as a former biologist:<p>please, please, please, please, please, please, please ensure that at YC the people with money do not try to interpret laboratory data and stay far away from making any kind of project-level decisions.<p>it's something they (VCs) love to do, in my experience. incorrectly. and it's a massive waste of scientists' time, to have to correct the moneymen's misunderstandings of rudimentary things. then it's a cringe session when you hear them trying to explain it to other moneymen. then it's a big tearjerker when the moneymen's childlike expectations aren't met, and the company suffers.<p>something about biotech VCs and business types makes them think that they understand their products and products-in-development even if they're unqualified. the reality is that the depths of their ignorance are very embarrassing.<p>but i digress. i hate to rain on the parade here, but my bet is that most of the early stage biopharmas at YC will fail due to one of two reasons:<p>1. nature isn't working in the way they need it to.<p>2. the people with money don't stay out of the way enough and make stupid decisions that they don't understand.<p>i've seen a few biotechs fail to reason 1-- always tragic, but nature always has another trick that mankind will figure out some other day.<p>i've also seen a few fail to reason 2. it's very predictable, and saddening every time. non-technical types in leadership positions need to stay far away from biotech, especially at an early stage... they ruin things by cutting funding at the wrong time; they ruin things by forcing idiotic focuses; and they ruin things by believing that manipulating nature is similar to making a faster horse.<p>i have plenty of ideas on how to make biotech startups work better when they receive funding, however. they are, shall we say, politically incorrect-- both to the society of the scientists as well as the society of the VCs. perhaps i will share them on some other evening.