
An Important Tech Job That Doesn't Exist - Alex3917
http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2014/06/the-most-important-tech-job-that-doesnt-actually-exist.html
======
incision
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?

~~~
deeviant
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?

~~~
mark-r
I will reply with only one data point: Google.

~~~
zik
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
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
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
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?

------
21echoes
> So why are we hiring designers mainly on their Photoshop skills and maybe
> knowing a few tricks for optimizing conversions on landing pages? What a
> waste.

> Of all the social sciences, the following seem to be disproportionately
> valuable in terms of creating and evaluating startups:

> Psychology / Social Psychology

> Internet Psychology / Computer Mediated Communication

> Cognitive Development / Early Childhood Education

> Organizational Behavior

> Sociology

> Education Research

> Behavioral Economics

> And yet not only is no one hiring for this, but having expertise in these
> areas likely won't even get you so much as a nominal bonus.

The core argument of this article -- that designers at top startups are not
hired for their CogSci/etc chops -- is patently false in my experience. Has
this person gone actually gone and talked with design leads at startups?

~~~
wavefunction
Never underestimate the ability of an "academic" to belittle others in regard
to their own perceived ability.

Designers just fuxx around in photoshop. Sure.

Psychology is pseudo-science. N = 1 is no way to conduct a serious scientific
endeavor.

Internet psychology? lol

Cognitive development / Childhood behavior - Ever hear of COPA? Many
developers/designers/projects will never deal with anything front-facing
involving anyone under the age of 13.

Organization behavior - hmmmm

Sociolgy - well....

Education Research - I suppose if your project is focusing on
training/education you would want to be practicing best pedagogic practices.

Behavioral Economics - Cereally? I don't know how fundamental we need to get
into treating our users as "active agents." Can't we just see them as the
people they are and still succeed?

To conclude, all I can say is from my experience T=the best designers are
born, not honed in the hoary halls of the academy, divorced as they are from
the real world.

------
cattypist
Researchers such as John Ioannidis have been making an increasingly good case
in the last few years that a substantial proportion of published research in
areas such as the social sciences and medicine may be wrong or misleading,
though.

[http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-t...](http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-
think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/)

It's a crisis worth becoming aware of and thinking about the implications of.

------
cbr

        In contrast with Facebook, one of the reason why
        FourSquare has yet to succeed is due to significant
        problems with their initial design decisions ...
    

I would find this much more convincing if they had made predictions about
Facebook and FourSquare when they were both in their infancy.

~~~
Alex3917
>I would find this much more convincing if they had made predictions about
Facebook and FourSquare when they were both in their infancy.

On Tumblr 4.5 years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961523](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961523)

On Twitter from 2007: [http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2007/08/what-
makes-...](http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2007/08/what-makes-
twit.html)

On Wikipedia from 2004:
[http://beta.slashdot.org/story/04/09/05/1339219/wikipedia--
a...](http://beta.slashdot.org/story/04/09/05/1339219/wikipedia--
authoritative) (user pHatidic)

On Squidoo from 2006:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Squidoo)

Obviously I wasn't trying to make predictions in these posts, let alone
predictions that would look correct ten years later, but I think you'll see
that I have a pretty good track record of being on the right side of history
way before these sites hit their tipping points and became mainstream. But
regardless, it's not really about making predictions, it's about knowing what
questions to ask in order to better understand the founders and the
marketplace. Ultimately you have to decide who to bet on, but I think it would
be a mistake to confuse a bet with a prediction.

------
spindritf
The most likely explanation is that knowing "relevant literature" as proof of
"doing homework" simply doesn't correlate with company's success and investors
would rather wait to see some validation from the market.

~~~
marcus_holmes
this.

Also, after having read a lot of social science research, the research is
pretty crap for the most part. I'm sure there are a few gems in there, but you
have to read a lot of positive results from badly-thought-out experiments with
obvious holes to get to the few nuggets of truth.

Much, much, easier and faster to conduct your own experiment by building
something and seeing how customers react to it.

------
danielweber
After something fails, it's usually trivial to go back and see the obvious
reason that it failed, and find a professor willing to say so.

Before something fails, it can be very difficult to notice it, and even more
difficult to differentiate it from all the other obvious things that will kill
it but actually never will.

It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future.

~~~
ronaldx
Worse than that: it's very easy and almost always correct to predict that a
startup will fail.

But... paying someone to make that prediction (even if you largely trust their
authority) is not actually helpful.

------
ChuckMcM
I enjoyed reading it but I can't say I agree with it. There is often an
'Entrepreneur in Residence' or 'CTO' or 'this guy I know' who is consulted by
the partners when they are doing diligence on a startup. That person, if they
take their job seriously, is abreast of the technical developments and
academic research in the area (or can familiarize themselves with it) and
apply it to the proposal under consideration. A friend of mine once called it
'technical headlights' which I liked as it has both the utility and
limitations that vehicle headlights have on a dark road. Able to bring out
obstacles, not necessarily going to light up something that is off road.

------
seanewest
There is a difference between research and academia. Academia in an
institution, with specific ways of becoming a member (thesis, tenure) and
structure to support the sharing of information (journals, conferences). These
structures don't fit well with startups.

Behavioral research and drawing insights from huge amounts of social data is
definitely useful for the startup industry. But people can do this completely
outside of academia where there aren't _massive_ barriers to entry. And they
can share their findings using blogs, books, github, consulting, etc.

------
PaulHoule
Yeah, the slow transfer of knowledge between academia is a big problem and
there is a need for people who have a foot in both worlds but it's tricky to
be that sort of person because people in each camp will see you as somebody
from the other camp.

~~~
jonwachob91
That depends entirely on the culture of the University and Company.

The University of Central Florida's College of Engineering as entire courses
taught by real world professionals from Lockheed, TI, Duke Energy, Boeing,
Harris Corp, Orbital, NASA, etc etc etc. They also work very closely with
students who are working on unique research projects and connecting them with
experienced professionals that can help with the real world side of the
research.

I'm sure UCF is not unique, it's just what I'm most familiar with.

------
mixologic
"Why isn't somebody doing this?" \- Why aren't _you_ doing this? Provide a
service to VC that answers those questions as part of their due diligence.
Sounds like a good idea to me.

~~~
neurobro
It does sound like a viable business opportunity, but the only way to know for
sure is to survey the literature.

------
ballard
In formal, established companies this does exist: it's called "decision
support analysis (or researcher)." Whether a particular staff person is
steeped in academic research, which they should, and whether a particular
staff person provides actionable insight and intelligence that big companies
often lack is another matter. The problem is discoverability of results
(because there is a vast universe of unstructured data and research out there)
and applying it to specific needs: academic journal search (LexisNexis) and
regular search engines combined with talented staff might work.

Sounds like there's a startup or two in decision support anyhow.

------
_pmf_
> whether or not what they're doing is consistent with the relevant research
> and best practices from academia

Best practices do not come from academia. Especially not regarding software
engineering.

------
pascal1us
Your suggesting Academic Researchers should be consultants for VCs. Sometimes
they are! but, just not full time. Usually, they might be on a board of
advisors, for a small amount of stock, or maybe as an unofficial advisor.

Now let's cover why not. Simply put: academic research often is only
tangentially related, and thus of limited value. The people with the most
direct expertise in the area in question, are the ones who are actually doing
the technology they're developing, on a day to day basis.

------
alialkhatib
Coming from an academic perspective, my knee-jerk reaction to this post is
"Awesome, we definitely need this", but after some thought I really don't see
this as a necessary job (at least, not for most startups in most areas). I'll
try to explain my more ruminative thinking:

Since the article actually specifies behavioral research, I think my
background in anthropology and the social sciences might be helpful here. My
research for the past ~year has been on the culture of Quantified Self, but
I'm also coming from a background of Human-Computer Interaction and I'm going
to study HCI at Stanford (sooner or) later this year.

What I generally call "behavioral" research is just too specific to be
applicable without an academician him/herself to parse, abstract, and apply
this stuff. Worse, you would be hard-pressed to find an anthropologist (or I
suspect any other social scientist) who would be able, let alone _willing_ ,
to make any predictions about the future, even in their own niche. My thesis's
discussion section looks at the future of QS culture as it relates to
mainstream culture, but I'm not willing to make any predictions at all. The
most brazen thing I'm willing to do is highlight some of my observations and
follow where those observations _might_ lead. I immediately underscore that
these are total unknowns, and that we should all just keenly watch QS culture
for how these issues will play out.

That kind of non-committal culture (at least in the social sciences) is
favored in academia because it's incredibly difficult to correctly guess or
predict the future, especially when humans are the subject of research (and
especially when they're aware of the prediction you're making, because they so
often seem to want to prove you wrong). You want your research to stand the
test of time, and making predictions that don't bear out undercuts your
credibility.

So you won't read any journal articles in sociology or anthropology that
definitively tell you what you should make your next startup about, and any
interpretation between the lines you read will invariably be contentious. For
all of my research, I wouldn't bet my lunch on any particular prediction.

Instead, it makes much more sense to have a UI/UX specialist whose job
includes knowing the research and academic consensus on stuff. Maybe they
should keep their ear to the ground to hear for any trends or new paradigms in
user interface design, but whether this person can even shoehorn that stuff
into real-world business endeavors is questionable.

All that being said, I think I agree with the idea that a startup should be
cognizant of research in the area they're trying to break into. But that
sounds (to me, anyway) like I'm advocating that in the process of doing a
business plan and analyzing competitors someone should do a cursory search for
existing literature on this topic to make sure there are no land mines in the
field. If someone wanted to get into medical informatics but had no idea about
HIPAA-compliance and the complications that injects, I would steer clear.

~~~
toomim
> That kind of non-committal culture (at least in the social sciences) is
> favored in academia because it's incredibly difficult to correctly guess or
> predict the future

It's not actually that it's _difficult_ to predict the future -- it's just as
difficult in industry, but they try all the time!

It's that it's difficult to _prove_ in a peer-reviewed article that your
prediction is correct. Academics don't try to say anything that can't pass
peer-review.

This filter of peer-review is what limits academics from speculating. In
industry, you are free of peer-review. Steve Jobs can predict that the world
is moving to multi-touch phones, and it doesn't matter if his peers complain
that there aren't any buttons or physical keys. He will be proven right in the
marketplace.

~~~
darkmighty
I caught a hint of doubt on the "non-commital culture" from GP and I guess I
agree with that. If they are specific _models_ of behavior, shouldn't the
model come with validating observations? If the new model is very encompassing
so that good enough observations are hard to come up with or their specificity
would detract from the broad view, It might be excusable. Otherwise, I would
think that the paper has to clearly show it's _raison d 'etre_ to it's
stakeholders, most likely interested industry -- with observations. And why
not, sometimes predictions are due, _specially_ when they contradict the
status quo. The predictions don't need the pretense to be certainly true, they
just need to be consistent (or follow directly) from the model.

I would expect predictions, just like a new physical theory or observation may
accompany bold predictions following from it's premises.

------
pkteison
Doesn't careful research into safest bets and optimal ways to do things just
end up opening a bunch of McDonald's?

~~~
angersock
_" just end up opening a bunch of McDonald's"_

Never underestimate the challenge in an undertaking like that--or the profits.

------
arkitaip
Translating research findings into actionable advice for startups is
incredibly difficult. You're either bound to find support for just about any
idea or find that there isn't enough research about your idea/topic due to the
difference in abstraction between academic research and actual design.

------
auganov
VCs don't invest in business models. They invest in the possibility of getting
a big payout. We cannot assume that a given business model is immutable. You
can only evaluate it's current state, which might be only loosely correlated
with financial success. I'd prefer a startup with traction and a team that
might figure something out. I'm pretty sure you'd get more mileage learning
how to spot sketchy people, rather than looking if the current model aligns
with current-often-vague-and-inconclusive social sciences research.

------
jrs99
academicians are outsiders looking in, fascinated by phone usage because it's
a relatively new experience and they see how the world is changing.

Kids are the insiders. They don't need someone to tell them that something
fascinating is going on in their own world. It's the only world they've ever
known. They don't know of anything else.

The literature is written by the reporters. The kids using the technology are
on the battlefield. They don't need a reporter to tell them what's going on.

------
qwerta
> Investors often wait months before investing in order to let a little more
> information surface, during which time the valuation can (and often does)
> increase by literally millions. Given that the cost of doing the extra
> research for each deal would be nominal...

Not sure about math here. Lets say that average increase is $0.5M and only 1%
gets funded. In that case it is around $5,000 per study to break even. I do
not think investors could fit reliable evaluation into this money.

------
jebblue
tl:dr; <== That's one reason if I had money to be an investor I'd not likely
spend much time talking to academics, they love to talk too much.

------
contingencies
This must be a troll ... honestly recommending a mixing of aademics + 'best
practices' consultants?

This person has never experienced the ridiculously huge different in
productivity between startups/small to medium sized organizations and those
big inefficient beasts like banks/telcos/government departments.

------
MisterBastahrd
For most startups, the company is the product, and the services the company
sells are the means to get that product acquired.

------
aliciac
this is my job!

~~~
voyou
Tell us more! Where do you work? Do you think they are unusual in having
someone on staff to pay attention to academic work?

~~~
aliciac
I am the learning design lead at Play-i (play-i.com). We build robots to teach
kids ages 5+ how to program. I am a cognitive and developmental psychologist.
I did my PhD in how early language input from parents affect kids' readiness
to learn number and math concepts before a postdoc on applying cognitive
science to middle school science education and another postdoc on how 2D and
3D block building affects geometric and spatial cognition and later math
performance. I joined my first educational gaming startup in 2011. It imploded
within 6 months, but that's another story ;)

~~~
n0rm
What is the one book you'd recommend on young humans' learning?<br>

The sort that gives data and backs its claims up by evidence (empirical,
controlled etc.) if possible.

~~~
aliciac
[http://www.amazon.com/The-Scientist-Crib-Early-
Learning/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Scientist-Crib-Early-
Learning/dp/0688177883)

This is what I recently recommended to new employees at my company. The three
authors are highly respected researchers in the field. Here is a TED talk by
Alison Gopnik (the main author) for a sense of her work on babies' and young
children's natural readiness and ability to learn:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think](http://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think)

------
michaelochurch
It's called R&D. (Or, more accurately, this describes a subset of what R&D
should be doing.)

Software culture is, to my surprise, deeply anti-intellectual. Crass
commercialism has driven out everything better, and the result is that a
discipline (technology) that ought to be focused on improving human life is,
instead, focused on helping business assholes unemploy people.

Of course, the cost-cutting anti-intellectual shitbirds don't limit their
damage to _outside_ of their companies, so R&D is one of the first things they
attack when they need to free up cash for their unreasonable bonuses.

