| as a former biologist: please, please, please, please, please, please, please ensure that at YC the people with money do not try to interpret laboratory data and stay far away from making any kind of project-level decisions. it's something they (VCs) love to do, in my experience. incorrectly. and it's a massive waste of scientists' time, to have to correct the moneymen's misunderstandings of rudimentary things. then it's a cringe session when you hear them trying to explain it to other moneymen. then it's a big tearjerker when the moneymen's childlike expectations aren't met, and the company suffers. something about biotech VCs and business types makes them think that they understand their products and products-in-development even if they're unqualified. the reality is that the depths of their ignorance are very embarrassing. but i digress. i hate to rain on the parade here, but my bet is that most of the early stage biopharmas at YC will fail due to one of two reasons: 1. nature isn't working in the way they need it to. 2. the people with money don't stay out of the way enough and make stupid decisions that they don't understand. i've seen a few biotechs fail to reason 1-- always tragic, but nature always has another trick that mankind will figure out some other day. i've also seen a few fail to reason 2. it's very predictable, and saddening every time. non-technical types in leadership positions need to stay far away from biotech, especially at an early stage... they ruin things by cutting funding at the wrong time; they ruin things by forcing idiotic focuses; and they ruin things by believing that manipulating nature is similar to making a faster horse. i have plenty of ideas on how to make biotech startups work better when they receive funding, however. they are, shall we say, politically incorrect-- both to the society of the scientists as well as the society of the VCs. perhaps i will share them on some other evening. |