(I'm working with Sam on YCR.)

It's pretty important that YCR groups have strong ties with the existing research communities — research collaborations tend to have a multiplicative effect.

So I'd expect to see papers coming out of YCR. However, I'd also expect to see many other forms of communication (e.g. blog posts, code releases, etc). In general, we'll tune our efforts to achieve the best research results and impact, rather than to fit the existing incentive systems.

I love the accessibility and content of blog posts by members of Recurse Center. It would be amazing if scientists from YCR publish informal, yet rigorous posts for newbies.

I was at SOSP until earlier today. During the Q&A of the Chaos graph processing system, there was discussion of a previous exchange between Frank McSherry and the authors of the work ... what was REALLY cool was that parts of the original exchange happened on Twitter and via blog posts and we were hearing about it at the conference some time later :)

Unless YC is promising to fund these researchers for life they'll pretty much have to, or else they'll never get back on the treadmill once the YC money runs out.

That's not true. University professors have sabbaticals, and can also go on extended leave for multiple years and return just fine.

Professors on sabbatical are expected to produce things that matter to academia.