I'm no expert in these matters, but it seems this conversation is lacking the following point(s).
Ability to score funding for any venture usually requires salesmanship and connections. Salesmanship in turn requires that you are able to tell a good story about your product/approach, and be able to dispel doubts. Charisma and confidence help, and these can be developed to some extent if you're not one of the lucky ones who are just natural salesmen. So I'd say if your primary concern is scoring funding, a PhD is a costly way to gain credibility. Credibility can be earned in other ways (such as having demonstrable results), and other factors may ultimately be more important, such as the ability to create and develop relationships with the people in your field who may be in a good position to help you out. Terren --- On Wed, 12/17/08, YKY (Yan King Yin) <generic.intellige...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On the contrary, getting a PhD is an astoundingly poor > strategy for raising > > $$ for a startup. If you have a talent for biz > sufficient to raise $$ for a > > startup, you can always get some prof to join your > team to lend you academic > > credibility. > > > > It is also useful in terms of lending you more > credibility when you talk > > about your own wacky research ideas. This may be part > of YKY's motivation, > > and it's a genuinely meaningful one. But having > credibility when talking > > about research ideas is not particularly well > correlated with being able to > > raise business funding. > > Getting business funding may be an inherently hard thing to > do. So, > other things being equal, spending some time + money on a > PhD degree > may still be better than all other options. That's my > current > reasoning... > > > ------------------------------------------- > agi > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ > Modify Your Subscription: > https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
