first.
  - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
    Like literally any research organization or university anywhere today.

gozo 11y ago

"YCR could be the next Bell Labs" Eh. That a pretty huge jump. Look, most new "tech" companies research is mostly PR, internal and external. If you're doing something you have little experience in and therefor can't evaluate, which success you aren't dependent on or necessarily benefit from and everyone will say how cool it is regardless then it's extremely hard to not cut corners and achieve real success. Still exciting, but I wouldn't underestimate the challenge.

mizzao 11y ago
MSR has been around for a while, with quite a bit of freedom, and still is a far cry from the accomplishments of Bell Labs (maybe time will tell, though.)