moneyquestion's comments

I think it's closer to 'my friend has invented anti gravity; but its big and huge and clunky and extremely expensive and he is going to spend a couple years in a lab working on it before he tries to raise money. i think he could raise money instantly; how do i get people with money to look at the antigravity thing'

but maybe you are right that he is right to have reservations.

Thanks. Angellist is the diamond in all of this rough that I was looking for.

Really appreciate your taking the time to respond

gotcha. I am not pushing him; to be clear. Otherwise I wouldn't be making this post, I would be pushing him.

If he follows on his path he will exit academia in the next year or two and push full steam ahead and and raise his cash and you will all know his name in the next couple years after that. I would literally bet a body part on this.

Of course you take what I say with a grain of salt; I could (and am statistically likely to be) in a pipe dream.

My assumption is basically this: if someone with a lot of cash:

- Saw the accomplishments of this person

- New the 4 year plan of this person

and

- Talked to this person for 20 minutes

They would eagerly give him money. I know there is no way to prove or disprove my assumptions. So my question is how can i drop a hint to someone?

I would be happy to hear what you think is defensive. I am fully aware than I am an anonymous schmoe on the internet. If I am defensive it's because I am looking for the answer to the question I seek just assuming that what i am saying is true.

No need to convince me I am wrong in my assesment or my friend isn't entrepenurial material. It doesn't matter. Just assuming he is, and that it is clear as glass to anyone who talks with him that he is; how do I nudge someone to talk to him.

There is a prototype; its more than an idea.

I should have made this clear. The chance that this man will ever be employee #1 is zero.

The genius is clear enough. Flawless marks through the hardest programs, and working code pushing the boundary of human capability is all already existing.

I have no intention of going around asking. I more want to do something like say, "here is his github, here are his results, here is his published papers, and this is his idea on how to commercialize it"-- to someone who is investing money.

He has no interest in continuing academia. His stated reasons for staying there rather than taking offered positions at google etc is that he can work on exactly what he wants and bill it out to the school.

I get what you are saying about VC's expecting people to act like they are intending to create businesses. I think someone smart will be able to see the difference here between something like what he wants to do and what something like facebook or kickstarter is doing. He is pushing the edge of knowledge and literally couldn't do it without the tools that he has gained in research. I honestly believe if someone talked to him they would see everything he has done for the last 10 years has been with this type of thinking in mind.

The social proof would not be a problem, top professors in compsci and mathematics know him; and he has code to back up his claims.

750k includes 70k a year for he and another engineer. I don't think he is confident he will find another engineer capable (other than the one he has in mind) that is capable of the work he is trying to do. Its too specific of a niche and literally cutting edge in the field.

The commercial value of the research would be the easiest sell of all; the first person/company to do it right will have immediate customers from everywhere.

He has interned at google (i fear if he sees this this line will be the proof of who I am and who I am talking about) and presumably has some connection there.

The main thing he needs is cash at this point; the number crunching is CPU intensive and he wants 20k/month for sending it out to amazon.

He doesn't have the capital to bootstrap. He needs 500k in number crunching time. One of the main reasons he is staying in the school is he is billing all that out to them and using their servers