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"It used to be the case that governments funded a lot of development of breakthrough technologies. The bad news is that they have mostly stopped; the good news

"It used to be the case that governments funded a lot of development of breakthrough technologies. The bad news is that they have mostly stopped; the good news is that the leverage of technology is such that now small startups can do what used to take the resources of nations." Honest question: if small startups can now do what used to take the resources of nations, isn't there something even cooler that the resources of a nation could do? I'm not knocking what small startups can and do achieve, but in the last few years I've started feeling like the humanity is sort of giving up on big ambitions and ideals of unity, of making big breakthroughs together.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
they are working on it - fusion.
marcosdumay 13y ago
Maybe a few, or maybe not even one. Nations need to convince a lot of people about the viability and rationality of a project before putting many resources at it. Most great (and crackpot) ideas are lost on this process, the ones that survive are completely changed.
FD3SA 13y ago
As is becoming abundantly clear, the world is run by politicians with little to no understanding or respect for science. These people, like most, believe in the "genius" theory, where an Einstein just magically appears and make a huge breakthrough once every hundred years. They don't understand that science is a slow, incremental process which happens over hundreds of years, and requires steady investment for progress to continue. As it stands, the politicians could care less if we entered another dark age. All they care about are votes, and power. I hope the best for this initiative at YC, but having known brilliant scientists, they are the furthest thing from entrepreneurs. They are intrinsically motivated, and don't care much for fame, money or prestige. As such, most are terrible at making sales pitches. Sam makes it abundantly clear that there won't be another Bell Labs. Sadly, that is precisely what we need. The real breakthroughs will require extremely slow, deep thinkers which have the autonomy and time to work on very hard problems without interruption in the form of sales pitches, VC meetings, demo days, and above all a constant scramble for funding. This [1] is the closest I've seen to a modern day Bell Labs. 1. http://janelia.org/ http://janelia.org/
- DaniFong 13y ago
  You would find it fascinating, illuminating, and mind changing to read David Wootton's biography of Galileo. An outstanding scientist, and a relentless hustler like you would not believe. There are schleps involved in doing great work of all kinds. People capable of true greatness overcome them.
  - danelectro 13y ago
    By schleps I assume you don't mean people, but tasks. Such as filling hundreds of test tubes or soldering as many connections as you can do, or writing code that is necessarily huge but represents a small concept. Hustling is one of those tasks surely too. You have to be able to balance the selling and/or delivery in some way to keep the ball rolling. Not many scientists, especially researchers, are entrepreneurs but those that have lived by their own technology might just be the ones that have the abilities that would be good for investors. Still may not be very "brilliant" compared to working for an institution. Depends on the person. >most are terrible at making sales pitches. Oh, well. Given capital, a breakthrough entrepreneur can turn a used car salesman into a technical representative, there will always be a time or place when persuasiveness is critical. Looks like Musk could use a number of car dealers about now. It's supposed to be easier to find sales talent than accomplished scientists. Bell Labs I always thought was exactly what Bell needed, since they were living on their own technology. Has anybody here worked for 2Wire? I've got some interesting theories. I think it's no Bell Labs but I could be wrong. That could be another thread. >The real breakthroughs will require extremely slow, deep thinkers which have the autonomy and time to work on very hard problems without interruption in the form of sales pitches, VC meetings, demo days, and above all a constant scramble for funding. Two ways of doing this are to be really big or be really small. Janelia does look interesting but who owns the product of your research? Probably whoever builds the lab. I druther build my own lab. How many well-equipped non-institutional researchers are there any more anyway? I thought so. Odds are pretty slim. If you don't do it your dang self it just might not get done. But genius, the exceptional individual, "Great Man" or "Great Woman", is not just a theory, Einstein & Curie did appear. And true quantum leaps were made.
  - FD3SA 13y ago

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

they are working on it - fusion.

marcosdumay 13y ago

Maybe a few, or maybe not even one. Nations need to convince a lot of people about the viability and rationality of a project before putting many resources at it. Most great (and crackpot) ideas are lost on this process, the ones that survive are completely changed.

FD3SA 13y ago

As is becoming abundantly clear, the world is run by politicians with little to no understanding or respect for science. These people, like most, believe in the "genius" theory, where an Einstein just magically appears and make a huge breakthrough once every hundred years. They don't understand that science is a slow, incremental process which happens over hundreds of years, and requires steady investment for progress to continue. As it stands, the politicians could care less if we entered another dark age. All they care about are votes, and power. I hope the best for this initiative at YC, but having known brilliant scientists, they are the furthest thing from entrepreneurs. They are intrinsically motivated, and don't care much for fame, money or prestige. As such, most are terrible at making sales pitches. Sam makes it abundantly clear that there won't be another Bell Labs. Sadly, that is precisely what we need. The real breakthroughs will require extremely slow, deep thinkers which have the autonomy and time to work on very hard problems without interruption in the form of sales pitches, VC meetings, demo days, and above all a constant scramble for funding. This [1] is the closest I've seen to a modern day Bell Labs. 1. http://janelia.org/ http://janelia.org/

DaniFong 13y ago
You would find it fascinating, illuminating, and mind changing to read David Wootton's biography of Galileo. An outstanding scientist, and a relentless hustler like you would not believe. There are schleps involved in doing great work of all kinds. People capable of true greatness overcome them.
- danelectro 13y ago
  By schleps I assume you don't mean people, but tasks. Such as filling hundreds of test tubes or soldering as many connections as you can do, or writing code that is necessarily huge but represents a small concept. Hustling is one of those tasks surely too. You have to be able to balance the selling and/or delivery in some way to keep the ball rolling. Not many scientists, especially researchers, are entrepreneurs but those that have lived by their own technology might just be the ones that have the abilities that would be good for investors. Still may not be very "brilliant" compared to working for an institution. Depends on the person. >most are terrible at making sales pitches. Oh, well. Given capital, a breakthrough entrepreneur can turn a used car salesman into a technical representative, there will always be a time or place when persuasiveness is critical. Looks like Musk could use a number of car dealers about now. It's supposed to be easier to find sales talent than accomplished scientists. Bell Labs I always thought was exactly what Bell needed, since they were living on their own technology. Has anybody here worked for 2Wire? I've got some interesting theories. I think it's no Bell Labs but I could be wrong. That could be another thread. >The real breakthroughs will require extremely slow, deep thinkers which have the autonomy and time to work on very hard problems without interruption in the form of sales pitches, VC meetings, demo days, and above all a constant scramble for funding. Two ways of doing this are to be really big or be really small. Janelia does look interesting but who owns the product of your research? Probably whoever builds the lab. I druther build my own lab. How many well-equipped non-institutional researchers are there any more anyway? I thought so. Odds are pretty slim. If you don't do it your dang self it just might not get done. But genius, the exceptional individual, "Great Man" or "Great Woman", is not just a theory, Einstein & Curie did appear. And true quantum leaps were made.
- FD3SA 13y ago