Exactly. It is quite optimistic and borderline naive to believe that YC can replicate the Manhattan project in every one of these fields with a few hundred grand and a few months in a dorm.
This is just a huge lack of perspective by people who've only worked on commercial software. Real science is very hard, very expensive, and does not result in billion dollar IPO's within 3 years.
I'm hoping that once YC realizes that such projects will never succeed through a startup incubator, they will become politically active and spearhead the reversal of the current decay of government funded science. Only the government has the resources, time and foresight to fund 50 year research projects in the fields listed in the RFS. I hope this becomes clear in time.
I agree, I think this list is just going to make folks add AI or science! to their startup idea in the hopes it has a better chance of getting in to an incubator.
This is just a huge lack of perspective by people who've only worked on commercial software. Real science is very hard, very expensive, and does not result in billion dollar IPO's within 3 years.
I'm hoping that once YC realizes that such projects will never succeed through a startup incubator, they will become politically active and spearhead the reversal of the current decay of government funded science. Only the government has the resources, time and foresight to fund 50 year research projects in the fields listed in the RFS. I hope this becomes clear in time.
EDIT - Here's a bit more of my thoughts on this issue from a previous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7614344