Re:How to spin your scientific research out of a university ...
by curiousllama on Thursday October 29, 2020 @08:15AM
(#24929655)
Every engineer printed hello world for the first time at some point, but that point isn’t the time you should put them in charge of a mission-critical codebase.
It’s not that they’ll never be good leaders, it’s that it’ll take a while to get there, and that timeframe might be measured in failed startups.
Re:How to spin your scientific research out of a university ...
by hobofan on Thursday October 29, 2020 @08:24AM
(#24929717)
As someone who was more or less a "Hello World engineer" (at least not far from it) when founding my first startup, I couldn't agree more.
The article expands a bit on why it's not a good idea to hire a CEO, and I mostly agree with that part, though not so much with having no business person on the founding team.
Re:How to spin your scientific research out of a university ...
by DrAwdeOccarim on Thursday October 29, 2020 @01:39PM
(#24933004)
Also, I think most commenters are not weighing how much different running a biotech startup is compared to a software startup.
Of course it's better if someone has had the chance to gain leadership experience prior to that, but there are also a big chunk of responsibilities in a CEO role that other mid-level management positions won't prepare you for either. Given that (at least im my field) a PhD graduate usually had leadership over a bunch of Master/Bachelor students for the duration of their PhD, there is usually at least some experience to build on.