My view is that math is by a wide margin the most powerful and valuable topic for the future of information technology entrepreneurship for at least the first half of this century, but to make this promise real the mathematician has to be the founder, CEO of the company, and the math will not be an advantage in seeking equity funding.
An interesting comment. I wonder if the YC funding process is at all an exception, a funding process in which mathematics background might be an advantage.
Some of the qualifications of some of the YC partners are exceptional for venture partners: You might be correct.
But, to add a little detail, it appears that information technology (biotech might be significantly different) venture funding has been reduced to a large font on one side of a 3 x 5" index card: For a seed round, see a demo of the software. For a Series A, see 'traction', that is users and revenue both growing quickly. For a Series B, see good accounting numbers. For a Series C, are basically just buying part of an on-going company. Could teach a dog that 3 x 5" card in a weekend.
The Series A criteria are so uniform that my guess is that they are 'suggested' by some of the more important LPs.
But, for anyone with a serious background in math, science, or engineering, (information technology) venture funding is a shock because, if only as a special case of the 3 x 5" card, the partners will essentially never take seriously a technical review of the project on paper. This is a shock because essentially all serious work in math, science, and engineering is done just on paper, not with prototypes or 'market ready' products.
My joke about venture capital is that they would have said, "You build and test one and get one more ready for delivery, and we will buy half the gas for the Enola Gay".
But the bomb was a big waste of money? The bomb cost about $3 billion in 1940s money (see Richard Rhodes), and that's $3000 for each of the 1 million US soldiers that might have been killed or injured in an invasion of the home islands of Japan, that is, a grand bargain just as money.
So, (information technology) venture capital just won't judge based on looking in detail at the core 'secret sauce' intellectual property and, in particular, won't consider math.
So, if the math helps with the traction or accounting numbers, then fine. The entrepreneur can tell the equity funders that the project is just 'software' and otherwise keep what is crucial in the secret sauce just between his own ears. If he has an algorithm that shows P = NP (not what I have) and is blazingly fast on the full range of NP-complete problems, then don't tell anyone and just let the software run and do logistics, manufacturing scheduling, etc.
In my project, the math is the crucial work and the main promise of a valuable company quite beyond just some Series A 'traction' numbers. But the only person in business who can see this promise now is me, and this is at least a surprise.
In the end, for me, now, that the venture partners will ignore or just hate the math is no longer very relevant: I have the math and the corresponding software long since done, and it was fairly easy given my background. The rest is just routine programming. Since I'm using Windows, .NET, ASP.NET, and ADO.NET, I've had to learn those topics. This learning has been routine but slow. But a few more Web pages, and the software will be ready for at least first production. Then get and load some good initial 'base data', and I will be able to go live. If the project is good, then there will be good 'traction' numbers. Then I could raise a Series A, but if the project is good soon it should throw off enough cash that I won't t need a Series A. If I get a good business without equity funding, then the venture partners won't be part of it because they refused to evaluate the real promise, the math, and waited until the business was so far along it didn't need equity funding.
Then, just why would I want a Board that hated math?
Net, for this thread, for an information technology entrepreneur, the math just has to be something the entrepreneur keeps between his ears, and that is a piss poor career direction to recommend to young people.
An interesting comment. I wonder if the YC funding process is at all an exception, a funding process in which mathematics background might be an advantage.