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Commented this elsewhere: Theres a difference between creating beautiful creative code and creating an innovative product that people want to use. Its a differ

Commented this elsewhere: Theres a difference between creating beautiful creative code and creating an innovative product that people want to use. Its a different type of intelligence, and why you dont see Math professors starting ecommerce/product/clothing businesses. The classic dichotomy between steve jobs and wozniak. I have worked at a few big tech companies, I have regularly seen engineers drive huge innovation in how something is done. Product people cant always do that, they dont have enough understanding of large scale systems.

WalterBright 4y ago
You don't see math professors doing startups because they have tenure and are financially risk-averse. They also simply like being professors. There may be another factor - universities are dominated by anti-capitalist sentiment. Doing a business startup means exiting that belief system.
- dagw 4y ago
  Admittedly I'm over a decade out of university so things might have changed, but when I was getting my masters in mathematics several of the math professors had various 'side hustles' doing cool and advanced stuff at startups and in industry or finance. universities are dominated by anti-capitalist sentiment I know this is trendy to say and I'm sure there are individual universities where it is true, but I see little evidence for it at large. If nothing else every hedge fund and investment bank in the world basically only hire university graduates, and they can hardly be accused of being anti-capitalist. Every economics course I ever took was based, almost axiomatically, on the premise that capitalism is awesome.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    University graduates are not the same as professors. The econ class I took at Caltech was taught by an award-winning leftist anti-capitalist professor, and if you didn't regurgitate his ideology on the tests, you got a bad grade. Hedge funds only hire a particular subset of graduates. A lot of left-wingers set aside their ideology to get those high salaries. My father was a finance professor at two colleges. He was the only faculty member who believed in free markets. He was constantly challenged in this by students and faculty. One time the faculty even challenged him to an open debate - the faculty against him. He took them apart. Faculty and students came up to him later saying they had no idea there was even a case for the free market, and thanked him for opening their eyes. I wonder where you suppose Sanders' constituency comes from?

WalterBright 4y ago

You don't see math professors doing startups because they have tenure and are financially risk-averse. They also simply like being professors. There may be another factor - universities are dominated by anti-capitalist sentiment. Doing a business startup means exiting that belief system.

dagw 4y ago
Admittedly I'm over a decade out of university so things might have changed, but when I was getting my masters in mathematics several of the math professors had various 'side hustles' doing cool and advanced stuff at startups and in industry or finance. universities are dominated by anti-capitalist sentiment I know this is trendy to say and I'm sure there are individual universities where it is true, but I see little evidence for it at large. If nothing else every hedge fund and investment bank in the world basically only hire university graduates, and they can hardly be accused of being anti-capitalist. Every economics course I ever took was based, almost axiomatically, on the premise that capitalism is awesome.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  University graduates are not the same as professors. The econ class I took at Caltech was taught by an award-winning leftist anti-capitalist professor, and if you didn't regurgitate his ideology on the tests, you got a bad grade. Hedge funds only hire a particular subset of graduates. A lot of left-wingers set aside their ideology to get those high salaries. My father was a finance professor at two colleges. He was the only faculty member who believed in free markets. He was constantly challenged in this by students and faculty. One time the faculty even challenged him to an open debate - the faculty against him. He took them apart. Faculty and students came up to him later saying they had no idea there was even a case for the free market, and thanked him for opening their eyes. I wonder where you suppose Sanders' constituency comes from?