First of all fast.ai is awesome and most of the points they make align quite well with my personal views which of course doesn't mean they are the right views ;

First of all fast.ai is awesome and most of the points they make align quite well with my personal views which of course doesn't mean they are the right views ;) but... """Hiring a bunch of academic researchers will not improve your product and harms your company by diverting so many resources (unless your goal is an aquihire).""" Disagree. Ceteris paribus a previous academic researcher isn't necessarily a worse hire than a graduate or someone who has worked at other tech companies. I'm really not a fan of this "don't hire people from academia" narrative. A good scientist is well versed in systematic problem solving which doesn't sound like a horrible skillset for someone working at a startup. Sure there's enough people with PhDs that can't write working code but there's also enough people that can. I'm not sure about the US but hiring a PhD isn't necessarily more expensive than hiring someone with job experience in the tech sector either. I get their basic idea but it's news to me that even AI startups are on "only PhDs all the time" hiring frenzies.