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These are extra hard problems which have no guarantee of ever paying out, let alone raising money in the near term. This isn't a matter of getting rich quick -
by slurgfest 14y ago
These are extra hard problems which have no guarantee of ever paying out, let alone raising money in the near term. This isn't a matter of getting rich quick - even just researching big issues requires sustained cash flow... if you can't provide that out of your own pocketbook then you are going to need to become self-sustaining pretty quick.
- jonmrodriguez 14y agoWhat about scientifically minded philanthropists like the Gates Foundation? E.g., they funded a genetic engineering project to dramatically lower the cost of the antimalarial drug Artemisinin by producing it in yeast instead of the original tree.
- slurgfest 14y agoYou are right, the presence of a Gates Foundation will create that. Although, I like your example because while it is an important problem, it is also a reasonably sized and quite specific problem. And it shows that "important" and "big" work is being done by companies that just aren't on the HN startup radar because, well, it is a different sector. I think people in the internet sector make facebook-things rather than antimalarials because they are in the internet sector.