Regardless of whether the amount is enough to fund scientific research endeavors (which range at > 250k/ year), Breakout Labs is a reflection of the current nature of scientific research.
The NIH or other foundations tend only to fund "safe" research proposals. Someone with a more radical idea with no funding resources is effectively shut down. 50k may not be enough to research something for a year, but it may be enough to prototype an idea. Win for creativity, win for science.
Are you speaking from experience, or from what you've heard?
I don't know much about NIH funding, but if you're looking for funding from (say) NSF, DOE or DARPA it doesn't have to be that "safe" except in the sense that they really want you to produce something publishable... not necessarily particularly useful. I figure that any worthwhile research project ought to be able to be massaged into a form where you're producing something worth publishing regardless of what happens.
NIH might be different, due to the larger and more expensive scale of these sorts of projects.
I'm not too well-versed in research funding, but NSF CAREER awards seem to be around twice that (i.e. $100k to $600k) for a few years of funding. I suppose the recipient would probably be getting funding from other sources as well?
As for building a good app, I don't know if I'd expect a what gets produced by a conventional research group to be a nicely polished, ready-to-deploy app. Grad students are probably somewhat cheaper than developers too.
To add to this, the article mentions that "All types of scientific projects will be considered for support". There are some interesting things coming out of life sciences for example which at the moment may be too far out for VC investment. I wonder how many projects they intend to support at any one time.
huh? yea if you hire 10 shitty developers... i know plenty of people that have had revenues of 200k-1.5m with budgets far closer to zero than 50k. Yes, excellent people are involved, but if you can barely build 'a good app' for 50k, you really need to rethink your strategy.
I hope this style of funding takes off. I'll be the first to admit that I buy into the hype around social, mobile, realtime, and all those buzzwords for consumer apps but the future I dream about involves taking on the bigger challenges, basically the ones outlined in the Grand Challenges for Engineering: http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/
I hope so too! Thiel definitely seems like the most visionary of the billionaires in the world, he probably will end up having a greater positive impact than anyone else on the Forbes list.
Ideally, they would be a hub for innovative researchers on a shoestring-budget that could end up working together on even more ambitious projects. Or a good leader might be able to recruit from the applicant pool to break up a larger project into small groups that could focus on specific parts of the research.
Did you actually read the article you linked? The article and the fund are quite consistent.
Thiel argues that the economic growth and tech breakthroughs of the past few decades are being taken for granted, that not enough people are taking on the ambitious projects needed to realize a future that we all assume is coming.
This initiative is him putting money behind his words.
Most investments these days (even from the govt) are in short-term quick-to-realize projects. If this continues, we'll have endless electronic social playtoys, living as grown-up children in walled gardens, but the 'grand future' would be gone. No spaceflight, no radical new techniques, no new frontiers.
That's why people that are rich and interested in longer-term research, like him, could start a fund to fund more radical and long-term research proposals. Something that was originally the scope of university research, but times change.
[+] [-] repos|14 years ago|reply
The NIH or other foundations tend only to fund "safe" research proposals. Someone with a more radical idea with no funding resources is effectively shut down. 50k may not be enough to research something for a year, but it may be enough to prototype an idea. Win for creativity, win for science.
[+] [-] hugh3|14 years ago|reply
I don't know much about NIH funding, but if you're looking for funding from (say) NSF, DOE or DARPA it doesn't have to be that "safe" except in the sense that they really want you to produce something publishable... not necessarily particularly useful. I figure that any worthwhile research project ought to be able to be massaged into a form where you're producing something worth publishing regardless of what happens.
NIH might be different, due to the larger and more expensive scale of these sorts of projects.
[+] [-] raheemm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hugh3|14 years ago|reply
a) Too early-stage for traditional funding agencies, and yet
b) Sufficiently small that you can make significant progress for $350K (let alone $50K!)
[+] [-] argv_empty|14 years ago|reply
As for building a good app, I don't know if I'd expect a what gets produced by a conventional research group to be a nicely polished, ready-to-deploy app. Grad students are probably somewhat cheaper than developers too.
[+] [-] polymatter|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thwest|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edge17|14 years ago|reply
huh? yea if you hire 10 shitty developers... i know plenty of people that have had revenues of 200k-1.5m with budgets far closer to zero than 50k. Yes, excellent people are involved, but if you can barely build 'a good app' for 50k, you really need to rethink your strategy.
[+] [-] choxi|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DilipJ|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuntgoat|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rms|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtraven|14 years ago|reply
Bipolar much?
[+] [-] huangm|14 years ago|reply
Thiel argues that the economic growth and tech breakthroughs of the past few decades are being taken for granted, that not enough people are taking on the ambitious projects needed to realize a future that we all assume is coming.
This initiative is him putting money behind his words.
[+] [-] wladimir|14 years ago|reply
Most investments these days (even from the govt) are in short-term quick-to-realize projects. If this continues, we'll have endless electronic social playtoys, living as grown-up children in walled gardens, but the 'grand future' would be gone. No spaceflight, no radical new techniques, no new frontiers.
That's why people that are rich and interested in longer-term research, like him, could start a fund to fund more radical and long-term research proposals. Something that was originally the scope of university research, but times change.