[ninwa]

It's brave to drop everything you've been working so hard for in sights of opportunity, but is it really in the electronic part search market? Sorry, I don't mean to sound negative, but a PhD in physics would have opened such a large expanse of possibilities. You're going to throw it away for a chance at more women and on the whim of one man (PG's) advice. Best of luck.

[andres]

Whoah! Give me a little more credit than that! Octopart is a startup which we've only been working on for three months- we're no where close to being done. So far as my comments about women and society go, I think they will resonate with physics grad students and probably a few others. Otherwise, I agree, they don't make sense.

[altay]

Hey Andres, Major Life Decisions aside, I gotta say that Octopart sounds like a pretty smart idea! Perhaps the first so-called vertical search engine that's really piqued my interest. Don't know anything about the market or competition, but on the surface it seems like a solid niche -- not a market that Google's going to go after anytime soon -- in a growth industry. And isn't hardware hacking, open source hardware, etc. supposed to be the Next Big Thing? (Tim O'Reilly's been talking about this a lot lately.) Anyways, just wanted to lend a word of support to help you tune out all the haters. Good luck!

[greendestiny]

A PhD is really a lot of grind especially at the end. I don't think you can really do both a startup and a PhD well at the same time. You can't really do either without a reasonable level of commitment so if your heart is with the start-up I say go with it. As for the chicks... I've gotta say they dig the title Dr...

[ced]

A PhD in physics today opens up some opportunities in the one very specific field that you studied. Getting post-doctoral positions is hard; there isn't that much money floating around. I know that I'm dropping out soon.

[sam]

Exactly. If you are devoted to one specific field then grad school makes a lot of sense. I also dropped out of grad school in October partially because I didn't see myself devoting my career to the particular sub-field I was in.

[akkartik]

Depends on how far along the PhD he is.

The social argument was bizarre, I agree. Campuses are great places to meet new people; most of my friends agree that starting work is socially a step down. And they're at least working for large corporations with lots of people in them. Working insane hours at a startup it's unrealistic to expect your social life to be an improvement relative to *anything*.

[whatsreal]

I agree entirely. I am just out of undergrad, and working is a major step down socially. If it weren't for my Customer Service job I would probably interact with no more than 5 people a day (in order: my wife, boss, coworkers, wife.) (Unless you count here and Reddit.) It seems to me that he was just using his girl count as an objective measure of his social life.

[nostrademons]

I did the first 7 semesters of my undergrad in physics, and still have a lot of friends doing Ph.Ds in physics. A bachelors in physics opens up a large expanse of possibilities - finance, management consulting, economics consulting, computer programming, high school math teacher, and of course physics grad school. A Ph.D in physics qualifies you for exactly one job: physics professor. There are far more opportunities for a physics drop-out than a physics Ph.D, particularly for someone who doesn't absolutely, positively love the subject.

[mexicali]

Dude, you're not right at all. There are a lot more opportunities for a PhD although there are many for a BA too. You don't have to be a physics professor if you get a PhD.

[psbt]

You could be a post-doc for 12 years until some professorship opens up in the Golan Heights. If you don't want to stay in Physics the only thing a Ph.D. is useful for is a "change career free card". You're allowed to change your career to anything but only once.

[jamiequint]

There are positions opening up for physics Ph.Ds in electronics (especially now that the size of the technology is becoming smaller and more apparently susceptible to the laws of quantum physics) There may not be a ton of opportunities now, but once nanotech starts moving out of the labs and into more applications I'd say the market will grow significantly.

[sharpshoot]

I'm a PhD in infectious disease, with a long term interest in nanotechnology and the interface between biosciences and nanotech - But its going to take too long to be in a pole position to drive that innovation (i'm going to be 35 before anything gets going (12 years!) and i'm impatient. The information age has shaped my life in more ways that i could have ever imagined - i want to change people's live now not later. Thats why i'm into the web and particularly online/offline convergence. I want it now not later!

Plus i'll need a track record to build a kickass, disruptive nanotechnology startup which can impact on medicine - 12 years of the information age is just the fix i need!