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Remember, entrepreneurs: this is how academics think. And this is the attitude that makes begging for money via grants a lot more appealing than entrepreneurshi

by ghc 15y ago

Remember, entrepreneurs: this is how academics think. And this is the attitude that makes begging for money via grants a lot more appealing than entrepreneurship. It's "give me money to do this because I'm an expert in it" instead of "make something people want and they will give you money."

chubot 15y ago
Huh? So entrepreneurs are "better" than academics? That's just silly and pompous. Remember, 90% of everything is crap. That goes for both businesses and research.
- shantanubala 15y ago
  No, it means there's more pressure on entrepreneurs to succeed because there's more risk if they fail. There's no ladder or set of stepping stones on a path to entrepreneurship -- you either started/work at a company and are innovating, started/work at a company that's going to fail, or haven't started a company.
- ghc 15y ago
  I have no idea how you got that conclusion from my comment. My point was that the academic attitude about expertise is pompous. I've worked with several academics and research labs trying to turn their research into startups, and you would not believe the attitudes prevalent in academia. The most common example of this I've seen is when professors bring up a potential competitor and state that the competitor does not have as much expertise (no founders with PhDs in the subject matter) as the professor, so the professor's new company should succeed wildly. If the attitude present in this article was paid any mind by innovators, we would not have some things we truly love. My favorite example is ZFS. Built by prodigious hackers, not distributed filesystem experts by any means. I can't find the article anymore, but I remember reading that they felt their lack of expertise allowed them to approach the problem from a new angle, ignoring common wisdom. My message to young entrepreneurs is this: Innovation doesn't work by experts expertly shaping the future incrementally. Innovation is messy. It works by lots of people - some experts, some not - trying to solve a problem. Almost everyone will fail, but you can't succeed if you don't try.

by ghc 15y ago

chubot 15y ago

Huh? So entrepreneurs are "better" than academics? That's just silly and pompous. Remember, 90% of everything is crap. That goes for both businesses and research.

shantanubala 15y ago
No, it means there's more pressure on entrepreneurs to succeed because there's more risk if they fail. There's no ladder or set of stepping stones on a path to entrepreneurship -- you either started/work at a company and are innovating, started/work at a company that's going to fail, or haven't started a company.
ghc 15y ago
I have no idea how you got that conclusion from my comment. My point was that the academic attitude about expertise is pompous. I've worked with several academics and research labs trying to turn their research into startups, and you would not believe the attitudes prevalent in academia. The most common example of this I've seen is when professors bring up a potential competitor and state that the competitor does not have as much expertise (no founders with PhDs in the subject matter) as the professor, so the professor's new company should succeed wildly. If the attitude present in this article was paid any mind by innovators, we would not have some things we truly love. My favorite example is ZFS. Built by prodigious hackers, not distributed filesystem experts by any means. I can't find the article anymore, but I remember reading that they felt their lack of expertise allowed them to approach the problem from a new angle, ignoring common wisdom. My message to young entrepreneurs is this: Innovation doesn't work by experts expertly shaping the future incrementally. Innovation is messy. It works by lots of people - some experts, some not - trying to solve a problem. Almost everyone will fail, but you can't succeed if you don't try.