I dropped out of a PhD program because I was disillusioned and never found a path of value to my group's work. After reading this I really wonder if what was missing was context and world experience.<p>So much of what's wrong with a lot of academia is group think and insular publish/perish mind set. What would make me want to go back at some point in my future is putting research into a larger context and grounded in my own experiences of what is truly important and valuable.
I think it's interesting that many believe the next wave of innovation and value creation will come from BioTech, and the potential implications that will have for hackers like us.<p>I don't know about anyone else, but frankly it worries me. The beauty of the internet revolution + Moore's law has been that barriers to innovation have become virtually non-existent. It's possible to dream up and build the first iteration of the next world-beating website with no capital or specific education.<p>It seems like the barriers to entry for BioTech innovation, however, will be multiple. To even participate in that world you need a PhD. I don't know what this means about the future for hackers like you or I, perhaps nothing. But I wonder whether this wave of startup innovation will look like a blip on the radar of normalcy in 50 years' time.
The world is small.<p><a href="https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2000/08/15Genentech-CEO-Arthur-Levinson-Joins-Apple-Board-of-Directors.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2000/08/15Genentech-CEO-Art...</a><p><a href="http://www.sg.hu/kep/2012_02/0218ob1.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.sg.hu/kep/2012_02/0218ob1.jpg</a>