I'm a YC founder (current batch; Shift Labs) and also a tenured full professor at an R1 university. I've got a pretty good view from both sides of this fence. I've spent over 20 years as a faculty member at research universities, produced PhD students, raised millions in grant money, written dozens of articles, yadda yadda yadda.
Universities are really great for many things. They are even really great at commercializing some kinds of technologies. But they are not great for all things, even all things related to bio or tech transfer. Sometimes crazy bets are the only way breakthroughs happen, and generally academia cultivates incremental more than transformational.
I started my company because I wanted to make affordable medical devices. The incentive systems for both med device companies and university commercialization offices are almost completely misaligned with building a business model that works for affordable medical devices.
So I went the entrepreneurial route.
Being in academic research is not the same thing as building a company. They're not the same skill sets, or even the same language. Lots of academics become technical advisers to startups built around their research. That's not the same thing as building a company. YC is about building a company.
I wrote about being a med device company in YC here: http://bit.ly/1LlmZjk, but I think really what I was writing about was being a researcher learning to build a startup.
This may just be a result of their maturity. The YC companies may seem "not very good" because they're closer to market and practical application.
When it comes to research, particularly in academia, it's much farther from market. This makes it much easier to expound on the broad possibilities. News headlines have a bad habit of doing this (think fusion and carbon nano-tubes).
Universities are really great for many things. They are even really great at commercializing some kinds of technologies. But they are not great for all things, even all things related to bio or tech transfer. Sometimes crazy bets are the only way breakthroughs happen, and generally academia cultivates incremental more than transformational.
I started my company because I wanted to make affordable medical devices. The incentive systems for both med device companies and university commercialization offices are almost completely misaligned with building a business model that works for affordable medical devices.
So I went the entrepreneurial route.
Being in academic research is not the same thing as building a company. They're not the same skill sets, or even the same language. Lots of academics become technical advisers to startups built around their research. That's not the same thing as building a company. YC is about building a company.
I wrote about being a med device company in YC here: http://bit.ly/1LlmZjk, but I think really what I was writing about was being a researcher learning to build a startup.