Ask YC: Which is better to work at, a lab or a startup?

Re:Ask YC: Which is better to work at, a lab or a startup? by smanek on Friday December 12, 2008 @12:52PM (#395864)

Not by a long shot. I'd argue by that metric Labs are hundreds of orders of magnitudes better. A few of the big ones (in recent history) off the top of my head:

-Norman Borlaug invented Dwarf Wheat while at a lab in Mexico. It has been estimated that this one invention saved well over a billion lives.

-The transistor. Depending on who you believe, it was either invented in an Austrian Lab, a German Lab, or at Bell Labs. Either way, it has revolutionized the world.

-The Internet. Came out of a combination of labs (defense contractors, CERN, etc)

-Penicillin. Discovered in a lab, and easily saved 100's of millions of lives.

The list could go on for another few hundred items pretty easily too. Do you seriously think that Startups help more people?

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Re:Ask YC: Which is better to work at, a lab or a startup? by emmett on Friday December 12, 2008 @01:06PM (#395884)

Remember, almost all companies start as startups. For example, startups get to claim Ford, inventing the assembly line.

Of course, the potential for work in a research lab is huge too. So I think it's more about the specific opportunities. A web2.0 tagging social network is unlikely to change anyone's life right now, but startups like Kiva or 23andme might.

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