
PhD vs Startup - amiune
http://hernan.amiune.com/blog/entry/phd-vs-startup
======
john_w_t_b
Don't agree with this statement from the post.

"A PhD is safer. If you don’t do so well, you are going to get the title
anyways. A Startup is riskier. If you don’t do very well (90% of the time),
you can end broke."

Plenty of people drop out without finishing their PhD and generally they are
broke afterwards. I'd say a startup is safer as you are closer to industry in
case you need to find a job.

~~~
fnayr
Yep, out of my class of 7 in my PhD program, two were forced out. They
did/will get a masters, but that's not the same.

~~~
john_w_t_b
I dropped out of my CS PhD after two years. I regret not doing a startup
instead.

I was working for a big tech firm in Silicon Valley in late 2000. I was
looking for a career change so I applied to a few startups including Google.
The Google recruiter called me repeatedly to come in for an interview, but I
decided to quit the job search and pursue a PhD instead.

Studying for a PhD was fun, but I couldn't adjust to the lower income. I'd
been working in industry for the previous five years so it was a 80% drop in
income at least. Plus I got married and had a kid in those two years. That
complicated things considerably.

~~~
beezlebob
>Studying for a PhD was fun, but I couldn't adjust to the lower income. I'd
been working in industry for the previous five years so it was a 80% drop in
income at least. Plus I got married and had a kid in those two years. That
complicated things considerably.

I believe the author is suggesting that the person starts their own startup,
not going to work for one. I would suggest in that case theere would be a
considerable drop in income also.

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auctiontheory
The author's view of PhD programs seems unrealistically positive. Maybe he
means a CS PhD, but then the bit about changing the world makes even less
sense.

Startups are for pragmatic (as opposed to idealistic) self-starters.

I think most PhD students identify with "I want to think deeply and learn a
lot about one thing" much more than they identify with "I am a self-starter
who loves to work in an unstructured environment."

~~~
burntsushi
> I think most PhD students identify with "I want to think deeply and learn a
> lot about one thing" much more than they identify with "I am a self-starter
> who loves to work in an unstructured environment."

Chiming in as a counter-example! Having an unstructured environment with few
constraints is incredibly rewarding. If you pressed me, it might actually be
my favorite part about being in academia.

(My experience with other PhD students agrees with your generalization,
though.)

~~~
tracker1
I think it depends on what PhD program you are looking at... the people you
have to deal with in say a Psychology program are a bit different than what
you would see in a CS program. The culture can be very different, and the
expectations of conformity can be even more so.

~~~
burntsushi
Oh, definitely. I should have added that "CS" qualifier in there.

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carterschonwald
this entire post has wildly false premises, on both sides.

on one side: the majority of engineers working at startups are _hired and
paid_.

on the other side:

The vast majority of CS phds can't get an academic job unless they don't have
_any_ constraints on where they wish to live. The moment you have any location
preferences _and_ want an academic job, you have to be total super star, which
is hard, and by definition few people will be. Theres also the fact that the
typical phd recipient will never earn back the lost income from the extra
years of education over their master degree only clone.

being a startup founder or a phd student, both can suck, they're fundamentally
different experiences, and when one or another works out well for someone, its
an incredibly unique and personal situation that will not be replicable by
anyone else.

~~~
mahrz
I agree with that, except for the lost income, this recent study [1] showed
that your lifetime earnings will quite likely be more if get a PhD (not
accounting for tuition, not sure about it then). I think that the differences
are so marginal in the end, that it should not be money that decides whether
you want to go for a PhD or not ...

[1]
[http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/collegepay...](http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/collegepayoff-
complete.pdf)

~~~
carterschonwald
the linked document gives a (LIFETIME) earnings gap in STEM for masters vs phd
as < 100k. Considering good negotiation skills can create a delta in salary of
more than 10k, thats a difference on the order of statistical noise.

You are right, the income element is orthogonal to phd or not. But if one
cares about where one lives AND enjoying ones work, more than one cares about
teaching at a university _somewhere_ on the planet, they'll be much happier
not doing a phd program.

Research is fun, learning is fun, engineering great new tech is fun. A phd is
a university teaching certificante, not a magic "i can do good research and
build great tech" certificate (though they can be highly correlated.).

------
jurassic
This post seems to miss the point that the two choices address completely
different goals. Do you want to be a professor? Better get that doctorate.
Want bags of money? Better work on your idea for the Next Big Thing. Both
paths have upsides and downsides, but the important difference is that they're
taking you toward different destinations.

------
stared
Being a PhD student myself, I have to disagree with the last point: changing
the world (actually, it was one of things that lured me were I am). While
doing PhD you can be pretty certain that you won't become rich, it is also
unlikely that you will change the world.

And comparing with science long-dead science luminaries is unfair - it used to
be possible to make a (scientific) breakthrough working alone. But, say, for
50 years or so it is no longer true (the transition was smooth). When a field
is fresh you can make a great in your garage; latter - not so.

Also, academia is a strictly top-down organization with all its consequences
for creativity (in particular, having a great idea and skills at 17 yo will
allow you to startup, put not - to assemble a research group). So if there is
a great impact to the world by a PhD student, I can bet a lot, that it is
because it was the PhD student's side project.

------
Fomite
"The PhD...a job at the end it’s guaranteed"

And this is where I stopped taking the author seriously - they've got a
seriously rose colored view of the job market.

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javert
> you can have a greater impact by doing research. At least that's my opinion.
> I have tons of respect for entrepreneurs like Henry Ford or Larry Page but
> can you compare their contributions to the ones of Carl Friedrich Gauss or
> Alan Turing?

As a PhD student, I tend to think the opposite.

Entrepreneurs who are successful tend to change the world, or at least improve
it. Even if you have a small business, you are helping fuel the economy.

It seems that most academics tend not to improve the world or fuel the
economy.

~~~
testbro
Matt Might's illustrated guide to the PhD sort of shows this quite succinctly
[1]. I don't think there are any memorable PhD theses that significantly
changed anything, save for Shannon's. World-changing researchers do exist, but
I think they are created after they obtain their PhD, rather than before; it's
unreasonable in my eyes to expect anyone to make such significant
contributions in the infancy of their research careers.

[1] : <http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/>

~~~
gjm11
It's not unheard of for PhD thesis work to change the world _within the
academic discipline in question_. Possible examples: Louis de Broglie (quantum
physics applied to electrons as well as photons), Hugh Everett (many-worlds
interpretation of QM), John Nash (Nash equilibria in game theory), Bernhard
Riemann (conformal mapping, simple-connectedness, Laudent series), Noam
Chomsky (transformational grammar), Eric Drexler (first proposal of
nanotechnology).

Also, I think Google came out of Page's & Brin's PhD work, but they decided
that building a company around it was a better idea than getting PhDs for it.

~~~
javert
> within the academic discipline in question.

This is a nit pick, but all the examples you gave are of people who actually
changed the world, not just some sliver of academia.

That said, changing your sliver of academia is likely to imply changing the
world if you're in certain areas of math or science or engineering.

The only time when you can change your sliver of academia but not change the
real world, is when your sliver of academia does not contribute to the real
world, which is (unfortunately) common, particularly in the humanities. (Which
is sad, because we actually really need good humanities study/education in
order to build a good world.)

------
maaku
Be honest: chances are the startup will fail. (And probably for reasons you
have little control over, so don't think you can just avoid the mistakes.)

So at the end of 5 years, what have you got? With the Ph.D you've got
something recognizable and real academic cred. With the startup it'd be a bit
of a mixed bag. If you _knew_ the startup would fail, would you still choose
it over the Ph.D?

~~~
pmb
PhD programs in CS have a 30% completion rate. (No citation, but true of the
program I finished and all others I know)

It's not that safe.

~~~
maaku
Yes, but how much of that is due to factors outside of the candidate's
control?

------
marmaduke
> Both take at least five years.

Europeans do it in 3 or 4.

> In a PhD you have a scholarship and a tutor that tells you what to do.

Salary is usually contingent on applications, work, etc.

After the first half, the PhD should be directing the project, not the tutor.

> A PhD is safer. If you don’t do so well, you are going to get the title
> anyways.

A PhD is only a PhD if you make it to the endgame. You can fail quickly or
slowly in an infinite cornucopia of ways.

> In a PhD you learn a lot about an specific subject.

If you have two brain cells to rub together, you learn just as much about
yourself, people's motivations, etc. as you do about the domain.

> If what you want to do is to change the world, go with the PhD.

A PhD is at best learning to do research, not much else, and at worst, a
poorly paid programmer or lab tech. Changing the world is thing altogether.

------
leftnode
Why not both? The university I attended, UT Dallas, has a program called the
Venture Development Center. Professors can pitch a start-up idea, and if they
get accepted, the university donates office space and computers/software/etc.
The professors Ph.D students get to work on the startup as an employee while
also working toward their Ph.D.

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mrcactu5
PhD's and Startups are similar enough experiences that they can be
constrasted. Every PhD is unique - REALLY unique and only a few people in the
world understand. Startups these days seem to be as individual.

I agree that PhD's and startups have similar elements of risk. In both spaces,
it's possible to stick to safe ideas or ideas that don't meet approval of your
colleagues.

Startups teach you to be responsible for your own ideas, in a way the PhD
system does not.

Not every PhD student has a scholarship. The ones who don't get a fellowship,
tend not to accept. The ones that do get money still don't really understand
where that money comes from.

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return0
Lots of false dichotomies and exaggerations. One does not even preclude the
other.

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simonbarker87
A PhD does not take at least 5 years, I did mine in just under 3 and am now 2
years in to a startup I founded which will take at least 5 years.

The final point is also very very wrong. PhD's don't change the world, they
push the boundary of what we know a tiny tiny bit forward. And it's widely
known that a start up is not the most effective way to earn lots of money,
investment banking or working your way up the corporate ladder is. The main
difference is that a start up is probably more fun and fulfilling.

~~~
kd0amg
_A PhD does not take at least 5 years, I did mine in just under 3 and am now 2
years in to a startup I founded which will take at least 5 years._

I think the post is meant to be about an American PhD program, not a European
one. 3-year PhDs in the US are pretty rare.

~~~
simonbarker87
Ah right, I'd forgotten that. Bit of a drag like, 5 years!

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greenyoda
It's not a dichotomy. You could do neither a PhD nor a startup, and that's
also a perfectly legitimate option.

------
wellboy
How does one change the world with a PhD? One's contribution is very little
among all the other hundreds of researchers that are trying to work out that
one problem and most of the time, your PhD doesn't have an impact at all.

~~~
aufreak3
That's one way to look at it. From the perspective of a researcher, if you're
true to your work, you're really at the vanguard asking hard questions and
probing the limits of your own mind and its fallacious thinking .. no matter
how small your domain of interest is.

I came across a joke once that resonated since it felt like truth being spoken
in the clothes of humour -- "When you finish a bachelor's degree, you think
you know something about something. When you finish your Masters, you realize
you don't know anything about anything and are in awe of other minds around
you. When you finish your PhD, you realize that nobody really knows anything
about anything, including you."

The offshoot of that last realization is true humility that shows as a deep
appreciation for the steady progress being made at the boundary of knowledge,
and the wisdom in finding the right question to ask.

To put it another way, both endeavours have tremendous impact on the person.
If "finding out about stuff" is your thing, getting a PhD would be worth it.
If "doing stuff" is your thing, a startup would be worth it.

PS: This one just submitted his thesis and is considering starting a company.

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yamalight
It's also possible to do both. It's a bit harder than just one a time, but
possible

~~~
yamalight
Forgot to add that this way works especially well, when you startup and PhD
are in the same area.

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outside1234
can we get the ability to downvote articles i don't even know where to start
with this one - its better if it just vanishes.

