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Biotech is really just harder than software: https://xkcd.com/1605/ https://xkcd.com/1605/ Everything interacts with everything else. Not to mention the capita

by klipt 10y ago

Biotech is really just harder than software: https://xkcd.com/1605/ https://xkcd.com/1605/ Everything interacts with everything else. Not to mention the capital requirements - bio-labs cost millions, while a software startup just needs a bunch of laptops and a garage.

dnautics 10y ago
I wouldn't say that cost is the proximal reason. (Although it is the reason why indie.bio can't get off the rails except through spinoffs with outside funding). Remember a spinoff vs. a startup is that a spinoff is usually a commercialized idea of an academic product (arguably google was a spinoff while apple was a startup). In academic CS so far as I can tell, there's a fairly straightforward relationship between success in academia and competence, as in: A lot of successful people don't choose the academic route, but a the people who do choose tho academic route are "legit" - they are capable of executing projects. Moreover good projects in CS often have a fairly easy to see path to commercialization or monetization. Whereas in biology, most people who wind up in the upper eschelons got lucky. They picked the right project and had a PI that was willing to go to bat and play politics for them and showed them to play politics. Many of these people are also, not necessarily competent, or are competent in academic science but not able to actually make something consumers want or need (often bio startups fall into the "if you have a hammer then everything is a nail" paradigm). PIs are great at writing grants - which is why so many spinoffs are basically organization that exist to burn through SBIRs - and, amazingly, VCs use SBIR awards as signals for competence (not just financial risk mitigation). Finally, the system of promotion in bio is so toxic that a lot of very competent and intelligent people get frustrated by either having a shitty PI or just because they were chosen for a project that happened to have a faulty premise, that they drop out even though they would have done really well. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/21/cut-throat-academia-leads-to-natural-selection-of-bad-science-claims-study?CMP=share_btn_fb https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/21/cut-throat-a...

by klipt 10y ago

dnautics 10y ago

I wouldn't say that cost is the proximal reason. (Although it is the reason why indie.bio can't get off the rails except through spinoffs with outside funding). Remember a spinoff vs. a startup is that a spinoff is usually a commercialized idea of an academic product (arguably google was a spinoff while apple was a startup). In academic CS so far as I can tell, there's a fairly straightforward relationship between success in academia and competence, as in: A lot of successful people don't choose the academic route, but a the people who do choose tho academic route are "legit" - they are capable of executing projects. Moreover good projects in CS often have a fairly easy to see path to commercialization or monetization. Whereas in biology, most people who wind up in the upper eschelons got lucky. They picked the right project and had a PI that was willing to go to bat and play politics for them and showed them to play politics. Many of these people are also, not necessarily competent, or are competent in academic science but not able to actually make something consumers want or need (often bio startups fall into the "if you have a hammer then everything is a nail" paradigm). PIs are great at writing grants - which is why so many spinoffs are basically organization that exist to burn through SBIRs - and, amazingly, VCs use SBIR awards as signals for competence (not just financial risk mitigation). Finally, the system of promotion in bio is so toxic that a lot of very competent and intelligent people get frustrated by either having a shitty PI or just because they were chosen for a project that happened to have a faulty premise, that they drop out even though they would have done really well. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/21/cut-throat-academia-leads-to-natural-selection-of-bad-science-claims-study?CMP=share_btn_fb https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/21/cut-throat-a...