“Scientists can't do business”
The title of my mainstage talk at Alpha Summit Americas in San Francisco, and the argument for why it is the most expensive lie in deep tech.
Scientists can't do business. Something I've been told myself. Something I still hear said about scientists trying to build companies. Something scientists, eventually, start to believe.
It was also the title of my talk on the main stage at Alpha Summit Americas in San Francisco last week. To a room of investors, fund managers and founders, I argued that this is the most expensive lie in deep tech.
This is the most expensive lie in deep tech.
The assumption baked into academia is that industry will pick up scientific breakthroughs downstream. Hand the discovery off, let the operators take it from there.
But that rarely happens, leaving hundreds of great ideas in the graveyard between proof of concept and product. Not because the technology isn't good enough, but because the scientist is too often sidelined and kept out of the conversation beyond the breakthrough.
I think that needs to change.
This is the mission I've been on for the last decade: from Spin Up Science to train the next generation, to Empirical Ventures to back, build and fund the companies they start, to the channel to tell the stories of the ones who do.
Great to share some of that journey on the Allocator One stage. Thank you to Michael Ströck, Felix Staeritz, and the teams at Infra One and Allocator One for the opportunity.
