"Live" Blog: Startup Panel at APS

I am at the APS California Regional meeting, at SLAC. They are having a panel on "How to Start Working for a Startup Company?", so I am going to try "live-blogging" it.

Panel Members:
Yi Cui
Stanford Professor
"Every professor on campus has a startup"
Says that as a 3rd year faculty member, he wasn't thinking about statups. But being in Silicon Valley, VC/entrepreneurs keep approaching him and he ended up starting a company.

Jessa Lee
Graduated Stanford in 2009 with BS Physics, MS EE
Works for Pacific Biosciences making DNA sequencers
Was interested in a startup instead of a PhD in order to "understand the ecosystem that science exists in"
Had interned for Pacific Biosciences before graduating, which interested her in industry rather than just going straight to PhD.

William E. White
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Company: Positive Light, TiSaph amplifiers
Started working full time on company in 1999, sold company in 2003. Then came to SLAC.

Andrei Terebilo
PhD at UCLA, dissertation on SSRL
Works for Pacific Biosciences

Question 1: How hard is it to come back to academia?
Bill: It depends on what you do. Some fields it is harder than others. It seems easier to come back to a National Lab, compared to a University.
Advice Do internships. The culture is different, so you can figure out rather quickly if it is for you.

Question 2: How do you get funding?
Yi: Establish credibility through publication of research, etc.
Bill: Take business classes while you have access to them.
Andrei: Join a small company where you can learn these things.

Jessa: It is very helpful to do non-technical internships to learn about product development on the marketing side. It needs to be a good product, not just good technology.

Yi: If you come across as very capable and credible (ie, Steve Jobs) the investors will give you money, no matter what the idea is.

Question 3: How does one protect their IP - ie, get money for it?
Yi: Students need to understand the value of the idea, then get patent protection before going out and giving talks on it.
Bill: Dealing with patents easier in the academic setting. In companies, it is so hard to fight patents, people just keep things secret.

Question 4: What are the options for a theory student?
Jessa: Do you want to keep doing theory? Companies are always looking for smart people. If you want to branch out - computing, modeling - there is a huge industry.
Yi: A theorist can found their own company.

Question 5: Does industry prefer Masters degrees to PhDs?
Jessa: Bigger companies have more specific ideas; startups tend to be more flexible and will want you to do everything.
Bill: I've hired a lot of scientists and the interview - how you are perceived - is more important than Masters vs PhD.
Andrei: The "inflexibility" reputation may come from how complete PhD's expect to understand and know a problem and the solution, compared to the standard in the business world.

Question 6: What type of skill set is academia actually looking for?
Jessa: Communication skills are critical.
Uwe (moderator): It is important to have an expertise, rather than be a jack of all trades and a master of none.
Yi: When interviewing, I drill people on their technical skills.
Bill: Don't underestimate the value of a network. I know who I want to hire before I post the job. Because these industries are small, everyone knows if you leave a company on bad terms.
Andrei: Really research the company, know what their big problems are. Show your application to that in the interview.

Question 7: How does the current economy affect the jobs? What are the pros and cons of a startup vs a government job
Bill: I don't think it is hard to find money if you have a good idea right now.
Yi: (Analogy about sinking boat) A company is a small boat where everyone is bailing, the government is a big boat that takes a long time to sink but no one helps bail.

23% Hate Everything

Living in California, I get to see some incredible elections. Yesterday I voted on school district board members, community college board members, fire district members, and two propositions. One was a bond measure of the community college, and the other was "fire district appropriations". The text was:

Measure F: "Shall the appropriations limit applicable to the Menlo Park Fire Protection District, currently set at $40,000,000 pursuant to Measure G approved by the electors of the district on November 7, 2007, be continued at $40,000,000 for a period of four years from the date of the election?"

This isn't even an increase in funding. And right now, it isn't enough money for them to run the fire district! A "no" vote would mean a decrease in funding. In our voter guides there was a page with the argument in support. What was the argument in opposition? There was none!

This isn't the first time where I have seen a measure which seems like it shouldn't be up for vote. There have been measures that were superseded by the legislature, so the voter guide said votes don't even matter on it. But I consider these unique opportunities, from a "science" point of view. After all, they are a sort of control. How many people vote yes on a law that even those responsible for getting it on the ballot don't support? How many people vote no on something like this fire district appropriations?

23% voted no on the fire district measure. Who are these people? Do they want their house to burn down? Do they not understand how flammable everything is here?

Putting it out there

I first had a webpage around the time google was founded. Since then I have designed and maintained a variety of web pages - for student groups, EXO, surveys, petitions, and most recently the Undergraduate Women in Physics Conference. Unfortunately my technical ability to do things with HTML is not matched by any ability to design things that look nice.

For some time I have thought about making some sort of personal/professional website. I had imagined something that would be an HTML equivalent of my resume, and decided I could use it as an opportunity to learn the magical new world of HTML 5. I didn't start it for some time, but then the press coverage of my Cerenkov work made me realise how little control I had on the information available about me.

So I created a website for myself. It doesn't look as amazing as I would like, and doesn't have all of the functionality I would like. But it has my papers, talks, and activities. It is what I want the world to see of me.

But there is one problem, of course. It doesn't seem to show up in google searches! I have tried to link to it on my profiles (linked in, facebook) in a few places. But yet, it just doesn't show up in the Google results. I have google analytics running on it, which shows me what search terms ARE getting people there. For reasons I don't understand, the search phrases that have brought people to my website are "adc mapping osirix plugin", "stanford html template sandstone", and "stanford software".

Now I must find ways to actually make my page exist in the great Google database. Or, re-craft my career to be about adc mapping osirix plugins.

Airport Scanners

One session at the American Association of Physicists in Medicine conference was on the new scanner technology being used in airports. The session had a few speakers, each with their own expertise, covering both backscatter x-ray technology and millimeter wave technology. The focus was on the science, regulation, and policy - not privacy or security efficacy. I'm very glad I went. Here is a summary:

Packing for Vancouver: My first bio-med-phys conference.

I'm attending the annual American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Conference next week in Vancouver. Yeah, it is joint with the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicsts. My poster is (basically) ready, though not printed. I think I have plane tickets, a hotel room reserved, and a conference registration. So is the hard part done yet?

I haven't started looking at the conference schedule to figure out what I am going to attend. I don't even know if I need to do so. At the APS (March or April meeting) conferences there are so many parallel sessions that it is impossible to just wander and hope you see the right talks. APS even has a helpful schedule planner on the website. It is much easier to do planning ahead for APS meetings rather than trying to use the booklet to plan once you get there.

I haven't started collecting a list of other events I want to go to. I know there is a Geant4 meeting/get together the first evening, which I will attend. There is a Stanford get together the same night, so I don't know if I will be going to that. I don't know if there are other things I would want to go to. Again, at APS there were often breakfasts and evening meetings for students or specific interests. Some of the breakfasts required advanced registration.

I haven't looked at the poster authors and speakers to see if there are people I know who will be there. I don't know that many people who are going from Stanford, so it would be great if my social circle at this meeting had more than 3 people. Otherwise, I will take a lot of books. Which means I need to go stock up at borders...

I haven't started packing. This is my first time going to Vancouver, so I don't know what type of weather to expect. Worse, I don't know what the indoor climate will be like. My assumptions about Anaheim were pretty spot on - it was usually freezing in the convention center. It is hard to pack minimally when the error bars are 10 degrees. I also don't know the level of dress that I will feel most comfortable in. At American physics conferences (opposed to European ones) talks are regularly given by people (students, usually) in jeans and tennis shoes. The audience looks similar. An e-mail reminder about the AAPM conference stated that the dress code in business casual, which I expected. The medical physics crowd is used to clinic dress code, which - here at Stanford - is conservative business casual. I'm not entirely sure I could put together an outfit that satisfies the clinic dress code here, but I hope to never need to... Also, I might want to pack enough so that if the US economy collapses I can just stay in Canada (-:

Smartphones: sexist?

It looks like I will be the one getting a new smartphone. I'm mostly overwhelmed by the options and features. I barely keep my current cell phone with me, and rarely actually have it on me to know if someone is calling. I've thought about not having a phone at all. So, a smartphone seems like a reasonable solution - I bet they are rubbish for actual calls. But have all sorts of games!

I went in to the Verizon store to look at them today. I realized why I think of them as being very redundant with a tablet... I don't think smartphones are any more portable than tablets. When I look at a smartphone, I see a device that will sit in my backpack all the time. Granted, my current phone normally does this. But sometimes... sometimes... it goes in my pocket. A smartphone will never do so. It is too damn big.

Are the tech companies to blame for this? No, it is just an unfortunate truth of women's fashion: pockets tend to be very small, if they exist at all. Specifically I am thinking of front pockets on jeans and slacks. A phone like the X2 or iPhone will not fit in the front pocket of the majority of my jeans. Could I get a cell phone holster? This was my solution back in the day, but I don't know if people use them anymore. I don't want to look geeky, right? A belt-holder for a cell phone is only a partial solution: it will work with chunky belts that are structural, not those skinny belts. Honestly, I've never figured out how to wear the skinny belts anyways.

Of course, there is then the problem of skirts and dresses and all of the fashion choices that don't have pockets or belt loops at all. I rarely have this problem, but if I dressed according to the Stanford Clinic dress code, I would. So when the people perceive that tech gadgets are predominantly a men's market, I believe that this is at least fashion driven. Not because the X2 doesn't come in pink, but because women in a business environment won't have as easy of a time carrying them around. If I accept I'll be hauling some sort of purse or briefcase around to carry my smartphone, I might as well just have a netbook or tablet.

So no, I don't think smartphones are sexist. They just aren't very compatible with women's business attire.

The Computer Culture War

Our household will be increasing its quantity of computer gadgets. Some number of laptops/tablets/smartphones will be purchased in the next few months due to expiring contract, expiring backlights, and a general sense of patriotic consumerism (lol). While the majority of the responsibility of this lies with Tom, I am part of conversations and the phone decisions. The upcoming purchase is quite different in tone to my recent (few months ago) purchase of a netbook. I hadn't appreciated the capability-to-cost ratio in modern netbooks until a vist to Fry's, after which I did some online research and returned to Fry's the next day to purchase one. I knew I would be working in Ubuntu ~100% of the time, especially after installing more memory than Windows would support.

Now Tom is going to buy an apple product or two. Other products have been considered, but some sort of iThingy looks like the new addition to our digital household. Through this process I have decided that digital gadget monopolies - I mean, brands - are a sort of geek culture war. There is often little room for compromise and we may view those who hold different opinions as being responsible for the current destruction of society. Here are my sides in this battle: