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In other words, academic research is a punt in the dark. Much of it will not yield all that much, but some of it will. It is kind of similar to what YC and VC

In other words, academic research is a punt in the dark. Much of it will not yield all that much, but some of it will. It is kind of similar to what YC and VC's do: give a little bit of funding to a small number of businesses, but hope a (very) small number will pay off big. Academia is a small investment to a number of ideas, with the hopes of big pay-offs in a very small number. The technology behind the Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee while at CERN in the early nineties. You might not think that funding in high energy and particle physics would be worthwhile, but yet something completely different and revolutionary for all of humanity came out of it. We just do not know where these revolutionary ideas come from, but what we do know is that they tend to come from some of the very brightest people.

dluan 11y ago
That's not true that they come from the brightest people, I'd say that's very much a bias. Much like how YC often says that the best startup founders aren't necessarily the smartest people in a room. Occasionally, being the very brightest can even be counter-productive because in the end the people who are less smart and realize it will strive to work harder. And that's what research really is, really hard laborious work. Not this fantasy of someone bright sitting in a chair thinking up discoveries. That's why research is hard.
- barry-cotter 11y ago
  > That's not true that they come from the brightest people, I'd say that's very much a bias. [Citation needed] There are such things as talent, insight and experience but intelligence makes everything easier, from learning new fields and tools to evaluating and formulating new ideas. Ceteris Paribus more intelligence is better.
  - dluan 11y ago
    That's a bit reductionist on something that is inherently non-reductionist: how do you define a good problem worth solving. I believe you presented a logical leap between having all the tools one could ever dream of <-> delivering scientific impact. Here's a citation: "scientific impact is a decelerating function of grant funding size". http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0065263 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

dluan 11y ago

That's not true that they come from the brightest people, I'd say that's very much a bias. Much like how YC often says that the best startup founders aren't necessarily the smartest people in a room. Occasionally, being the very brightest can even be counter-productive because in the end the people who are less smart and realize it will strive to work harder. And that's what research really is, really hard laborious work. Not this fantasy of someone bright sitting in a chair thinking up discoveries. That's why research is hard.

barry-cotter 11y ago
> That's not true that they come from the brightest people, I'd say that's very much a bias. [Citation needed] There are such things as talent, insight and experience but intelligence makes everything easier, from learning new fields and tools to evaluating and formulating new ideas. Ceteris Paribus more intelligence is better.
- dluan 11y ago
  That's a bit reductionist on something that is inherently non-reductionist: how do you define a good problem worth solving. I believe you presented a logical leap between having all the tools one could ever dream of <-> delivering scientific impact. Here's a citation: "scientific impact is a decelerating function of grant funding size". http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0065263 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....