I didn&#x27;t start with the math I derived.  E.g., there&#x27;s a lot of
math I could derive that I 
couldn&#x27;t turn into business.
So, to derive new math, I want
that math to be powerful and
valuable for a new business.<p>So, I started with the <i>business
idea</i>, the really short, simple
one from 50,000+ feet up.  Right, John Doerr, that <i>idea</i>
by itself is worthless.<p>I&#x27;d like to say that I did the
planning for the math next, then
the business model, then
the user interface&#x2F;user experience (UI&#x2F;UX), then the
computing, all in some such 
order, but no
such thing would be correct.<p>Instead I did a <i>fitting</i>,
did the planning of the whole
by planning 
all the pieces so that they
all fit together; e.g., the
math fits because it is the
crucial core, enabling technology
that lets the rest work and
the whole be valuable.<p>Or, I don&#x27;t want to do <i>research</i>
without good plans for
a happy trip to the bank.<p>I derived some math, but
I&#x27;m not trying to be a math
researcher.  I wrote some
software, but I&#x27;m not trying
to be a programmer.  Instead,
I&#x27;m trying to be a businessman,
that is, to make money, the
green kind, and there 
the math, computing, Moore&#x27;s
law, the infrastructure
software, the Internet, mobile,
the software I wrote, 
etc. are all business advantages,
that is, make my chances
of getting rich better than,
say, running a pizza shop,
being a math prof, or being
a programmer.<p>But there was another criterion:
I needed to bring my project
to nice profitability just
from my checkbook where I did
all the work.<p>It was in that context that
I derived the math and wrote
the code.<p>If you have some good technical
work, then maybe you&#x27;d like to
turn it into a business.
To do that, it can help if
you can do all the work 
to good profitability
alone funded just by your
own checkbook.  And it
is crucial that the technology
can help you get to the
necessary happy users&#x2F;customers.<p>A model is the guy who did
the Canadian romantic matchmaking
service Plenty of Fish.
He was long just one guy,
two old Dell servers,
ads just via Google,
and $10 million in annual
revenue.  He grew, hired
a staff, and recently
sold for $575 million in 
cash.  Maybe for his 
matchmaking he had some
clever ideas -- maybe.<p>Some good, new technology
can be a big advantage,
maybe even crucial.  But
really you need a feasible
path all the way to 
&quot;The Pay Window&quot;.<p>From a background in high
end work in the STEM fields,
it&#x27;s easy to guess that,
when some high end STEM
field work has some new
results that clearly should
be the crucial, core of a
valuable new business, there
is some funding for that.
In a word, nope. Exception:
Some guy with a lot of 
background
in fusion has a plan where
as little as $500 million
equity might get to a prototype
fusion reactor that generates
energy, and get one on one
with a dozen or so billionaires
who will pull out their
personal checkbooks.  Otherwise,
essentially nope.<p>VC?  Sure, if look at their
Web sites, can get the idea
that they fund ambitious, change
the world, brilliant, new,
disruptive, 
ideas.  Yup, and they also
fund tall, short, thin, and
fat people, too.  But the
reason they fund is to follow
making money their way 
which is to buy, on terms
onerous for the founders,
a fraction of a business
with <i>traction</i> significant
and growing rapidly.  That&#x27;s
what they do.  Maybe their
LPs make sure that that is
exactly what they do, no more
and no less, and no funding
off the back of a napkin.
In particular, it appears that
almost universally VCs just 
will not fund software
development.  Instead, they
want the software running
and in use, with significant
traction growing rapidly.
As IIRC Sam Altman put it
recently, VC funding is to
let a growing business grow
faster.  Bringing good, powerful
new STEM field research to
market?  Nope.<p>The idea that good technical
work is valuable, etc. seems
to come heavily from the 
massive funding of research
for US national security 
of the past 75 years, some
from the best work of Bell Labs,
a little from Xerox PARC,
and a lot from NIH.<p>Sure, I didn&#x27;t pay even a
dime tuition for my Master&#x27;s
or Ph.D.  So, where&#x27;d the money
come from?  Sure, Congress
via NSF, etc.  And what was
Congress thinking?  Sure,
the bomb, the hydrogen bomb:<p>&quot;Now then, Dmitri, you know how we&#x27;ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb. The <i>Bomb</i>, Dmitri, the <i>hydrogen</i> bomb.&quot;<p>and Sosus, passive sonar,
much better jet engines, 
the submarines, GPS, the
fighter and bomber airplanes,
the high end radar and
infrared systems, etc.  It&#x27;s
a big system with <i>layers</i> --
the STEM fields of the 
research universities, 
the DoD laboratories,
the Federally funded research
and development centers
(FFRDCs), the large aerospace
companies, etc.  And while that
funding is definitely what
built Silicon Valley, now
Sand Hill Road is more 
interested in some clever,
novel, viral, social, local,
mobile, photo&#x2F;video,
private, in-group, sharing app.  Or at least that is what they
think.<p>The good news
is the computing, storage,
processing, data volumes, data rates, OS software, etc. that $1000 can buy.  So, that can be
a heck of an advantage.  Heck,
of you could have a robot 
mow a 1&#x2F;2 acre lawn for $2,
then you could make a big 
splash in the grass mowing 
business.  Well, now there&#x27;s
a lot of data, and if can
think of something valuable
to do with it, then maybe
can make a big splash, and
fortune, in computing.
Some good, new research in
the STEM fields can be a big
advantage.