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I really enjoyed this piece. It lays out a line of reasoning I would certainly like to be true, but is it? My start-up vocabulary is failing me here so I'm goi

I really enjoyed this piece. It lays out a line of reasoning I would certainly like to be true, but is it? My start-up vocabulary is failing me here so I'm going to have to use an analogy. --- In boxing, the most profitable fighter is not necessarily the best fighter. A promoter will use an expert eye for the sound fundamentals of a great fighter at least as much to avoid bad match-ups for his prospects as he will to find those prospects in the first place. Great fighters are not necessarily marketable fighters and their value falls through the through floor once they take an L. What the promoter really wants is the right face, a guy with a great story and charisma, someone the people will pay to watch beat up cab drivers - he needs him to be good, but only good enough. The promoter has all the resources to arrange the rest. --- So, is the issue that the VCs are overlooking / ignorant to these technical factors of great companies or is it simply that great companies are too much effort when they can get rich(er) on status quo games of cash and connections?

angersock 12y ago
The sad truth is that they are in it for the money, right? If the market is rewarding me-too mobile apps, then by Christ that's what they'll fund, because that's where the money is. Why fund a cancer drug or space company or whatever when there is no clear case that that is going to make a good ROI (or succeed at all). The perception is that VCs are the money-men behind startups that change the world and make everything better and create value and value. The reality instead is that they have to make money and pay for themselves too, and the surest way to do that is to bet on "safe" products and things the market provably wants. It is a great shame that the narrative is that VC-backed startups are the best actors for positive progress--I don't think we could be further from the truth.
deeviant 12y ago
Further more, what is the exact connection between academic talent and great companies? Is there a connection to the value and position a start-up can obtain with the number of academia oriented employees it contains? Is it even a positive correlation?
- etler 12y ago
  I don't think he's implying you can't be a good company without it, just that there's a lot of hardship and lessons learnt that can be avoided by having a researcher do academic diligence. You can learn those lessons the hard way in practice, but it might be more efficient to do the research instead.
- mark-r 12y ago
  I will reply with only one data point: Google.
  - zik 12y ago
    Sure, Google has a policy of employing people with an strong academic background but I kind of think they're mostly grossly underutilised maintaining UI code or doing other drudgery. I'm sure a few get to exercise their academic muscles from time to time but according to friends of mine at google that's the exception rather than the rule.
    - timtadh 12y ago
      I think you mis-interpreted the parent's example. Larry and Sergey were academics before they were founders.[1] Their research lead directly to Google's success. I believe Google still licenses Page Rank from Standford. (A huge win for the TTO at Standford) [1] Sergey's academic homepage: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/
      - Retric 12y ago
        The fact they developed page rank at Stanford and then needed to licence it seems like a great reason to avoid Stanford. And possibly a great reason to avoid reading any academic research. PS: 3am here so I am probably missing something obvious.
        auggierose 12y ago
        Probably you are. When the university pays you to develop something, and then only takes a minor cut of the profits, why would you want to avoid the university?
001sky 12y ago
This is the right analogy. Its the same reason you don't always want a "faster" car in the america's cup or in f1. Boring racing. But the product is not "winning", its racing...the "racing and competition" are what sell tickets, attention, and bring in sponsorships. Technology-solutinos is only interesting insofar as it drives "good racing". This is why all kinds of "faster" technology is banned everywhere as "cheating".
ProblemFactory 12y ago
It's understandable that being up-to-date with the latest academic results doesn't guarantee success. There are many, many other factors that determine the eventual success of a startup, and therefore it's investment appeal. But I didn't see the article as a complaint that "investors are wrong", but rather "before you spend months inventing and building a new UX flow, take a few days to read about the latest research". If a developer needs a balanced binary tree, they will first look for an existing implementation in the language they are using. If one doesn't exist, a good developer will check Knuth/CLRS/Wikipedia for the suitable algorithms and build it based on these recommendations, instead of jumping in and hacking something together on the spot. I think the article argues that UX and product design could use a similar approach. If you are deliberately testing a new approach, sure, go build whatever comes to mind. But if you just need an "incentive mechanism" in your app, then it makes sense to read up about the existing research on what kinds and how large incentives work, instead of making a guess on the spot. And even if you are innovating on some aspect, it's useful to use the existing best practices as the starting point and improve & measure from there.

angersock 12y ago

The sad truth is that they are in it for the money, right? If the market is rewarding me-too mobile apps, then by Christ that's what they'll fund, because that's where the money is. Why fund a cancer drug or space company or whatever when there is no clear case that that is going to make a good ROI (or succeed at all). The perception is that VCs are the money-men behind startups that change the world and make everything better and create value and value. The reality instead is that they have to make money and pay for themselves too, and the surest way to do that is to bet on "safe" products and things the market provably wants. It is a great shame that the narrative is that VC-backed startups are the best actors for positive progress--I don't think we could be further from the truth.

deeviant 12y ago

Further more, what is the exact connection between academic talent and great companies? Is there a connection to the value and position a start-up can obtain with the number of academia oriented employees it contains? Is it even a positive correlation?

etler 12y ago
I don't think he's implying you can't be a good company without it, just that there's a lot of hardship and lessons learnt that can be avoided by having a researcher do academic diligence. You can learn those lessons the hard way in practice, but it might be more efficient to do the research instead.
mark-r 12y ago
I will reply with only one data point: Google.
- zik 12y ago
  Sure, Google has a policy of employing people with an strong academic background but I kind of think they're mostly grossly underutilised maintaining UI code or doing other drudgery. I'm sure a few get to exercise their academic muscles from time to time but according to friends of mine at google that's the exception rather than the rule.
  - timtadh 12y ago
    I think you mis-interpreted the parent's example. Larry and Sergey were academics before they were founders.[1] Their research lead directly to Google's success. I believe Google still licenses Page Rank from Standford. (A huge win for the TTO at Standford) [1] Sergey's academic homepage: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/ http://infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/
    - Retric 12y ago
      The fact they developed page rank at Stanford and then needed to licence it seems like a great reason to avoid Stanford. And possibly a great reason to avoid reading any academic research. PS: 3am here so I am probably missing something obvious.
      - auggierose 12y ago
        Probably you are. When the university pays you to develop something, and then only takes a minor cut of the profits, why would you want to avoid the university?

001sky 12y ago

This is the right analogy. Its the same reason you don't always want a "faster" car in the america's cup or in f1. Boring racing. But the product is not "winning", its racing...the "racing and competition" are what sell tickets, attention, and bring in sponsorships. Technology-solutinos is only interesting insofar as it drives "good racing". This is why all kinds of "faster" technology is banned everywhere as "cheating".

ProblemFactory 12y ago

It's understandable that being up-to-date with the latest academic results doesn't guarantee success. There are many, many other factors that determine the eventual success of a startup, and therefore it's investment appeal. But I didn't see the article as a complaint that "investors are wrong", but rather "before you spend months inventing and building a new UX flow, take a few days to read about the latest research". If a developer needs a balanced binary tree, they will first look for an existing implementation in the language they are using. If one doesn't exist, a good developer will check Knuth/CLRS/Wikipedia for the suitable algorithms and build it based on these recommendations, instead of jumping in and hacking something together on the spot. I think the article argues that UX and product design could use a similar approach. If you are deliberately testing a new approach, sure, go build whatever comes to mind. But if you just need an "incentive mechanism" in your app, then it makes sense to read up about the existing research on what kinds and how large incentives work, instead of making a guess on the spot. And even if you are innovating on some aspect, it's useful to use the existing best practices as the starting point and improve & measure from there.