3 ms·

It's an interesting idea in theory but how do you ensure that money is well spent? It reminds me of the Australian government's "free insulation" scheme where a

It's an interesting idea in theory but how do you ensure that money is well spent? It reminds me of the Australian government's "free insulation" scheme where a lot of money was poured into an industry very quickly. Result: wasted money, fraud, deaths from undertrained contractors, and the devastation of the existing stable industry. Your PhD scholarship idea would see similar issues, including unforeseen bottlenecks which would starve out existing worthy research -- not just in this field but others too. I think Ellison is right to be very particular about where he spends his money.

grizzles 10y ago
There are over 20,000 Universities in the world, with lots of potentially amazing dark horse PhD hopefuls that are passed over every year due to lack of funding. I think a decent argument can be made that the black swan that could give Larry an extra 15 years of sailboat time is more likely to be in that group than in a single institution endowed with $200M.
- mathattack 10y ago
  There's already too many PhDs for academia and Industry to absorb. You'd need to create VC funding as well.
- tominous 10y ago
  You could also say the next big tech startup will come from a random town around the world instead of Silicon Valley. But somehow the concentration of capital, expertise and opportunity in one place has a multiplier effect that makes Silicon Valley unreasonably effective at generating startups. Similarly, you are more likely to "hit the high notes" in research by concentrating effort in a few places. The alternative is lots of duplicated efforts that each don't quite achieve anything. This applies especially to medical research where the barriers to getting meaningful clinical results are sky high.
  - grizzles 10y ago
    Scientific progress is a worldwide phenomenon, and there are great scientific contributions made by brilliant people all over the world on a regular basis. If you are advocating that the best Universities deserve a higher share of funding I don't disagree but there are plenty of great scientists that started at what you might judge as lesser Universities. To give them nothing would be an error.

grizzles 10y ago

There are over 20,000 Universities in the world, with lots of potentially amazing dark horse PhD hopefuls that are passed over every year due to lack of funding. I think a decent argument can be made that the black swan that could give Larry an extra 15 years of sailboat time is more likely to be in that group than in a single institution endowed with $200M.

mathattack 10y ago
There's already too many PhDs for academia and Industry to absorb. You'd need to create VC funding as well.
tominous 10y ago
You could also say the next big tech startup will come from a random town around the world instead of Silicon Valley. But somehow the concentration of capital, expertise and opportunity in one place has a multiplier effect that makes Silicon Valley unreasonably effective at generating startups. Similarly, you are more likely to "hit the high notes" in research by concentrating effort in a few places. The alternative is lots of duplicated efforts that each don't quite achieve anything. This applies especially to medical research where the barriers to getting meaningful clinical results are sky high.
- grizzles 10y ago
  Scientific progress is a worldwide phenomenon, and there are great scientific contributions made by brilliant people all over the world on a regular basis. If you are advocating that the best Universities deserve a higher share of funding I don't disagree but there are plenty of great scientists that started at what you might judge as lesser Universities. To give them nothing would be an error.