Will single founders please stand up? - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/01/will-single-founders-please-stand-up.html <comment><USER3> It is important not to be dogmatic on this issue.

Startups come in all shapes and sizes and there is plenty of room in there for single-founder companies. I have represented at least one single-founder company that eventually grew to $16B valuation in the fiber optics space and another that grew to $1B valuation in consumer electronics software. Are these unusual exceptions to the rule? Sure. But they do exist and there are undoubtedly a reasonable percentage of successful startups like them that start in just this way.

The startup process is best viewed as a continuum, ranging from the very early formative steps to much-more sophisticated steps later on. At some point along the continuum it is essential for most successful startups to add other team members because, when you scale to something great, you basically can't do it alone. But no one says this teaming process has to occur as the absolute first step in the process. It can occur later and, indeed, much later (both of the multi-B companies I mention above were several years into the process before the sole founders brought in other key team players).

The key at the beginning is founder credibility, whether found singly or in a team. If someone is sharp enough, he will find the means eventually to add key people even though, at inception, he finds himself working all alone.

Having said that, I will be the first to say that it takes a pretty exceptional founder to be able to start alone and build to large success. But many such founders exist and they can rank right up there with other founders in all the qualities that count toward success. At least that has been my direct experience in having worked with a broad range of founders over many years.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm another single founder. I spent a lot of time looking for cofounders but after a few months without success I decided it was better to create something, even if it wasn't an optimum setup, than to keep spending energy playing matchmaker.

I've found that people have wildly different ideas about both the reason to do a startup, how to execute, what's important, and where to exit. There's a great diversity even among people who know/read a lot about it. In fact, I'm amazed that the multiple founder system works at all. Except for cases where everybody is a college friend or something, it looks like a recipe for a lot of conflict.

<comment><USER5> Maybe there needs to be an eHarmony.com for finding co-founders.

<comment><USER6> <http://fairsoftware.net/find-cofounders-for-your-startup> and <http://www.meetup.com/Co-Founders-Wanted-Meetup/> are dedicated to finding co-founders. The first one is for worldwide online, the second link is for Silicon Valley in person.

(I'm behind both)

<comment><USER7> Starting a company has been compared to getting married, and while plenty of people have met their future spouses on dating sites, they don't meet, talk a few times, and then get hitched. Perhaps the missing bit is finding something people can work on for a while without the commitment of a company (sort of like dating...).

<comment><USER8> _...while plenty of people have met their future spouses on dating sites, they don't meet, talk a few times, and then get hitched._

This is true only of American dating sites. A number of Indian dating sites are based on that exact model.

I guess the lesson to take from that is this: if your expectations are low enough, and social pressures not to quit are strong enough, any reasonable pairing can be made to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been a single founder for 6 years now. I've created half a dozen webapps and products in that time, some of which were eventually sold and others I still run today. I've never raised money -- a few VCs have contacted me but I knew there was no chance I'd be what they were looking for. I pay myself well, I work relatively little and outsource to contractors any work that makes sense to get help with. I used to do everything myself, but learning to give up a little control is a good thing.

<http://www.awio.com>

<comment><USER10> Can you tell us a little more on what type of work you outsource and where you get your contractors from?

<comment><USER9> Mostly graphic design work. I pay designers for uncoded website and logo designs, advertising creatives and occasionally small graphics. I used to do the design myself, but I'm not very artistic and a good designer produces better work in far fewer hours, so I'm willing to pay for it. I've run some design contests on 99designs.com and keep in touch with the winning designers for future work, and also met some people through the SitePoint forums.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Single founder on my 4th start-up, my first alone.

#1 - Two of us. A package for specialty manufacturers. I wrote the software, he sold and implemented it. We agreed to make it a product business, but he sold it as a service. Totally different animals. We were always behind and had no chance of building any equity that way.

#2 - Four of us. A package for continuous manufacturers. I was one of 2 programmers along with a designer/analyst and a business guy. I should have been spending all of my time programming, but I spent 75% of it refereeing among the other 3. I kissed the ground when I left.

#3 - Two of us. A package for job shops. Things were just taking off when he died.

#4 - I'm taking everything I've learned from the other businesses and from my customers over the years and writing a self-service web app that builds enterprise quality systems for small & medium businesses. Single founder is the default. I'd gladly have a co-founder or two, but only if the fit is (almost) perfect. One of the many reasons I came to hn was the possibility of meeting co-founder(s). Who knows, it still may happen...

<comment><USER12> Your cofounder _died_? Wow, that must have been rough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> More single-founder stories: Overture (Bill Gross), eBay (Pierre Omidyar), Napster (Sean Fanning), Lycos (Michael Mauldin), Amazon (Jeff Bezos), AOL (William von Meister), Digg (Kevin Rose).

Source: "If you're going to launch a startup, how many friends do you need?": [http://buzzpal.wordpress.com/2008/01/06/if-youre-going-to- la...](http://buzzpal.wordpress.com/2008/01/06/if-youre-going-to-launch-a- startup-how-many-friends-do-you-need/)

<comment><USER14> Berkshire Hathaway/Warren Buffett. (Though the name at first was not BH)

<comment><USER15> You're probably thinking of Buffett Partnership, an investment fund which he ran largely by himself, using friends' and family money as initial capital.

Berkshire Hathaway is a textile mill that Buffett turned into an investment company, but by then he had been a successful investor for over 10 years.

<comment><USER14> I'm talking about the fund that he used to buy BH with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wasn't balsamiq (Peldi) a single founder? I've founded a few startups as a single founder, but they'd most likely be classified as Micro-ISV's instead of startups. But I'm okay with that.

<comment><USER17> He's married and I'm pretty sure his wife plays at least a peripheral role in the company... So, sort of(?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My first startup I was the sole Founder and I had a number of early employees. I was the prime mover and I was the one who had the most stock. Until we were funded, their salaries were paid with my savings. My second startup I was the Founder but I had a bunch of early employees who were called co-Founders. I was still the prime mover but no one was getting paid until we started to ship products. We basically had equal amount of stock even though I started the company first and I took risk when no one else would. My experience is that it was a lot harder to get VC fundings when there were large number of co- Founders. VC's are not company builders and in order to ensure timely execution towards a financially successful exit, they would have no problem firing the Founder(s). So in some way, having a large number of co-Founders is sub-optimal (for the VC's).

</comment><comment><USER19> I was a single founder when I started in 1994. Since then, I have had several businesses - none of them have been $10m businesses, but they have brought in great income. I grew two of them and then installed managers to take them forward - I still own them. Some thoughts from me:

1) I tried co-founders, but found that they didn't work as hard as me. Most people like to be lazy, so finding someone with the same work-ethic is difficult

2) I want to make decisions quickly and having a co-founder could slow that down for me

3) Employ people quickly who can help you. You don't need to give up part of your business to get good people. What motivates people is not just money - its often pride in a good job, good working conditions etc. I always run a very flexible in terms of time that people work. They work when they want and always get the job done

4) Don't be afraid to fire people. There are "givers" and "takers". I always fire takers as soon as I recognize them.

<comment><USER20> "Taker!?! Fired!"

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country."

<comment><USER19> Yeah, plainly spoken I know, but true :) Well, true from my experiences anyway!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Single founder here. But I'll admit it: I can use as much support as I can get sometimes.

I've been thinking of starting a "braintrust" of solo entrepreneurs so that we can pursue our respective passions but also reap some of the benefits of having a co-founder, by sharing ideas, debating stuff, etc.

Anyone interested in joining?

<comment><USER22> There's a couple of these already in progress, but you usually have to get introduced to them via your network. Ask around :)

<comment><USER21> I'd rather start my own ;)

<comment><USER23> I'm in. We have to meet at a scotch bar in NYC, though ;)

<comment><USER21> Deal!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> How I started my company is kind of funny. While talking to my friend, I had this idea I thought was great. I tried to sell it to him and asked him to develop it, but his heart was in doing another project, his own idea. I told him, it's not hard at all; let me show you. He was still not interested. I proceeded to do a design and built a prototype. One thing led to another, it became my product and my company.

</comment><comment><USER25> To be a single founder, you need to be quite special. Most people are not that special. A lot of those who _think_ they are that special, actually are not.

It's not smarts you need - it's self organisational ability, and most people lack that if there is nobody else watching them.

<comment><USER26> If you cannot self-organize then you likely would not make a very good co- founder either. I do not want to be the co-founder who needs watching over nor would I want to have a co-founder that needed me to watch over them. It's all external motivation and that's the worst kind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I couldn't agree more. I have been a Cofounder (with 4 others) once and a single founder twice (all 3 companies are profitable and alive). Based on my experience, I feel convinced that "unless" you start together as cofounders, its just very difficult/rare to "find" a cofounder who works out. There are a variety of reasons and I have seen some in my attempts at looking for one.

Being a single founder is tough, but for those who can do it , it can work really well. There are some strategic downsides to it like decision making is based on just the single founder's gut/knowledge/experience, and its important that single founders understand the downsides and work around them.

</comment><comment><USER28> I am a single founder because I don't think I would find a founder that would work equally harder, and have equally deep experience on the subject or simply be equally relentlessly resourceful.

I found that the only thing that makes me significantly upset in the startup is people I deal with. Working with another founder I bet would create a lot of conflicts.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is a bit unrelated, however I once heard a quote regarding co-founders:

"Even when there are multiple founders, somebody is in charge"

Co-founders don't necessarily mean "equals." You can have co-founders that are less involved than yourself (still giving you the value of a co-founder, without requiring them to be equally as invested as yourself).

Another thing to think about is ownership of the idea- almost by definition, the person who comes up with the idea will be the most involved. If you're looking for a co-founder, it will be much easier if you don't yet have an idea, and come up with one together.

</comment><comment><USER30> It would be nice to see a table with HN members and their startups next to them. Does anything like this exist?

<comment><USER31> There was a thread called "What are you working on?" here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1032699> and someone suggested the topic come up periodically, which I thought was a great idea. Even better, I think, would be if pg would add a 'Projects' link up top and the projects of members could be listed. The list might be sorted by vote, or perhaps randomly, and refreshed daily.

<comment><USER30> This is a brilliant idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm now a single founder (again). I also was a single founder with the first three startups I did. I keep trying out cofounders, but they all seem to lack perseverance. Most also have difficulty understanding the tech. I would welcome a business cofounder any day. Email me if you are interested.

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm a single founder. Thinking about crossing over to the dark side, but it's not such a bad life. You keep more control of the company, but things move slower as a result.

<comment><USER34> Why not just wait until you can employ someone? :)

<comment><USER35> Please, would experienced someones address this question?

For example, the essential difference between a co-founder and employee #1, and why you might want the one to perform some set of duties rather than the other.

<comment><USER36> Axod is mentioned in the article and his site, mibbit.com has over 100k uniques on compete. Are you saying he is in-experienced?

<comment><USER34> Compete makes it look bad! <http://www.quantcast.com/mibbit.com> FTW :)

I haven't employed anyone, but I'd say if the only thing you need is to 'speed up' as OP says, employing someone is probably the way to go. If you're still feeling your way around finding traction then maybe a cofounder. But this is just my 2c.

<comment><USER36> Yeah I need to get on quantcast.com too, the Nov/Dec numbers are way off for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> sid- Finding a co-founder who matches your views and passion on all the points mentioned above to a reasonable degree is as hard as finding the mythical soulmate. Maybe someone can have a startup like eHarmony (eCoFounder?) for finding such like minded people.

<comment><USER34> It's sort of worse. With relationships, if you break up, you move on, find another mate. You get over it. Once you're sure they're "the one", _then_ if you like you can do a family startup and create some babies.

But with a startup, you don't usually have any time before you start building something. So if something does go wrong, the split up is bad.

It'd be like having a baby with every one of your ex girlfriends :/

I think ideally founders should have already worked together on something.

<comment><USER37> The best idea may be to consciously "date" your co-founders by working with them on side projects, possibly open source.

<comment><USER38> This prospect is just scary to me. Personally I'd be looking for a co-founder as driven to succeed as I am. I've sat down with 1/2 dozen potential co- founders for one of my projects and have decided to go it alone because of this. I'm building a company to make money, not to give away the fruits of my labor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This comment on the article summed it up nicely for me:

"I always thought it was contradictory that venture investors call out "conflict between founders" as the #1 reason for startups failing, yet they're always very reticent about funding a single-founder startup."

</comment><comment><USER40> David Lean, the great film director, said you can only have one director on any film or you risk diluting the vision.

I think the same is true for creative startups. I find that getting employees and giving them stock and calling them 'co-founder' is all fine as long as there's no confusion that they're to follow my lead.

I think you can argue that all great startups are, in a sense, single founder startups. Woz for Apple, Gates for MS, etc.

<comment><USER41> Woz for Apple... Really?

<comment><USER42> Hell no! Woz and Jobs definitely co-founded Apple and build the Apple II. Woz never would have created a polished product on his own, and Jobs has never directly contributed to engineering. But you hire a lot of additional engineers, and not so many additional visionary leaders. Woz became less instrumental over time. As early as the first Macintosh release, Apple had become more Jobs than Woz, but that isn't saying much since Jobs soon left the company.

<comment><USER40> The Apple II had little in terms of "polish". Back then it was just about the technology, and the Apple II had it in spades. The Mac was more Jobs than Woz, but as I mentioned, the Mac was almost stolen outright from Xerox PARC.

 _visionary leaders_

Can you tell me what vision Jobs added to the Apple II?

<comment><USER42> Woz' retelling in Triumph of the Nerds (pbs.org/nerds) was that he had little- to-no self-confidence while working on the Apple I. The Apple I itself was a wooden box full of parts, barely suitable for a hobbyist, used to play simple games. The Apple II had a proper stylish case (with fancy logo), documentation, advertising, and a vision of a platform for personal computing to compete with the mainframe. It was a salable product, and extremely successful.

 _Mac was almost stolen outright from Xerox PARC_

Also incorrect. The Xerox Star was an expensive prototype used for research. Many ideas were taken from the Star, but while the first Macintosh looks a lot like a modern computer, the Star was quite different, even having windows that couldn't overlap and other things we would now consider silly.

But, Jobs didn't create the Macintosh - he just hired the engineers who worked on the Star to join his great engineering team to polish and productize it. His contribution has always been to set the bar and only allow things that are great into the final product. This is possibly the most important thing an executive can do, but rarely properly executed.

Cringely did a good job with Triumph of the Nerds (based on his book "Accidental Empires") - if you haven't seen it, I'm pretty sure that you can find it on YouTube.

<comment><USER40> Woz says that because he's a sweet guy. There's no right or wrong answer here, but I can tell you _I was there_ and no one cared what color the case was. The Apple II was a genius product for reasons that had NOTHING to do with: the case, the logo and the advertising. I'm sorry. Woz may be nice about it but historians will remember Steve Jobs as "the guy standing next to Woz in the photos."

<comment><USER42> _The Apple II was a genius product for reasons that had NOTHING to do with: the case, the logo and the advertising._

Well, yes... but there are many things that are genius that I have never heard of. And plenty that I know of that will never be well known.

 _no one cared what color the case was_

Well, Jobs did. As a programmer with some depth, I know how little engineers care about product development and marketing. Great things sell themselves, right? I used to agree, but after seeing the waste of unwanted products and the tragedy of unused pearls, I can no longer believe the Field of Dreams mantra (If you build it, they will come). The guts of the Apple II didn't sell themselves, and the color of the case _does_ matter to buyers. Certainly it was a feat of engineering that would have been impossible without Woz. I also think that it would have been a forgotten player without Jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> A friend of mine did hamachi.cc from start to the point where it was acquired by another company with 4 million users. That took 1.5 years. He did everything - the UI design, coding network interface drivers, the server, marketing, support, ecom site and business development. So, yeah, it's doable, and, yeah, the workload is ungodly, and, no, he didn't _want_ a co-founder.

</comment><comment><USER44> There are pluses and minuses.

I think emotional stability is the most important personality prerequisite.

Some advantages:

\- Zero communication overhead so you're more efficient.

\- Huge incentive to automate daily maintenance tasks.

\- You know the codebase inside out and can make massive changes (you understand the entire system). But that kind of thinking has also led me to screw up spectacularly so be careful.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm a single founder as well. I've learned the hard way that even those who initially seem to have the same drive and capabilities as I do usually don't in the long-run.

I started my first two companies alone, then started a third as a partnership with three others where I was a silent partner, then closed down my first company, then brought in a co-founder for my second company and renamed it, then took over the third company (the partnership) through buy-outs, then desolved my partner for the second (renamed) company.

It's kind of confusing, but the punchline is that every single co-founder who I at one time had a lot of confidence in has not held up their end (all of them admitting they hadn't at one point or another).

That being said, I would love to start a company with someone who shares my drive and capability.

</comment><comment><USER46> Nothing wrong with being a single founder, a 1 founder business with 40K in profit is already ramen profitable. A 2-3 founder business with 40K in profit is not.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm a single founder. I fall in the "tech cofounder" and would welcome a "business cofounder" any day. And, speaking of which, find me if you'd be interested.

</comment><comment><USER48> I think the Smart Bear guy was a single founder too.

(edit: His name is Jason Cohen)

<comment><USER49> CodeReviewer is one of the slowest/buggiest crap developer tools on Earth, largely due to its reliance on windows file sharing. It's often using 40% CPU for no reason, sometimes does not notify on new reviews, goes unresponsive every 2-3 days, etc.

Purely from an FU-money-exit point of view, I suppose SB was successful. But IMO that guy seriously needed a good technical cofounder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What a lot of single founders are out there! I am pleasantly supprised. I would dare predict that the first company to successfully compete with Ycombinator will be the one that does (truly) accept single founders.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm also single founder. I've spent quite a bit of time looking for a co- founder and would like a co-founder, but at this point, I figure I just need to ship something and worry about it later.

</comment><comment><USER22> Single founder, and damn it's tough. :)

</comment><comment><USER51> Interestingly, there seems to be a higher percentage of single founders in the MicroISV type of companies.

</comment><comment><USER51> patio11/Patrick is another single founder.

<comment><USER48> But he's also unusual in other ways. He never quit his day job and he doesn't live in any of the major technology areas.

(He's also remarkably forthright about his experiences and finances... something I find really motivating)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'm a sole founder and I'd love to have a smart, hardworking cofounder. I'm a nights and weekends coder and will likely remain so until it makes sense to go full time.

I'm currently developing (with Rails) a timeline app called Preceden, which will compete with more established timeline sites like Dipity and Lifeblob. I'm in the Philly area, but I'm shooting for the Bay Area in a few years. If you're interested in talking, you can find details in my profile.

P.S. We really need a central place for this.

</comment><comment><USER53> Single founder working on <http://www.whyspam.me> right now.

I like knowing how to do EVERYTHING that has anything to do with my application. I do design, coding, sysadmin, marketing, feedback studies. Its been a fun experience, but hopefully this will give me some street cred so i don't have to do it again. Maybe someone could do an article on best sources to outsource areas of web development in the future.

As far as i'm concerned my site development has been _free_ yes i have to pay server costs, etc. but i haven't had to outsource or hire anyone to do anything else yet. True i've spent quite a few of my own man-hours on the project but i consider the lessons learned and experience gained more than payback for that time.

I think being a single founder can be great if you're just getting started, and your idea is manageable, the lessons you learn will be invaluable. That being said, in the future, I would like to be able to produce more in less time, and having some extra help would be very nice, especially now that I know what I'm doing!

</comment><comment><USER54> Getting users is just as hard building a product. In a way it's harder, because it is very easy to put energy into product that should have gone to user acquisition. The biggest weakness of being a single founder is that you can't put 100% effort into getting customers (since you're distracted by building the product).

</comment><comment><USER55> To find someone to devote free time to more work, to reach the end goal that maybe months down the line is hard to do. I've been approached by others to join their side projects, but I would rather work on my own and I think this is maybe how a lot of people feel. Any other founders in this predicament as well ?

</comment><comment><USER56> I started a startup first, found a cofounder who subsequently completely ditched out when the economy sank us and we ran low on cash. Been running the product on fumes by myself ever since

Though I've admittedly almost burned out on it. I certainly understand why almost all my advisors insist on the necessity of a cofounder. When you hit the lows and there's no one there to balance off of you can just hit rock bottom. I think a lot of the single founder success stories are guys that had a lot in their favor when they started.

But maybe its also harder to kill a company when there's only one person. Like the business currently makes nothing but I could keep it alive as a hobby for 4 years and then sink money into it again when things change. Thats an advantage that a lot of startups don't have or think about, "slow cooking"...

</comment><comment><USER57> I have a fairly solid startup idea that I would like to pursue. Is it better to take the leap (i.e. should I give my 2 weeks notice from my current job), create a rough prototype of the product and then try to find co-founders based on the prototype? Or is better for me to try to find a co-founder that I can convince to help me with the idea and then take the leap (i.e. quit day job) to develop the prototype. What's hard for me is that without a 80% working prototype to share with potential co-founders, it's much harder to convince them that the concept is valid via power point slide decks, etc. From reviewing some history on Mint, it seems like Aaron Patzer went solo first, and then convinced people to join him based on his prototype. Are there other success stories like his?

<comment><USER58> It might be a better idea to make a at least a specification/business plan first without quitting since it will force you to really think through the idea. There are always facets you may have missed that could kill it (or convince you even more). If you decide to take a leap... you have a spec!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm a single founder, done all the work in product development, marketing, and sales. It's not bad at all.

</comment><comment><USER59> I was a single founder for a while. I farmed out a few projects and just happened to find a good coder and good person to start a company with..

Maybe it's something that should just happen organically? Has anyone met a cofounder at a mixer or cofounder matching site that worked out well?

</comment><comment><USER60> Me! while i always try to find someone to help me on my projects, it really is difficult to find someone as passionate a founder as I am. But I never let that fact stop me from doing what I do. It's also forced me to become technical.

</comment><comment><USER61> Personally I much prefer to be a single founder. If you have the technical skills, the rest can be learned. Not saying the business side of a startup is less important, just that it is easier and quicker to learn.

<comment><USER62> I'd be willing to bet that if you geeked-out on 'business' you'd find it's a much deeper subject than it appears to be from the perspective of a tech guy alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> It can work out, but it's a long road. [http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/2009/09/08/after-the- deadli...](http://blog.afterthedeadline.com/2009/09/08/after-the-deadline- acquired/)

</comment><comment><USER64> Ha! I first thought this meant "unmarried" rather than "unpartnered."

<comment><USER65> Same here. I clicked through thinking "Wow, I always thought most founders were single and being married made me a minority."

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I've been struggling as to whether finding the right co-founder for my startup is worth the effort.

I think I'm going to stick it out on my own, at least for now.

EDIT: I originally said I was "on the verge" of bringing out my startup, but the language bothered me. I've given myself a two-week deadline to get the Web site off the ground, and a bit more time after that to get the business actually running. HN taught me I should push myself to get the startup moving, or it'll never happen, and that's what I'm doing now. =)

</comment><comment><USER67> Single founder here (on xp-dev.com)

It can be really, really, tough at times (I remember being on the verge of pulling my hair out a few months ago), and it can get a little lonely, but I decided to go solo as I really didn't find anyone that could had the same level of ambition and resonated well with my personality. though that can change in the future. thinking about a couple of new ideas that I will be looking for co-founders.

</comment><comment><USER68> Another one here. But I'd love to have a cofounder that could bring something else to the table.

Maybe we should start a list of companies interested in finding cofounders?

</comment><comment><USER69> I've founded a few small things on my own (done.io probably the most recent, and working on something called Forrst now). Something I've noticed is that while it's great just executing on stuff by myself, it can be a very lonely place, and it's definitely easier to slack or give up on something without someone else depending on you.

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm a single founder: by circumstance of location, self-funding, age, and family. I do understand why investors prioritize investment into startups with co-founders. I suppose if I was splashing money around, I'd do the same.

I have been through enough to learn to engineer my startup plans to the resources I have.

</comment><comment><USER71> single founder working on the COD Network under <http://www.mcsquare.me> , I never knew how hard it could be, sure I've read it before but never could I imagine it's this hard. You have to do everything, blog pitch, SEO , hacking, bug tracking , monetisation strategy, design , and and and.....this is my first startup, so I learn many things the hard way and it's mostly a learn by doing. I'd gladly have a co-founder sometimes...I just entered the beta and I'll probably at some point need someone to help me, but I guess I won't name him co-founder.

</comment><comment><USER72> Single founder here. <http://Ear-Drum.org> \- an RIA to truly engage in rich music immersion; promotion, collaboration, education, and community.

I spent two years waiting for technology to catch up, refining the concept and business model according to how the industry was changing, and it's changed a lot. Just launched the beta a couple weeks ago.

Being a single founder has forced me to engage and figure out how each segment in the company functions. You're doing everything so when you grow and start hiring people you'd have developed deeper insights into how to manage them, what kind of results you should expect and what challenges they face. Experiencing the nitty gritty of every facet of your business is crucial - <USER2> believe, to steer the ship competently. It's not just about knowing the people but the shoes you're asking them to fill and being a single founder there's no option but to learn that, especially on days you'd otherwise just pass the task off to someone else or share the burden. Innovation comes out of struggle.

But it is a rollercoaster and it's equally important to have people in your life to pick you up when you hit the wall, and knock you down when you get too cocky. If those people can't relate to or can't appreciate the work you're doing then a lot of that support can be lost unless you can relate it to them and figure out how to get feedback. Being able to sell your idea to people outside your niche is a valuable skill to master in itself.

As for me, the beta testers and other musicians tend to be hugely passionate and supportive, but that source of inspiration might be limited to my particular product. People might not get as excited at you when you're working on postagestamplickers.com. It's important to tell people what you're doing and discuss your idea with as many people as possible. It's both motivating and good for spotting holes in your bucket. I'm a firm believer in doing over talking, but when you're cold, tired, and lonely you'll be glad you're on a solid path and took the time to store some enthusiasm away for the hard times.

I'm not explicitly for or against being a single founder, but in my case gaining a deep understanding of the company as a living breathing organism from every possible vantage point is absolutely the most important thing, which when it comes down to it, is about creating something organically and moving forward pragmatically. It keeps you from taking steps you're not ready to handle. If I had a co-founder certain things would be more fluid, but I'd miss out on a bunch of raw experience that will shape how I lead and venture in the future.

</comment><comment><USER73> Me. I'm working on my first, looking for help, but that good match is hard to find.

So, are we going to do something about this (like a support group or something) this or will this just die out after this thread?

</comment><comment><USER7> I work on my own, although I'm not really working in 'startup mode' at the moment. More doing consulting as a day job and testing out various ideas to see if any of them stick.

</comment><comment><USER74> I am a single founder, though my wife helps on occasion.

I do try to get as much advice and input from friends and colleagues as I can, so in all honesty I'd have to say it's a team effort.

</comment><comment><USER75> _point of view is worth 80 IQ._

More founders == more points of view. If some of them coincide with the customers' points of view, so much the better...

</comment><comment><USER76> I too am a single founder - my site/business is <http://www.podfeed.net>

</comment><comment><USER77> I'm a single founder - my site/business is <http://www.vivapixel.com>

</comment><comment><USER78> This thread reminds me of a quote a friend of mine says "If partners are so great, why didn't God have one?"

<comment><USER79> Well, depends on the religion.

(As an atheist, I'm still looking at my screen and waiting for my app to self- generate...)

<comment><USER80> Hence the interest in genetic programming ;)

Edit: Most systems seem to lack any sort of intelligent design

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> I am a single founder. Still keep my day job (tenure is a beautiful thing!).

</comment><comment><USER20> If you're a single founder, chances are the co-founder you'd take on most readily is another single founder.

</comment><comment><USER82> Curtiss P AisleFinder.com

</comment><comment><USER83> Isn't "single founder" just a result of not being able to get others to join your effort?

<comment><USER84> No! You could also be too greedy to share or too mistrustful to believe others won't screw up your idea.

Seriously, why so negative? It's not like five are necessarily better than two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Aye.

</comment><comment><USER86> single founder, for the simple reason that i like to be in control.

imho, it is always a mistake to make somebody not strictly necessary for the business a founder. dishing out vanity co-founder titles at employee level equity stakes is debatable.

</comment><comment><USER87> I thought it was too hard to start a company with a single founder because Paul Graham said so. That guy knows everything about start ups. He is possibly the greatest entrepreneur of all time and didn't benefit from a bubble or anything. Anybody more successful than pg only got there due to luck. Everybody involved with start ups should just read everything he writes, conform to it, and help spread the word. You can't become a trailblazer until you embrace this dogma.

<comment><USER40> This deserves the down votes because it's a little more smirky than funny, but there's a valid point here.

YC has has been called a cult before, and I don't think anyone would argue that there are some eccentricities, and one of these is the over-valuing of the two founder model.

 _You can't become a trailblazer until you embrace this dogma._ That's a great line, actually, and says it all.</comment></comment>


Are Baby Boomers a 'Generation of Sociopaths'? - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/baby-boomers-sociopaths_us_58b9a358e4b0d2821b4dd797 <comment><USER2> Seems like a pretty broad brush statement from a publication that frequently chastises others for stereotyping.</comment>


Asciidots Is the Coolest-Looking Programming Language - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a33dvb/asciidots-is-the-coolest-looking-programming-language <comment><USER2> For a really cool syntax check out hello world written in the Whitespace language: [http://daly.axiom-developer.org/hello.w](http://daly.axiom- developer.org/hello.w)

No, it's not a blank page. It's a page of spaces, tabs, and newlines but it compiles and runs.

Now you can publish all of your source code in Whitespace.</comment>


Is it a bad idea to move to San Francisco? - <AUTHOR> I am a frontend developer planning my next career move. I've been slowly compiling a list of companies around the world who are working on problems I find important, interesting, and relevant to my background. Almost all of them are hiring for positions in SF.
I'm well aware of the neverending housing crisis and social problems there. It scares me, but the work and compensation is enticing.
Should I stay away? What salary is needed for a reasonable quality of life there? Are you happy there? What expectations should I have? <comment><USER2> Two decades in SF, moved here in my twenties and have moved a few times within the city and now have a family here.

Ideally you find a rent controlled apartment, which is the majority of older homes and apartments, built prior to 1979. It'll be very expensive initially (assuming the landlord raises the rent upon move in as they do) but less so over time. My family has been in ours for 8 years now and it's now cheaper for us to stay in SF on my solo salary than to move to most other major cities. We invest money into other asset classes and property outside of SF since we'll likely never afford a home in SF proper nor would we want to own one, for multiple reasons.

We love it here, as a software dev I have LinkedIn opportunities knocking down my door, food, activists, weather all amazing imo. We might consider moving to a cheaper city at some point or if our kids end up in the lottery system of public schools.

Homelessness, crime and drug abuse hasn't improved imo. You take the good with the bad.

Anecdotally I had a close friend leave SF for a year to travel and came back to SF last month after missing it. He stayed in an Airbnb in Bernal heights for a month and managed to find a shared rent control apartment in that time for a below market price. His trick was he accidentally emailed the wrong ad on Zillow that wasn't listed under apartments for rent. And the home owner emailed him back saying he hadn't considered renting the home but was interested, they met and he soon moved in.

So as a renter thinking outside the box can pay off. But in general with house hunting be persistent, be early, act fast, have credit reports, references and the biggest paystubs you can procure and network like crazy.

Also some companies will pay for relocation and/or have temporary housing, so maybe get an offer first then move out here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the thoughtful response! Are studios in the city out of the question for an early career couple? Should we be looking at Oakland or outside the city?

<comment><USER2> I haven't personally looked at studios outside of open houses I see in my hood, the ones I've seen are super tiny and very expensive. But I'd look at everything. Also be prepared to be turned down by competing renters that might be just some single rich person.

If you're open to a roommate you'll get more for your money and might find it easier to get established. We did that for 3 years before getting married then later took over the whole place. As long as you keep getting promoted/raises and your rent can only go up by 1-3% annually then eventually it'll swing in your favor. We played the long game.

Also with roommates there are sometimes situations where you can find something rent controlled and below market rate when someone else is already living there but your much less likely to find that with studios or property management companies.

One downside is in the unlikely situation that you're evicted (hard to do in most rent controlled houses) and your name isn't on the check then you're not protected or paid out to the same extent as the rent payer is.

Oakland will be cheaper and more space and is becoming fairly trendy. But then you have to commute and it's a totally different vibe than SF. And I believe annual rent increases are allowed there. Home invasions are more rampant there too which freaks me the fuck out.

The Oakland commute isn't too bad though imo, I'd probably choose commuting from oakland over north or South Bay if living in SF wasn't an option.

I will say, all complaints aside if you can make it work SF is awesome. I love that I can be at the beach one day, skiing the next, tech and biotech world hubs. Museums and science academy, parks in every neighborhood. There's a definite energy here. Not NY hustle but CA hustle. Just watch out for the poo on the sidewalks.

Edit: If you both end up working in/near soma and don't mind living on an island then Alameda is pretty underrated imo. I have coworkers who bike and ride the ferry over. The downtown is cute and safer feeling than nearby Oakland, more family friendly.

Also treasure island just got approved for a ton of construction for the first time. But it might be a couple years out and probably expensive cause new homes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I came to SF from Denver for a month to work, now I'm skipping my plane ride home.

This city is magical! I'm way happier, energetic, and alive.

</comment><comment><USER4> Four decades Bay Area native here. Yes, unless the salary more than makes up for the extremely-unbalanced cost of living. Housing and everything in SF is obscenely expensive. It's been this way for many years, but still people try to migrate there like lemmings because "everyone else is doing it," only to later realize either they're stuck and can never retire except into poverty OR are forced to leave and find somewhere else more suitable for saving money, raising a family and/or maintaining one's sanity. Don't move there lightly without a definite plan and budget, or you may likely find yourself either wasting time and money, or in ruins.

</comment><comment><USER5> Depends on what you want. You can make it work. If you eventually want a house, family etc... then you may have to leave.. depends on the IPO lottery etc... and what happens in the next 10 years due to the housing crisis. But there are tech jobs everywhere these days. There are also plenty of "midsize" companies where you can transition to a work remote job as well after a few years if you do find the Bay area out of reach.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just chiming in on a small request, any chance I can hit you up for a 15 to 20 min customer dev interview? email@example.com, trying to talk to eng/dev looking for jobs and how they filter down a list of companies. Would be much appreciated and happy to share about my time in SF too (although it was 4 years ago).

</comment><comment><USER7> See if the same companies are hiring in New York. Salaries will be roughly comparable but living in New York is vastly better in almost every way IMO.

<comment><USER6> Weather :)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I work in the valley, not SF, but still the same. Sorry if this sounds bleak, but out of 45 engineers in my workplace none has been able to buy a place. You'd need probably a 300k/year salary and above to buy anything in SF, or hit it big in your company stocks. The options are a longer commute, you decide how much. Rent is extremely high in the area also</comment>


Why haven't we cured cancer yet? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/personalized-medicine-vs-evolution/ <comment><USER5> This is one of the most fascinating and frightening things I have ever read. It really feels like staring cthulhu in the face.

TLDR: _Breast cancers, for instance, have been shown to harbor at least 1,700 different mutations, but only three of them showed up in at least 10% of patients, with the great majority of them being unique to each patient. The most recent study in Nature discussed above shows that even a single subtype of breast cancer that is generally treated clinically more or less the same, TNBC, varies wildly (and almost continuously) in the genomic changes and mutations each tumor has. Not only that, but each TNBC is in essence several diseases, because each TNBC is made up of many different clones that have evolved as the tumor itself grew, progressed, and evolved. All of this occurs even before the tumor has been subjected to any treatment at all. As if that's not bad enough, it would appear that tumors are a mosaic of groups of many different tumor cell types that develop through branching evolution such that metastases can be very different from the primary tumor and even different regions of the primary tumor can be very different from each other, so much so that finding a "favorable prognosis signature" on a core biopsy means only that that one area biopsied has that gene signature. Large areas elsewhere in the tumor could have the unfavorable prognosis signature._

And even more interesting if you look at the history of a tumor the mutations goes back for a fairly long time, possibly on the order of 30+ years. While it may not be an actual cure, removing abnormal cells early may be more effective than trying to treat cancer in the last 1-10% of it's lifetime when it's already become a diversified killing machine.

<comment><USER6> All this genetic diversity seems daunting at first but I think it is also indicative of something that gives me great hope.

Cancer isn't like a virus or pathogen that has evolved to avoid it our immune systems and treatments as it passes from individual. It is a degenerative state of the same system that produces healthy cells and fertile humans.

It is genetically very diverse. Part of this is because cancers cells often have mesed up chromosomal replication which produces more variability. Part of this may be because numerous genetic variations can have similar effects because they effect the same gene or network of genes.

As the author alludes to at the end of the paper, there are a number of things a tumor must do to be successful. These include avoiding the immune system, avoiding programed cell death, recruiting blood vessels/nutrients etc. There has been lots of really promising research in the last few years that looks at analyzing and targeting the pathways that control these things.

Further as projects like the the Cancer Genome Atlas (which I work on as a Software Engineer) produce terabytes of data about cancer, we are able to apply modern data analysis to better understand the system, hopefully discovering what separates the biochemical state of an aggressive cancer from one the body handles without issue which will hopefully lead to some novel drug targets.

<comment><USER7> Here's something interesting about a common chemical compound called Dichloroacetic acid (DCA). Big pharma is ignoring it since it can't be patented (because it's so common).

 _Cancer cells change the way they metabolize oxygen in a way that promotes their survival. In laboratory studies of isolated cancer cells grown in tissue culture, DCA restores the original metabolism, and promotes their self- destruction. This has led to the use of DCA for treating cancer, by individuals experimenting with it themselves, by doctors administering it to patients as a non-approved drug, by scientists testing it in cancer tissue cultures in cell culture and in mice, and in human Phase II studies. DCA has improved certain biochemical parameters, but it has not demonstrated improved survival.

Cancer cells generally express increased glycolysis, because they rely on anaerobic respiration that occurs in the cytosol (lactic acid fermentation) rather than oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria for energy (the Warburg effect), as a result of hypoxia that exists in tumors and malfunctioning mitochondria. [9] [10] Usually dangerously damaged cells kill themselves via apoptosis, a mechanism of self-destruction that involves mitochondria, but this mechanism fails in cancer cells. A phase I study published in January 2007 by researchers at the University of Alberta, who had tested DCA on human[11] cancer cells grown in mice, found that DCA restored mitochondrial function, thus restoring apoptosis, allowing cancer cells to self-destruct and shrink the tumor.[12] These results received extensive media attention, beginning with an article in New Scientist titled "Cheap, 'safe' drug kills most cancers".[11] Subsequently, the American Cancer Society and other medical organizations have received a large volume of public interest and questions regarding DCA.[13] Clinical trials in humans with cancer have not been conducted in the USA and are not yet final in Canada, emphasizing the need for caution in interpreting the preliminary results.[13][14]_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid>

<comment><USER8> Big pharma isn't ignoring it because of the patent issue, they are ignoring it because it doesn't work that well.

They may not be able to get a "composition of matter" patent on it, but they could get a "use" patent on it.

For a great example of a VERY common chemical that big pharma is developing, check out BG-12 from Biogen. It's dimethyl fumarate, something you can buy in ton quantities and most labs have jars of it. They are developing it for MS and it looks quite promising.

[http://www.drugs.com/clinical_trials/oral-bg-12-dimethyl- fum...](http://www.drugs.com/clinical_trials/oral-bg-12-dimethyl-fumarate- significantly-reduced-multiple-sclerosis-ms-relapses-disability-12528.html)

<comment><USER7> They don't know DCA doesn't work that well because they are not spending money on R&D.

I agree they can get a use patent on DCA, as a matter of fact the researcher from University of Alberta already has a use patent on DCA as a cure for cancer.

interesting info on BG-12. thanks.

<comment><USER8> Big drug companies are CONSTANTLY exploring new areas, trust me, they looked into DCA and found it wanting.

I can't personally attest to the amount of R&D dollars spent by pharma on R&D, but it has been EXTENSIVELY studied, just checked out pubmed (gov't funded research).

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=dichloroacetate>

If DCA were an effective agent, they would have handed the U of A a handsome check for that use patent. They didn't, so what does that tell you?

<comment><USER9> I have a question. There are loads of cancer charities, such as Cancer Research UK, . Does donating to these make any difference in progressing the research for a cure/treatement or does it not make any serious dent compared to the big pharmas?

<comment><USER10> Yeah, it does. But mostly because big pharma's actual "research" is pretty slim. Most basic research is done by university professors and their labs, which are then sold, licensed or simply picked up by big pharma.

Basically, big pharma doesn't have much time or money to spend on basic research since it has to run clinical trials and make money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We haven't cured a lot of things. Well, we've cured lots of small things, but few of the doozies.

A baldness cure has been ten years away for the last thirty years. No cure for blindness, AIDS, lost limbs. Remember the blue denim dye that killed cancer? What happened to it?

If something is "ten years away", it means we simply don't know how to do it, we are just hoping for someone else to come up with the tech to solve it for us. Even if it's "five years away", it's suspect. Why not just release it now? Oh, because it doesn't work. I'll believe something if it's being currently tested on monkeys.

We simply don't have the technology yet to solve these problems. These problems won't likely be solved in medicine, but in another field that discovers the solution accidentally, likely in nano or AI/statistics.

If you want to speed things along, make sure the government is dropping lots of coin in R&D in many NEW or PROMISING fields, not just medicine. Encourage intellectual property rights for innovative firms that do real R&D, and not just relabel their old products. Encourage your smart friend to go into bio- stats and not quantitative finance.

<comment><USER5> Most of the big things we cured where diseases that no-longer seem to be a big deal because they where cured. Food born illness, measles, and smallpox are all things that have killed more people than AIDS and are no longer a problem in the western world.

Measles what's that? _If vaccinations were stopped, each year about 2.7 million measles deaths worldwide could be expected._ <http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm>

And "Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000 BC... Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300–500 million deaths during the 20th century" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox> We are talking about something that killed around A BILLION PEOPLE and now it's 'gone'.

At it's current rate AIDS might catch up to Smallpox 200-600 years from now. But, that's just deaths the side effects where far more common. She might not be dead but I don't like seeing this picture. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Child_with_Smallpox_Bangla...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Child_with_Smallpox_Bangladesh.jpg)

PS: You say there is no cure for blindness, but smallpox was responsible for 1/3 of all blindness cases which just don't happen any more.

<comment><USER12> Actually creating most of the viral vaccines is more like theming a computer interface, you just need to plugin the new virus into your already well defined research work flow. That's the only reason we even have so many vaccines for so many viruses (even considering mutations and unknown strains).

Drop in one virus (AIDS, H1N1) which is out of the well known workflow and every thing goes haywire. I think the main reason for this whole mess is that, out of all the STEM fields, biology is the most trial and error prone.

It's the equivalent of trying to prove a mathematical formula every single time you want to use it because there are no axioms. Until some one discovers some standard good for everything axioms in biology, it will continue to be retarded cousin of all STEM fields.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What I got from this:

\- Cancer is complex, its profile is not that of 1 disease but many hundreds of diseases

\- Sequencing Cancers and attempting to find a match to suggest a treatment will not work, each cancer is unique and itself made up of a diverse population

\- Cancer is mutiny combined with the greed of evil dictators. A bunch of cells give up the chain of command and start co-opting resources to feed their opulent lifestyles. What this means is that no simple cure is going to work, cancer effectively exists to solve the problem of maximizing its growth or survival rate. Treatments are just another constraint that increase the dimensionality of the cancers' search space.

\- Tumorous cell lines are invaders even if they originate from the body and evolve at a breakneck pace. This is why many treatments fail to work - <USER2> that the ideas behind them are wrong but the system has outsmarted it. Cancer is dynamic not static.

I found this inspiring and positive. While some may despair from a lack of a cure what I see is progress. We've gone from the boundless optimism that comes from ignorance to the sober determination that comes from an awareness of the extent of our ignorance. So now maybe the real work can begin.

He says tackling the evolutionary aspect of cancer will be key. I wonder if game theory will inform future treatments. Or if there will be things people will take to reduce mutations or lend better error correction - outside immune and optionally germ cells. Or ubiquity of sensors allowing one to cluster features which determine the onset of cancer and forming tests to pinpoint and drugs to eradicate before the cancer stage. I wish I was not so ignorant.

<comment><USER14> >\- Sequencing Cancers and attempting to find a match to suggest a treatment will not work, each cancer is unique and itself made up of a diverse population

It seems to me that sequencing is a must, rather than a "not work," as without that type of intelligence one can't even know what you're up against. You just need to take into account the diversity of mutations, and not assume that you've seen everything that's currently in the population.

<comment><USER13> You are right. I did not mean that sequencing shouldn't be done, what I meant was that the simple idea of sequence -> nearest match -> most appropriate treatment won't work due to the massive amount of variance involved. So the sequencing will be more useful at higher level. So more understanding patterns and devising strategies than personalizing cocktails.

<comment><USER14> Ah, I see what you're saying. Though even going with the best treatment in the nearest match is a huge leap forward over what we can currently do. I see two ways forward, using the current class of chemotherapeutics + small molecule/antibody targetted therapies. As straw men, they are:

1) come up with a totally complete model of what everything in the cell does, how the mutations affect those interactions amongst gene products, and change the cell, and then designing some treatment to selectively kill that tumor population and to also block off obvious avenues to evolve resistance.

2) the "dumb" approach, figure out classes of disease, and try to use induction from the results of previous patients in that class of disease to figure out the best treatment for the current patient.

Right now both avenues are being pursued as best as possible. The first straw man is far from being approachable; we know so little about molecular biology, and when physics can't even figure out how to fold a protein, how are we going to be able to figure out changes to protein-protein binding dynamics, etc? Not that it can't be done eventually, but it's a very tough road.

The second approach is probably the best we can do now, and corresponds very well to the type of machine learning that is being researched these days. Even without full understanding of the biological system and the effects of all possible mutations, we can combine what we currently know with machine learning to construct a black-box for the parts of molecular biology that we don't yet know. I think that this is probably the most reasonable path forward for the time being, though we clearly need some intelligent way to guide studies into the combinatorial effect of targeted therapies.

<comment><USER13> I think Moore's law can help to an extent with approach 1, especially the protein folding bottleneck. We also need better computational techniques, taking more from dynamical systems maths for example.

I think approach 2 can also inform approach 1. Especially if grey and clearbox models are used - probabilistic graphical models, markov logic networks even genetic programming. So instead of using them for just prediction or a distance metric, we study the patterns in the models they produce. For example, instead of merely fitting a bunch of weights in some sum product model, one could use genetic programming where the primitives represented actual computations from a simplified model of cell dynamics. So while not guidance it still offers some way of embedding some intelligence in the search.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> ... Because PhD's can barely feed themselves.

... Because the "smart" people work on Wall Street/for consulting firms.

... Because Facebook acquired Instagram.

<comment><USER10> This needs some more love. Consider the cycle of academic career:

-Grad school for 5-8 years, averaging around 7 for most molecular and cellular biologists. You make $23-28k a year depending on where you live. You steal whatever free food is lying around your department

-Post graduation, you obtain a Post-Doc position for ~2 years (if everything goes well). This pays ~40k/year, again varying depending on region.

-If you got lucky and had a successful Post-doc, skip to the next bullet. Otherwise, go back to the last bullet for another 2-8 years.

-Get a junior professor tenure-track position. Salary is much better, probably around 60-80k. You have five years to prove you are awesome. At five years, go to the next bullet

-Tenure review! How many awesome papers did you publish?

\---Not enough? go try again at a different university...hopefully your family is willing to relocate or there is one nearby. If you fail tenure review twice, you get to be an adjunct professor (zero job security, crap salary) for the rest of your life.

\---Well, you don't completely suck...so we are giving you another two years to prove tenure. Go back to the last bullet.

\---Wow! You got tenure! Welcome to the elite minority that actually make tenure. You get a nice salary bump up to 100-150k, have total job security, do zero science anymore (glorified manager now) and are probably in your 40's. Feels good, huh?

And people wonder why things are slow in biology? If this was a sales funnel, you would notice hideous conversion rates between all the steps. People burn out because of intense competition for few spots, crappy salary and crappy hours.

If you work finance, you may work 90 hour weeks but at least you make lots of money. In biology...you work 70 hour weeks for food stamps and the hope of getting tenure when you are 40.

<comment><USER16> The difference is people rarely go into academic research for money - it's not just a job, it's a lifestyle choice. If you wanted to do research and receive better compensation you could work in industry or for a government lab - <USER3> research but less freedom.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but the harsh reality of life often gets in the way of your lifestyle choice.

I've known several post-docs that have a wife and kids...and zero in savings because they only make $40k a year. Not everyone can afford to continue "doing what they love" when they have a family to provide for.

A lot of these people leave academic research to take up industry jobs where they reformulate cholesterol medication or research new ways to cure allergies.

I personally got out of biology because I enjoy software engineering just as much, but one compensates so much more in terms of pay. If I was making an equal salary in biology, there would be a good chance I would still be there trying to solve the world's problems.

So I suppose that's my point. Not everyone has the willpower, option or incentive to stay in a field they would otherwise enjoy working in, simply because of the timescale involved and the meager financial pay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Fascinating paper on returns on cancer research out of the NBER argues that for about $300 billion in cancer research expenditures from 1988 to 2000 the US created 23 million life-years worth, in aggregate, about $1.9 trillion [1]. That comes to about a 52% smoothed return. Pretty good given that the S&P 500 grew at about 14.6% over the same period (though if similarly smoothed yielded about 42%).

[1] <http://www.nber.org/papers/w15574.pdf?new_window=1>

[2] [http://quicktake.morningstar.com/index/IndexCharts.aspx?Coun...](http://quicktake.morningstar.com/index/IndexCharts.aspx?Country=USA&Symbol=SPX)

<comment><USER18> Is there some way to make a fund investing in research with returns based on the effectiveness of the results?

<comment><USER17> If you could find a counter-party to enter into a swap with you can base it on anything. But given that it would be virtually impossible to hedge you would have the odds severely stacked against.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Highly recommended reading on the subject : The Emperor of All Maladies : Kindle URL - [http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-All-Maladies- ebook/dp/B003UYUP...](http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-All-Maladies- ebook/dp/B003UYUP58/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333996630&sr=1-1)

</comment><comment><USER20> <rant type="likely-naive"/>

We can never "cure" cancer. We might be able to save most individuals from dying from it some day but cancer is just a mutation that makes a cell's behavior damaging/lethal to the host body. The only way to prevent "bad" mutation (because there is no sure way to discern 'bad' from any other mutation) is to stop mutation all together, and even if there way a way to do this (removal of radiation does not stop transcription errors) stopping mutation is a nice kindly way to ensure the extinction of the species (no chance for future biological adaptation, because there are no mutations). So, as evil and painful as cancer is, it is a symptom of a good thing, biological mutation and variation in our species, and any through and final "cure to all cancer everywhere" will have to stop the cause of cancer, mutation, which we as a society and species should not allow.

</rant>

<comment><USER21> I disagree that we should not allow such a thing if it existed. I think humans are a bit past the need for biological evolution. Technology can provide us with the ability to adapt to new challenges and environments, and can do so much more quickly.

<comment><USER22> Also, plenty of biological evolution can happen in the absence of mutation.

<comment><USER23> I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. Evolution is simply the changing of allele frequencies over time, which can certainly happen in the absence of mutation. Although, I don't know that I would say "plenty" of evolution can happen without mutations, but I guess that depends on what you think "plenty" is.

<comment><USER24> Only changing allele frequencies is proven to result in a stable state. You need mutation for evolution.

<comment><USER23> Changing of allele frequencies can occur by creation of new alleles (ie. mutations), but it doesn't have to. The definition encompasses both possibilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One angle I feel is often missed in the whole cancer discussion is that it's a multidimensional problem.

1) Developing drugs which can damage cancer cells selectively.

Like selecting a few needles in a haystack, cancer cells typically "look" the same as healthy cells, which makes selectively destroying them very difficult. Some cancers (such as CML) have a specific driver mutant proteins which allows for a pinpoint attack (Gleevec), but if this target protein mutates and Gleevec can no longer bind then that drug instantly becomes totally ineffective.

2) Identifying malignant tissue

Surgery is still one of the most important tools against many forms of cancer, yet being able to identify malignant tissue vs. healthy stuff has always been a problem. In the first half of the 20th century the radical mastectomy was all the rage, but in reality provided little benefit. I was lucky enough to see Roger Tsein speak a few years ago (Nobel prize for GFP) who is pioneering a way to fluorescent tag malignant tissue which can be viewed in real time to give surgeons an augmented reality overview of a tumour to maximize the chance of getting all the malignant cells.[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Y._Tsien#Fluorescence- ass...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Y._Tsien#Fluorescence- assisted_cancer_surgery)].

3) Stopping metastasis

Even if a patient presents with a tumour and that tumour is removed, it's impossible to tell if any of the maligant cells have managed to escape to other parts of the body, where they slowly start to regroup before launching a subsequent attack. This is the primary reason why cancer survivors have 5Y and 10Y survival rates as opposed to, "You're cured". The mechanism and time in a cancer at which this happens depends on so many factors its currently almost impossible the predict.

4) Drug delivery

The tumour micro environment is so foreign compared to the normal stromal environment, and moreover so heterogeneous between tumour types (which in turn depends both on a cancer's underlying genotype and its associated tissue, vascularization and a wide range of additional factors) that creating drugs which can just _survive_ long enough to act on their target can be difficult. This, combined with the fact that tumours are, compared to normal tissue, often poorly vascularized, means just getting drugs in can be a major challenge. I remember reading how often the vascularization of a tumour can be proportional to rate of growth and inversely proportional to chemotherapeutic efficacy (although don't quote me because I can't find the reference) meaning smaller, slower growing tumours often represent those most difficult to treat while larger, more aggressive ones may respond better, if caught in time.

5) Cancer is effectively microscale evolution

Perhaps the biggest problem is that once cancer cells begin to acquire some initial mutations (and lie in a pre-cancerous form) they're often more susceptible to further mutations. In a way, this allows them to employ a sort of bet-hedging strategy, such as that seen by yeast or other single celled organisms. No longer can we treat the cancer cells as part of our multicellular body, but as a separate, single celled population. This means that even if certain drugs are effective, there will be a small population of cancer cells who may have mutated in such a way that they are resistant, so even if a treatment gets 99% of the cells, that final 1% can restart and the same bet-hedging strategy is re-employed to create another, diverse set of cells. This is totally analogous to antibiotic resistance. The range of this diversity varies significantly between cancers, but as we "pick out" the easier ones with an obvious target, this will become an every increasing issue.

These are just a few points - there are more, but I've tried to focus on ones not yet brought up in discussion. This is an area I have some experience with, and if anything is unclear let me know and I'll do my best to explain.

[EDIT]: This is not meant to be quite as, "we're all doomed" as it appeared. I think Dn_Ab's post summarizes how I feel more accurately. The development in a range of different areas has been staggering (childhood leakemia, CML, Her2+ BC etc), and the reason this is such a daunting task is because the magnitude has only reared its large, complex head in the last 10-15 years or so. Despite the challenges, it is a very exciting time to be a cancer biologist.

<comment><USER25> I'm going to be a heretic and argue that the problem with cancer research is institutional, not biological. The biological problem is clearly very hard, but the institutional problem is impossible.

You might or might not be familiar with the term "OODA loop," originally developed by fighter pilots:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop>

If the war on cancer was a dogfight, you'd need an order from the President every time you wanted to adjust your ailerons. Your OODA loop is 10-20 years long. If you're in an F-16 with Sidewinder missiles, and I'm in a Wright Flyer with a Colt .45, I'm still going to kill you under these conditions. Cancer is not (usually) a Wright Flyer with a Colt .45.

Lots of programmers are reading this. Here's an example of what life as a programmer would be like if you had to work with a 10-year OODA loop. You write an OS, complete with documentation and test suites, on paper. 10 years later, the code is finally typed in and you see if the test suites run. If bug - your OS failed! Restart the loop. I think it's pretty obvious that given these institutional constraints, we'd still be running CP/M. Oncology is still running CP/M.

Most cancer researchers are not even _in_ the loop, really. For one thing, 90% of your research is irreproducible:

[http://www.pharmalot.com/2012/03/many-cancer-studies-are- act...](http://www.pharmalot.com/2012/03/many-cancer-studies-are-actually- unreliable/)

Even when the science is reproducible, your cell lines and mouse models are crap and bear little or no resemblance to real tumors. You know this, of course. But you keep on banging your heads against the wall.

What would a tight OODA loop look like? Imagine I'm Steve Jobs, with infinite money, and I have cancer. Everyone's cancer is its own disease (if not several), so the researchers are fighting one disease (or several), instead of an infinite family of diseases. They are not trying to cure pancreatic cancer - they are trying to cure Steveoma.

Second, they operate with no rules. They can find an exploit in Steve's cancer genome on Wednesday, design a molecule to hack it on Thursday, synthesize it on Friday and start titrating it into the patient on Saturday. Pharmacokinetics? Just keep doubling the dose until the patient feels side effects. Hey, it worked for Alexander Shulgin.

Moreover, Steve isn't on just one drug. He's got thirty or forty teams attacking every vulnerability, theoretical or practical, that may exist in his cancer cells. Why shouldn't he be attacking his cancer in 30 ways at the same time? He's a billionaire, after all.

Not everyone is a billionaire. But if you do this for enough billionaires, the common elements in the problem will start repeating and the researchers will learn a repertoire of common hacks. Eventually, the unusual becomes usual - and cheap. This is the way all technology is developed.

Of course, someone might screw up and a patient might die. You'll note that a lot of cancer patients die anyway. Steve got a lot, but he didn't get this - why not? It would be illegal, that's why. Sounds like something the Nazis would do. Nazis! In our hospitals! Oh noes!

The entire thrust of our medical regulatory system, from the Flexner Report to today, is the belief that it's better for 1000 patients to die of neglect, than 1 from quackery. Until this irrational fear of quack medicine is cured, there will be no real progress in the field.

The entire process we call "drug development" is an attempt to gain six-sigma confidence that we are not practicing quack medicine. Especially for cancer, do we need all these sigmas? And are we obtaining them in an efficient way? I can't imagine how anyone would even begin to argue the point.

What is the source of this phobia? It is ultimately a political fear - <USER4> on public opinion. Its root is in the morbid, irrational fear of poisoning. But it also has a political constituency - all the people it employs. In that it has much in common with other "anti-industries," like the software patent mafia.

<comment><USER26> You are ranting about your own confabulated view of cancer research.

Crizotinib is a case in point. It is a small molecule that works very well for lung cancer, but only if a patient's cancer has a particular chromosomal fusion. This drug went from being a 'candidate' molecule to having gold standard data and FDA approval in 5 years. No fantasies about billionaires required.

The way you conceptualise a cancer patient's plight is also insulting and grotesque. They are not nihilists willing to try anything, who we can gladly sacrifice in our pursuit of cure. They have family and friends, and they really want to go their granddaughter's wedding next month and if you harm them with loosely justified bullshit science, you haven't helped anyone.

<comment><USER25> _This drug went from being a 'candidate' molecule to having gold standard data and FDA approval in 5 years._

Five years! I know that's fast by industry standards. Why, it's only one more year than it took us to win World War II. Also, for a full measure of the OODA loop, you should start counting from when the target was discovered.

 _The way you conceptualise a cancer patient's plight is also insulting and grotesque. They are not nihilists willing to try anything, who we can gladly sacrifice in our pursuit of cure. They have family and friends, and they really want to go their granddaughter's wedding next month and if you harm them with loosely justified bullshit science, you haven't helped anyone._

"Insulting and grotesque" is apparently in the eye of the beholder. I actually find this attitude pretty insulting and grotesque.

Some patients, it's true, are very comfortable being paternalized. Both my grandfathers were killed by the present standard of care in prostate cancer, "watchful waiting." They were both men who would have died rather than challenge an authority figure. And die they did.

<comment><USER10> Honest question: would you be less bitter about your grandfathers' death if they had been given some unproven, entirely experimental risky drug...and then died immediately after because of said drug?

How would you feel about your grandparents being used as a few more numbers to confirm that a drug is not, in fact, effective or safe in treating prostate cancer?

<comment><USER25> _Honest question: would you be less bitter about your grandfathers' death if they had been given some unproven, entirely experimental risky drug...and then died immediately after because of said drug?_

I'd feel much better about it. Because I know that they'd have been killed in the front line by a shell - not in the Paris latrines by cholera.

My father's father fought in the Battle of the Bulge. They weren't pussies back then, you know.

 _How would you feel about your grandparents being used as a few more numbers to confirm that a drug is not, in fact, effective or safe in treating prostate cancer?_

Typically when you're trying to "confirm" something it means you think you know it anyway. No, I don't think any p-value is worth dying for.

Your turn. Honest question: here's a story by a UK woman who jumped for joy to learn her cancer had spread, because it meant she could get into a trial:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9193018/Back-to-work- after...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/9193018/Back-to-work-after- radical-cancer-treatment.html)

How do you feel about this situation? Is it by any chance a little too "Tuskegee" for your sensitive ethical vibrissae?

<comment><USER10> No need to get hostile. My girlfriend's mother died from a very aggressive cancer just last year - I'm well aware of the painful reality of both cancer and treatment.

Regarding my comment about confirmation, there are always points in any experiment where you basically know the outcome, but just need a few more datapoints to pass that magical p < 0.05 number. At that point, they are technically just killing people and wasting time.

Of course that is a terribly cynical viewpoint. You could easily reword it to sound much more positive. But I think my original point still stands.

There are always going to cases like the woman's above - it is inevitable. You can't immediately clear everyone for every drug. Some drugs are _only_ effective when the cancer has progressed to a certain point. But barring technical problems, there just simply isnt enough money to pay for everyone to have every experimental treatment.

Triage and thresholding is an unfortunate necessity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Very interesting read... it boggles my mind how complex our organisms are and how cancer forms and takes everything over from the inside.

We can't even "cure" a relatively simple virus like the cold or influenza, and cancer is like 10,000x times more complicated - gotta respect all the hackers who're working in the medical field...

<comment><USER28> Viruses and bacteria evolve much faster than cancer, because they:

* Use horizontal genetic exchange, so different evolutionary branches can share features. This increases evolutionary speed exponentially.

* Evolve over a much larger eco-system, whereas cancer has to evolve "from scratch" in each individual over a relatively short time-span.

Thus, I think cancer should be a _much_ easier problem, from the evolutionary perspective, than bacteria and viruses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The whole concept of "curing" cancer is silly, and best abandoned. Cancer is just the name we give to the failure of certain kinds of cell regulatory systems, particularly those relating to growth and cell death. Coming up with a "cure" for "cancer" makes no more sense than coming up with a "cure" for buggy web programs. Just like with web programs, there are certain common patterns in cancers that can be addressed and mitigated (XSS, estrogen receptors). But over a long time horizon, all complex systems have failure modes, and that's all cancer is.

</comment><comment><USER28> If p53 is so critical that many cancers disable it, couldn't we genetically replicate it in our genome many times, to make it far harder for cancer to disable?

Why didn't this happen naturally, by evolutionary processes?

Is it because all copies of p53 can be disabled simultaneously via RNAi? If so, maybe particular disablers of p53 can be targeted too?

<comment><USER16> p53 operates as a tetramer (4 individual p53 [monomeric] proteins come together to form the active protein complex), and can have a dominant negative effect if one of the two p53 genes are mutated. This basically means we have two copies of the gene, but if one is mutated and you form a tetramer and 1 or more of the tetramer's monomers are mutants then that tetramer is far less active. Even if you had lots of copies of p53, its effect could still be down- regulated by a single mutant.

There's been some work to try and reactivate p53 where it's been knocked out, although I'm not sure how successful it's been. [http://www.ejcancer.info/article/S0959-8049(03)00454-4/abstr...](http://www.ejcancer.info/article/S0959-8049\(03\)00454-4/abstract)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Given the article talks about decades-long lead times before a cancer metastasizes, I hope that more attention begins to be focused on much earlier- stage detection and treatment. I think a lot of the problem is, by the time a cancer has metastasized and one begins showing _symptoms_ , it's already very late in the game to try and fix things.

From the article:

 _Moreover, as was discussed in at least a couple of talks at the AACR meeting, an evolution-based analysis of tumors using the latest NGS techniques indicates that for most solid tumors the time from founder mutation to clinically apparent metastasis is between 20 and 30 years. For example, for pancreatic cancer it's a median of around 21 years, and for colon cancer it's around 30 years._

<comment><USER7> early-stage detection and treatment is critical. I lost love ones to cancer because the cancer was not diagnosed early enough.

somewhat related to the discussion. saw this last week.

 _Daily Aspirin May Help Prevent and Treat Cancer

"What really jumps out at you in terms of prevention is the striking 75 percent reduction in esophageal cancer and a 40 to 50 percent reduction in colorectal cancer, which is the most common cancer right now," Dr. Rothwell said. "In terms of prevention, anyone with a family history would be sensible to take aspirin," he added._

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/health/research/studies- li...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/health/research/studies-link-aspirin- daily-use-to-reduced-cancer-risk.html)

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230472440457729...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304724404577295462452273218.html)

[http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20120320/daily-aspirin- may-...](http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20120320/daily-aspirin-may-help- prevent-and-treat-cancer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The National Cancer Institute's average yearly budget for cancer research is around $4.9 billion. NFL football revenue? $9 billion. Priorities.

<comment><USER32> What's the point of living if you can't have a little fun? Living merely for the sake of living is pointless.

<comment><USER31> Its odd. I was quite curious to float this opinion in this crowd. It is of course, wildly unpopular among the non-geeks in my "regular" life. I wondered if it would also be so here. Affirmative.

It always seemed to me that we should "take care of our business" first, and then play later. To see these numbers backwards (IMHO) struck me as a childish "play _first_ " attitude. I wouldn't go so far as to say "cancel sports until we get our health problems sorted out" but a shift in priorities would be refreshing.

Football is fun, finally cracking our genome to make disease obsolete (and I think nothing less than 100% of this cures cancer)... now that would be something to cheer about.

<comment><USER32> > It always seemed to me that we should "take care of our business" first, and > then play later.

This sentiment only works when the "business" is a low hanging fruit. In other words, very doable with reasonable effort with results in the short-term.

Anything else, and you hunker down for the long haul. And that means plenty of playing in the interim. For "business" that can take a lifetime or several lifetimes, no, you should definitely make sure you play and play vigorously.

Nobody should be asked to sacrifice the quality of their life for the sake of hypothetical benefits for future generations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The part that jumped out at me was this: "for most solid tumors the time from founder mutation to clinically apparent metastasis is between 20 and 30 years"

If cancer is really this ultimate chimearan opponent, why don't we put more emphasis on detecting it during the _twenty years_ before it becomes dangerous?

It would be difficult to detect changes at the cellular level at any location in the human body. But it sounds like a problem that will scale with "Big Data" a lot better than trying to fight evolution.

</comment><comment><USER34> Because it isn't nearly as important as Instagram, apparently: [http://www.evernote.com/shard/s146/sh/eb8c59f9-44b5-48bc-a24...](http://www.evernote.com/shard/s146/sh/eb8c59f9-44b5-48bc-a246-30f7478c101c/7ff15abcd6a9d9d91c23c23f8408c908)

</comment><comment><USER35> It seems like there needs to be a combination of cultural/societal changes favoring education in the life sciences, combined with funding. The launch of Sputnik led to an upsurge of focus in math and science education during the Cold War. To a much smaller degree, C.S.I. inspired a generation of forensic scientists.

Maybe the startup response to this piece should be to figure out ways to spark public interest in tackling this problems.

</comment><comment><USER36> Which business model do you prefer - ongoing revenue or one-time payment?

There's more money to be made by treating the symptoms than there is providing a cure. Anyone you know with a chronic disease will tell you that since their diagnosis, the price of everything related to the condition has gone up dramatically... cancer, ADD, diabetes, asthma, etc.

I wonder what ad-supported pharmacology business model would be like? Medicaid meets Madison Ave.

<comment><USER37> any corporation with a cure would have an immense advantage over any competitors

<comment><USER38> Also, even if there were only one corporation with a total healthcare monopoly then provided it could charge whatever it wanted it would still be able to make more money by just curing the cancer since it's providing a more valuable service by doing that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think that there is no widely known cure for cancer not because nobody know one but because currently used cancer therapies are much more profitable. For example there is something like Gerson's Therapy, I've never heard that someone proved it wrong. Why it's not used widely? Because there is no money to earn, there are just fresh vegetables so noone want to prove it right.

</comment><comment><USER40> A major reason is probably nuclear pollution. Nuclear tests have been replaced by radioactive waste and the results of many small and large incidents in nuclear facilities. An accident like Fukushima pollutes the whole planet, not just Japan and some parts of the Pacific. It would be much easier to fight such major reasons for cancer instead of trying to cure cancer.

</comment><comment><USER41> Good God, this article is depressing. I used to think we'd have some therapies to at least suppress new growth in my lifetime. If I'm understanding what he's written they don't even have a game plan for an effective treatment.

<comment><USER42> That was my first thought too. I've always thought of cancer as being beatable in ways that bacteria and viruses aren't since the latter get the benefit of evolution. It makes a lot of sense that rapid evolution is exactly why cancer has been so difficult to tackle.

The good news is that:

1\. Cancer survival rates have improved over the past and are continuing to improve; so we're still moving forward. 2\. I have a lot of hope in the power of technology to come to our rescue. a. Sequencing has to get to a point where it's done in minutes or seconds on a chip. b. Physicians' computer aids need to be Watson+. In order to be able to constantly categorize and target each mutation with a drug or suggestion for other treatment. c. Ideally, we need to get to the point where we can automate the synthesis of different types of drugs so that the cancer attacking system can customize treatments at the molecular level to dynamically attack cancers that are mutating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> because 99% of money raised to "fight" cancer is spent on finding a "cure" whereas only 1% of money raised is spent on prevention. 0% is spent looking at environmental factors:

\- nuclear waste alone: bomb testing in the 60's and 70's, uranium mining, Chernobyl, bullets tipped with depleted uranium used in recent wars, Fukushima Daiichi

\- systematic poisoning of the industrial food supply: genetically modified food, petrochemicals, drugs that are put in food

\- systematic poisoning of the environment, water, air, and land.

</comment><comment><USER44> Cynical answer: Because we keep inventing new carcinogens.

</comment><comment><USER45> Well, we have cured many kinds of cancer. There are many more left, of course.

People looking for a general cure lose sight of the amazing accomplishments already achieved.

</comment><comment><USER46> Because "Cancer is Serious Business" <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be1ihuZNg84>

</comment><comment><USER47> Not a surprise cancer hasn't been cured. Most diseases have not been cured, yet. Even bacterial infections. People can still die from staph infections.

</comment><comment><USER48> Maybe we have...

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science- news/9191848/Univ...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science- news/9191848/Universal-cancer-vaccine-developed.html)

<comment><USER49> it's hype. Read the blog post!

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> See also: "Facebook acquires Instagram [for $1B]"

</comment><comment><USER51> Because, like AI, molecular biology is complicated and _there are no quick hacks_.

Some things are meant to take time and be right. First time.

Survival rates are spectacularly better than they were fifteen or twenty years ago and they are getting better all the time.

Also there _is_ no one type of lung cancer, brain tumour or bladder or bowel cancer either. There are many different types. Half the battle is identifying (and successfully treating) the right sort.

I still think there will be cancer in fifty years time. But we won't have to die from it. We may never eradicate it though, because it _is_ a tough, complex bio-engineering problem, closely allied to programmed cell death and immortality. That's another tough nut to crack for the same reasons, inexorably intertwined as they are.

<comment><USER52> Do you have a reference for survival rates? Note that there are many confounding factors - lung cancer incidence has dropped a lot although lung cancer itself remains intractable to average cancer survival rates may have improved.

<comment><USER51> Small cell, granuloma, take your pick. The data is available world-wide. The fact is that lung cancer is one from which there is never a good prognosis regardless of type. People can expect 4-5 years on average (although I know people who have gone past ten and have a good quality of life).

It also is one where heredity and genetics plays an enormous role (as opposed to purely environmental conditions).

Like I said, molecular biology is something we've only just _noticed_ far less got a handle on.

Ars Longa Vita Brevis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I don't think we can cure cancer until nanotechnology tools can be used in many hospitals. Send some nanorobots to eradicate all cancer cells in the body, and that's it. But we're probably at least 20-30 years away from that.

</comment><comment><USER54> I have the answer. It's a simple one word answer. GREED.

But seriously It's the money that keeps us from curing cancer, or lack thereof. Nothing else. As human beings we really need to decide what's more important....Wealth or our survival and wellbeing. We're too smart as a society to let things like lack of money keep us from curing disease and exploring other planets.

<comment><USER22> It's not lack of money, it's lack of what money represents, which is goods, services, and in general labor. If the US wanted to spend $100 trillion on cancer cures it could, but the moment it printed all that money, the purchasing power of it would decline to the point that they wouldn't actually have enough money to cure cancer.

Consider a single cancer researcher. They need to eat. They need machines that sequence genes that use techniques developed by other researchers, designed by engineers, built by people in factories. All of those people need to eat. The raw materials are mined out of the ground in work that is environmentally damaging, hard work, and often dangerous work. It is not possible to snap your fingers and have more work immediately happen.

There have been exceptions to the above, but it has been temporary in export economies with exportable natural resources attainable at a below-market level (e.g. OPEC, Soviet Union).

You can't just say "Is it really just money that keeps us from doing X?" since money isn't the issue, it's that we don't have enough of the value that backs the currency.</comment></comment>


Code Spaces forced to close its doors after security incident - <AUTHOR> http://www.csoonline.com/article/2365062/disaster-recovery/code-spaces-forced-to-close-its-doors-after-security-incident.html

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7909791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7909791)

</comment><comment><USER3> "in the age of cloud infrastructure many organizations think that they can simply pass the buck on backups, getting their geographic distribution and redundancy 'for free' as part of going to the cloud," Thomas added.

"However, anything that's vulnerable to the same threats isn't fulfilling the original intent of offsite backups."

Yep. The old adage of all the eggs in one basket comes to mind. Sad story.</comment>