[rebootthesystem]

I attended the SBIR conference about twenty years ago with a genuine interest in getting involved. I left the conference with an image embedded in my head:

"SBIR = The PhD Club of America".

Perhaps things have changed. My impression leaving the conference was that it was a complete waste of time if you did not have a PhD in your team who had some connection with the PhD at SBIR in charge of reviewing applications.

In other words: Not a single Silicon Valley college dropout or "college-interruptus" need apply as the process seemed to exhibit favoritism towards members of the aforementioned club.

[tclmeelmo]

> My impression leaving the conference was that it was a complete waste of time if you did not have a PhD in your team who had some connection with the PhD at SBIR in charge of reviewing applications.

For the second part, it is standard advice from the granting organizations themselves to contact whomever is overseeing the solicitation (for DoD, they're the "topic author") to establish a good working relationship. Does someone who has a previous history have an advantage? Yes, in the same way that a SV startup founder with prior experience has an advantage seeking funding for a new venture.

For the first part, SBIR/STTR emphasize research, and a PhD (or equivalent degree) is the standard academic research qualification. Teams having technical members without PhDs but with significant domain experience are funded all the time. You're right that having research credentials is necessary, but it's not in itself sufficient. If I put together an application for an area in which I have no prior research experience and no preliminary data, I would expect my application to not be scored.

> In other words: Not a single Silicon Valley college dropout or "college-interruptus" need apply as the process seemed to exhibit favoritism towards members of the aforementioned club.

I don't see it as favoritism, I see it as a mismatch in experience and expectations. My "research currency" (PhD, publication record, patents, grantsmanship experience) isn't worth much if I were wanting to work at a SV startup because I don't have a GitHub account (or so I am led to believe). The kind of currency that an SBIR/STTR values naturally tends to be held by people with PhDs (or equivalent).

It's also important to remember that SBIR/STTRs are highly competitive. A few years ago, I applied to an SBIR from the NCI that ended up funding 1% of applicants that cycle!

[rebootthesystem]

SBIR would not have funded Einstein, the Wright Brothers and a myriad of other innovators who would not "qualify".

I've worked with enough PhD's to be guarded. If you want to get shit actually done sometimes a guy who knows nothing about the field but is full of fire and ambition can run circles around an entire industry.

That's not to say all PhD's are bad, I have met a number who are brilliant. And the secret, in all cases, is in who they were and what they did before their PhD, in most cases even before college.

Programs like SBIR are not about attracting the best. They are about great looking presentations with enough check boxes filled in. The best don't usually fit that mold.

Name the top hundred discoveries or developments of the last century. Let's see how many PhD's originated and drove them to fruition.