I know less about founders in computer tech but yes, many founders in biotechs that I know have just had a few years of experience in labs, not really successful scientifically, even if they know how to market it. And thats far from enough to really understand the nooks and crannies of drug discovery projects. Especially since most academic labs are only doing a really thin slice of the whole process. There is a reason why you dont give millions of dollars to a postdoc that submit their first grant proposal, why we do that to postdocs that are founding biotechs is beyond my understanding. The products I've seen from companies that raised $5mil are not worth 1/10 of that, and thats just in dev costs, their stuff could not even scale so they are trying to survive until the big prey comes and swallow them before anybody notices its all smoke and mirrors.
> There is a reason why you dont give millions of dollars to a postdoc that submit their first grant proposal, why we do that to postdocs that are founding biotechs is beyond my understanding
TINA. If you're a fund that needs to put an ass in a seat to say "we have a biotech investment", you go to whatever you can find. You have no way of doing due diligence in your portfolio and even if you hired someone like me to ultrafilter your proposals you'd probably come up empty, because the only postdocs that play this game are those that know they are good at parlaying their social capital, obtaining favorable reviews from their PIs (social validation), and have less scruples.
The heads down brilliant and honest scientist postdocs have already burnt out, and often aren't socially savvy enough to play the VC game, if they were, they'd be gunning for faculty positions instead.
If VC wants a better return they need to have a different heuristic. I'd pick postdocs that did years of grueling work with no results and ask them what they'd really prefer working on instead of their PI's hairbraned idea.
Generally that’s the trajectory computer tech startups take too, except with even less experience. That’s probably a reflection of the difference in the barriers of entry.
