Is it BAD to jump to industry?

From the last post, in the comments, is a long question from Daniel. The crux of it (and you need to go there to read the background) is this question.

I find your last few entrys encouraging to such a direction, and you've acknowledged in the past the fear that's involved in making the jump out of academics. I guess what I want to know is -- Do you think it DANGEROUS to leave? In other wards, do you know of anyone that left academics and ended up (3 years down the road) in worse position versus someone who bit the bullet and did an academic postdoc?

An anonymous person says "yes" they know some people like that. So do I. I also know people who have stayed in academia and gotten progressively more miserable. Others who have stayed in academia for a long time always meaning to jump. Specifically the guy who graduated just ahead of me from our lab,took 8 years to jump over to industry. He always said he was going to, but just didn't get it done for quite awhile.

I would say EVERY step is dangerous. I will admit I have been lucky and others haven't been. I don't know why that is, but can't deny it. I would not say a jump to industry is any more/less dangerous than any other career move.

However, there are people who make the jump across to industry for purely the wrong reason, and those people fail.

They jump because they want a 1) EASY and 2)High Paying job. News flash, Industry jobs are NOT easier. They are higher paying, but if you went in expecting the EASY part the pay won't make it up for you. These people are doomed to failure, as business does demand results. I will write more about this in my next post.

Considerations for Management

In talking with my "mentor", and soon to be boss, about my choice of next steps up the ladder (see last post for the decision), we talked about a lot of things that you "need".

To get to the top, he declared you needed the following:

1. The "Vision" thing.
2. People management/logistics
3. "Portfolio" management
4. Technical ability

To explain these further, and in reverse order

4. Technical ability. This referred to a technical understanding of the science in the marketplace in question. For me, my Ph.D. takes care of this. Staying current is required. This was the least interesting for me, as the order was basically "Make sure you know the science you are trying to sell or figure out or move in to". Translated really loosely - make sure you understand your problem/customer. I wanted to say "no duh!" - but that seemed a bit impolite. I guess some people don't get this, but I don't know how they do it.

3. "Portfolio" management. This refers to making trade offs between A and B, where both A and B are important. Made up example - You have $2M to spend on R+D. Group A supports your current projects, and spending that money will over the next 3 years return you $5M, with a 95% probability. However, these are your current products and don't move you in to any new areas. Group B is in a brand new area where you, as a company, should be. The $2M spend will return you $5M over the next 3 years, but there are a lot of chances for things to go wrong. You may get nothing, you may get more than $5M, or it may cost more to get in so the $2M number might go up. You have to decide. This, in his view, was portfolio management.

2. People Management / Logistics. I have managed a smallish group for awhile. There are a fleet of little things that come from that. The next step for me is to manage a much bigger group where I have layers of managers below me. As put, there is no real way to do this other than to do it. HR has little guides to help you. There are management training classes. There are mentors to ask. There are many things.... At the end of the day you just have to do it and try to learn faster than you screw up. I am petrified/excited about this for when I get to it.

1. The "Vision" thing. A strong drive to go somewhere. To lead a group in a growing market, the person in charge needs to have some idea of what the end goal looks like. They have to have a vision of where the group is headed. This, from his point of view, wasn't something that could really be taught. You either had the ability to look ahead and try and drive.... or you didn't.

These were the items that he said you had to have all of in order to get to the upper levels of management at a "large" company. Small companies were different and we didn't get in to that.

Job Decisions - Director R+D vs. Business Development

Over the last week I was offered and declined a different position within my same company.

Post acquisition, I had been (and remain) slotted in to a "larger" business development role, where larger is, loosely, "supporting $1B dollars of current business and making it much much much bigger".

I was offered, funnily enough, a director of r+d position.

I haven't been in the lab in quite a few years.

I was being asked, and there were serious discussions about, me being in charge of a bunch of VERY serious scientists. Several people that I rank as amongst the smartest people I have ever met. To put it in perspective for at least Bill - in the same realm as our advisor's wife (whom was a>much smarter than him and b>one of the smartest people I have ever met)(On a side note, I don't know why she was married to him!!!).

The organization has about 150 scientists in it covering 3 different physical locations. It will grow. It has all the issues that a large R+D organization has.

The part that rattled around my head is that I haven't been in the lab in quite a few years. SO- I asked another person above me, and a person whom I might add I treat as a mentor on how to get ahead within our organization and who has sway over my career, what he would do and why I was being considered/pursued for this position. He added that his voice was behind the push, but that he was also pushing for me to stay in my current role and that I wasn't allowed to do both.

Then he added a couple of other things that apply both generally and specifically to me:

1. Managing R+D has nothing what so ever to do with DOING R+D.
2. You (speaking of me) know enough to smell BS, and that would be your job.
3. You are blunt. People have absolutely no doubt as to where they stand with you. You would need to temper this and learn polish, but it is a good place to start.
4. You are broad. Some might call you "shallow" as they are the same. You know a little about a lot of different things and are quick enough to read up on any area when that area becomes important.
5. You get stuff done.

SO - that, for those who want to go up the R+D side of the house, seems like a decent road map of how to end up in charge of a decent sized R+D group.

I spoke to several other folks internally and a couple externally in order to make the decision, and I will write more about that in the next post, but want to mention the 2 things that most people came back to about my consideration.

1. The scientists you work with respect that while you are on the business side, you do not lose site of the science. I talk to them about science. I attend group meetings and do my best to keep my mouth shut (until later, when the director has to explain bits to me). NOT losing this science link has been key to me keeping my head. My problem was never with not liking science, it was with hating bench work and being underpaid. To those who move in to business development/marketing/other - MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS. You were trained as a Ph.D. -> don't lose it. You probably went to grad school for some good reason. Remember what it was and keep interested in science. Leaving aside the business of it, it is cool. Not just saying that...I really beleive it. I am just as likely to get lost reading about volcanoes as I am about *insert biology reference here*.

2. GET STUFF DONE. People kept coming back to this. This is a trait that seems to really resonate with folks. I would say that I do get stuff done, but that much of what I get done isn't what I was supposed to be getting done. If I was given a list of "Do these things", I would probably not have a great record. I run around, find the big problems, and solve them. This has, apparently, gotten me noticed as someone who gets stuff done.

This, to those who want to know how to move up the chain, seems to be a pretty big deal. All else was secondary to this in most peoples eyes. I have had to hire a person who actually picks up the pieces of the little things I am also supposed to get done, as I don't do them well. This likely means that folks see this and gripe about "He doesn't do his job". In a sense, they are right. I don't do the "technical definition" of my job. I have, however, made enough of a financial dent in the company that they gave me a person to help me "do" my job. She does a kick butt job of making sure that the stuff I was supposed to do gets done while I go fight fires and stir up muck. To get away with this you have to get it done. You can't just stir up stuff or poke around or whatever, because if you are doing that people will, if you don't show positive progress, start to ask about your "real" job. By showing strings of success's on large problems, I am able to hide the fact that I skip a lot of the little stuff that I am supposed to do by farming it off on a person who works for me and is really good at it. Yes - I live in fear of losing her.

More on the "the field" and gettin to the top of a biotech company

2 posts ago, Bill commented that
I think a lot of PhDs are probably biased against "customer service" type jobs.

which sort of resonated with me. I totally agree with him. So many in academic labs only see their sales rep from a company (could be ours...) come in and try and sell them stuff. AND - quite rightly you think those folks are possibly a bit slimy, probably pretty stupid, and you could never see yourself doing that.

Good.

For the most part you can't do that job. Most, certainly not all, of the academic sales reps do not have Ph.D.'s. Some do, but they move on and upward pretty quickly.

I didn't go the route of academic sales rep.

I went commercial sales rep. When selling to companies, you are generally selling something that costs more. You show up where you are going with an appointment (or they won't let you through the door) and you are, in a sense, "wanted". You are not cold calling, which is what you mostly see the academic sales rep doing to you (just as you are doing something that can't be interrupted).

It is a totally different world. You, as an academic lab person, don't know anything about it and should not be freaked out by it.

****non-sequiter**** but sort of related.

I think the point of seeing the top people in our company all have that similar background points not to what they did early in their careers as a function of getting there. I think it points more to the type of personality that does those jobs well.

To say that more clearly -> the kind of person who is going to thrive in a field position and who is, as a side benefit, going to be able to move up the corporate ladder, is an extroverted scientist.

Extroverted Scientists apparently, and a recruiter just explained this to me again, don't really grow on tree's. They are, in fact, a bit rare. I keep searching for them to fill the bus dev roles I have and keep getting hammered by it.

For those who are not naturally extroverted this has to be harder. As I am, as somewhat of an understatement, pretty extroverted -> I have no idea how to do it as an introvert.
****************

So - To put the two parts together.

Ph.D.'s do need to get over the "service job" as the experience that you have of the reps calling on your lab doesn't map to the kind of job you should get.
---And---
Extroverted Scientists seem to end up in the field naturally, and people at the top of the places I work are all extroverted, so I would say the label is that extroverted people migrate to the top and they happened to have been in the field NOT that they were required to be in the field.

Career's in biotech.

Unabashedly stealing these links from "In the Pipeline" where you should be reading anyway.

Faseb did a study on biomedical sciences and what is going on with jobs.

The summary is here.

The basic take home for me was that there are a whole lot more people going in to industry than there are in to academia. Yet, as you see over on the AAAS forums, it is still an "alternative" career. Why weren't we trained (at least where I went to school) more for the place where most of us will actually work? Why wasn't more information on how to get there made available ( None given to me....)

I know studies like these won't change anything, as the people running graduate schools are, exactly, the people who made it in the academic track and don't, for the most part, know anything about the corporate track.

Still... They should at least invite people in.

That said. I will be on a panel next month at Scripps as a recruitment pitch for our company and answering questions on how to get in to business development. I don't know any details just what I am talking about. Given that is going on, it seems like someone is at least driving something to get exposure to folks. At the very least, it should be interesting.

Scientists who go to the field... and then run companies

As the evolution of our integration moves forward, I am slowly getting ready to move on in my career. I will be within the same company, but just have a bit of a different role. That means my current role will be open.

That means I have to hire.

I tried to just pretend that magic elves (HR possibly?) would fill my position, but it has been made abundantly clear to me that I have to "Back Fill" my position.

There is an internal person who might expect it, but that person has shown themselves to not be up to the job.

SO... the hunt begins.

I started by talking to a senior person who just joined us. He has been in business a long time. New to our company, but been around. Started talking about this and he just leaned back and whistled. "good luck, going to take awhile" - I looked at him a bit confused. Huh? How hard can it be. I need a Ph.D. with field based experience. An "outgoing" scientist who is not afraid to learn new fields. We have a bunch of them in the company doing a variety of things. Most too senior and in other fields to be interested in my role.

then it hit me.

1 Everyone above me is a Ph.D.

2. Everyone above me did time in a "field" role (application scientist, sales, etc....something where you are out face to face with customers and dealing with them WELL (i.e. you have to be good at it))

There are males, females, couple of races etc.... the absolute unifying thing is those two statements above. I want one of those people.

Apparently, we are rare. I know, speaking for myself, that we are expensive. BUT - looking at several companies, we also seem to do well.

The fact that I am surrounded by them is, apparently, odd. When I was interviewing, I was only talking to them. Apparently that is odd as well. When you look at the company as a whole, the "field" part rules out most of the Ph.D.'s BUT most of them are in the lab at the bench (or managing the bench people).

So - to the Ph.D.'s out there. If you have a desire to really move up the company management totem pole, I can say that it has really struck me in the last week that the number one thing you can do is get some sort of position where you are in the field learning how to deal with customers. Learn what makes sales people tick. Understand the sales process. really, at a level that makes you totally get it, understand how business gets money. If you get that, you will rise up the business pretty quickly. I personally am seeing that in my promotion speed, and notice that everyone ahead of me has that common past (and about only that as their common past).

yep...I am a lawyer...

There was a ruling in the Seagate case recently. I have spent a bunch of time reading the CAFC's opinion and understanding what it does for us. Find it pretty likely that it decreases the number of legal opinions I have to get for product launches. As an opinion runs $50K or so (and up I should say), this is a non-trivial ruling.

Then I remember I didn't go to law school and that I really am a biologist in disguise. And I feel like a dork for getting excited about it.

I would say, though, that the outcome is a good thing for our budget. To say that the legal department is up in arms analyzing this is to understate the matter. Many many many emails received on this. Several conference calls.

For those of you who don't do what I do, and are in science and looking at business, you have to realize that I am weird even by the business peoples standards. MOST of the business people don't even know this stuff. Don't be afraid just because I talk about it!!!

Different Questions for different Networks

Last post I was talking about how I don't use LinkedIn to ask questions of my network and then went on to list some things I don't ask. Harry raised some other questions in the comments, and then I went away and thought about it.

I think there are different needs and different networks for different questions.

Harry's questions, and most of the questions on the AAAS board are of the "how do I break in to area X from area y" where Y is frequently post-doc/grad school and X is "other". The answers I have mostly been looking for are "how do I get ahead in this industry". I think those require very different networks and answers.

The "how do I break in" really sort of implies that you aren't already in the field and you need to build a new network. My questions are all of the type of within field.

In my own career, I had built a decent network of PI's etc... to get a post doc There were informal offers out there. I didn't take it further because I knew I didn't want to do that. SO - I flailed about and eventually got lucky at my first company.

The part where I flailed is the part where boards and blogs are helpful. That is the part where you see the questions on boards.

Once you have taken that first step, then you start to build your network and I think then the questions move toward more as I am describing (personal network, not a "public" one).

That implies that I think the people asking the public questions of "I am a grad student...how do I get a post doc" didn't do a very good job of building a network when they were a grad student!

Both have value when used at the right time.

Industry telling Industry about career options....

In the comments back here, Harry made a comment about the AAAS board. The next paragraph was this.

It may be that this is simply a function of the age of most of the forum participants. My impression is that most of the people posting there are grad students and postdocs, with a few people who have recently transitioned to more permanent positions. Also, people who are established in industry probably have other, more efficient means of obtaining career advice, including places like linkedin, their own network of contacts, or other more industry-specific blogs and forums.

Leaving aside the AAAS comments, as I think that issue has been sufficiently beaten, I would like to comment on the part where industry people communicate with each other. More specifically I would say that I don't think we are any better! There is no site I can go to and ask questions on the industry side either.

How do I know what I want to do next. ummm... I don't really, but I do look at succesful people and talk to them. I have had the "pleasure" of spending a large amount of time with a CEO and currently report to a very senior person at the large company. By most measures I am pretty far up the chain. BUT - I do spend an inordinate amount of time going "what am I doing?". SO - I ask. Not in a pleading kind of way, and only with people I can trust.

To flesh this out a bit, and I have absolutely NO idea on whether this works for other people or even will work for other people.

After I work with people for awhile (defined as more than just a few days - easily several weeks) I figure out which ones are bright, have made good decisions, and know the lay of the corporate landscape. You need to, very quickly, weed out the people who whine about where they are, complain about how "the man" kept them down or the organization doesn't appreciate them, or rely on "seniority" to get where they are going. I, and this fits with me, look for the people who are on board with the idea of driving the organization ahead as rapidly as possible. NOTE: They have to be realistic as to what the political landscape of a company will allow. Just being a reactionary highly driven pain in the rear will get you to irrelevant NOT to results.

So - once I know those people - I learn from them. If they do something in a meeting that doesn't fit with what I know their goals are - ask them later and alone why they did that. Tell them where you are trying to go, they may tell you something about the way to get there. Tell them what you are trying to learn. If they respect you, they will push opportunities for those things your way.

That is how I do it... BECAUSE I don't know any other way. I *wish* there was a place to ask questions. I wish that there were more people writing about it. I wish there were "instructions".

All of that said, these things may be impossible. The "instructions" most certainly are impossible as the situations are all over the place. The "board" probably wouldn't work as I don't, in general, trust people I don't know (and thus write a blog for people I don't know thinking they might care about what I say....).

SO - LinkedIn and it's ilk are useful to me for finding people and for when I was hunting for jobs. For getting career advice, I haven't found them to be too useful (and I only use LinkedIn and Plaxo)

Well that was fun....

The AAAS forums.

I guess I struck them the wrong way.

AAAS Career Development board

two posts ago, a comment was left pointing to the Science (AAAS) career development board. Hadn't been there in awhile, so went back looking.

Found a gratuitous link to here, so that was nice...

but then I started to look around some more. Ended up in this conversation and got a little depressed. What you can see, if you read through that thread, is a lot of people only talking about academic careers. There are a few in there that throw in a gratuitous biotech/Pharma reference, but for the most part it is about academia.

ummmm....there is life outside of academia. The majority of folks posting there don't seem to know that.

That said - there was actually more industry discussion than I expected. Not a huge amount, but a decent enough amount compared to when I last looked. There is hope after all I guess.

More on going to Grad Schhol

Last post I talked of going to grad school (and would I tell someone else to do so?).

In the comments were some other questions/views.

To pick those up.

Dr. J said

Just touching on a slightly different international aspect because you have a few international readers. Doing a PhD in Europe/Australia is only 3 years and is only lab work, which seems to be quite different to the US. In this case, I´m not sure its as critical to be the perfect candidate as it isn´t a 6 year slog through course work etc.

It´s also an important point that these days you almost need a PhD for any science related job. In fact, in Europe, you almost need a PhD, minimum of 3 languages and several years of international experience to get anything.

However, I still don´t think you should be doing a doctorate unless you REALLY want it. But don´t think you have to be commited to a life in science just cause you stuck it out. Nothing is wasted, even if afterward you do something completely different.

which really resonates with me. The European Ph.D. is shorter and they don't have classes. I will say that SOME of the classes I spent my first two years taking were actually useful. Some of the others were me, yet again, learning the Krebs cycle and spitting it back out on paper. Still don't have the thing memorized. Hope never to. That is why they invented wikipedia and other reference materials.

The qualifying exam that we did was also a big waste of time. There went 4 months of my life I don't get back. And, oh yeah, I still failed the written and had to retake it 2 weeks later. Beyond a stupid exercise to have to memorize stuff that most labs keep on posters that silly vendors hand out.

Anonymous added a paragraph agreeing with Dr. J plus this

The professors in the US love to drone on about the superiority of the American degree, but personally I believe that they're just trying to justify a 50%+ increase in degree time. As with the original post I feel like most of my education came in the first few years, and that my last few have been more about 'work' and less about 'learning'.

which it would be impossible for me to agree more with (i.e. 100% is kind of the max...). I was cheap labor. Thats fine, just don't pretend otherwise.

The statement by Dr. J about needing the Ph.D. for just about anything is pretty true. Becoming more true here in the US. I would be interested in knowing if there are more Ph.D.'s in Europe where it takes less time or here in the U.S. Would guess that we have more, but just because we have way more people. Could be totally wrong though and you could correct for population etc...

I agree you don't have to be committed to the life sciences once you have the Ph.D. and, as Dr. J does, do think that you have to be committed to them when you start it. You, in the US system where you are going to spend at least 5 years, have to think this is a pretty good life and be willing to take your vow of poverty to do it.

I almost find the post docs who are, as put, "just sticking it out" becuase they got the degree to be a little worse off. They haven't seen the options yet and are stuck in a rut.

There are so many options out there as to what to do with the degree. No one in grad school tells you what to do and your supposed to have learned how to think for yourself. BUT - those years of brain washing that this is normal and everyone does it are really hard to overcome.

Would I tell someone to go to Grad School?

Last post Bill asked, in the comments, if I would tell someone to go to Grad school or not.

Some back story - Bill and I have the same ex-advisor and he picked up my project. So - he knows exactly what I went through at the end and knows it really wasn't pretty. I have heard of worse ways to graduate, but I certainly had a little worse than average ending. I could have picked my lab a bit better. That said - the grass is rarely actually greener on the other side, so I probably did about average. We were funded and had a decent degree of freedom. Many are much worse off. Many are better off. Sort of a wash there.

So...that wasted a paragraph ducking the question...

I have no idea.

I don't think anyone could have talked me out of going to grad school.
Toward the end my wife had to talk me in to finishing.

There are some people who just have to go to Grad school. There are others who are going for the wrong reasons. If you are going because you didn't get in to medical school - you are doomed to failure. This person should be talked out of it at all costs. They are going to be miserable and likely be really bad at it. On the basis of a very small sample size, I would say they won't even finish grad school and will wash/be washed out. No one will enjoy this.

For me - I learned a lot. The last almost 2 years were a complete waste of time, in that I had learned all I was going to learn in that lab, but the first bit was critical. I have, now, a HUGE advantage over the folks who did not go through school.

Things I learned:

• How to read a paper. Really read it. Understand it. And do so quickly.
• How to design an experiment so that I actually learned something.
• Techniques. Lots of techniques. Useful now that I work in a tool vendor... Knowing WHY people do experiments, and what experiments follow which experiments is key/critical. If you haven't gone to school and only were a tech, I am not sure that you get this as much. Possible, but less likely.
  

SO - Back to the Question.

Would I tell someone to go.

What do they want to do? Be a professor? (if yes - then they have no choice. Grad school is the only way). Go in to Industry? (if yes - then they have no choice. Really the only way to the top of the research heap is with a degree). Go in to Business? (more choice....read this blog!)

Why are they doing it? Parents have degrees (horrible reason!!!!). They didn't get in to medical school? (Worst reason ever.) They don't know what else to do? HORRIBLE reason.

I would say that to make it through you have to start in a condition of absolute gung ho can't be talked out of it and all of you people whining are losers that I am better than.

Then the beatings commence, and soon you are a senior student whining and complaining with the rest of us and the first years are looking at you funny. If you don't go in believing you can crush it.... DON'T GO. You won't make it.

If the person is a technician and is wondering - thats harder. One of our former techs I didn't think would do it and she went off and did it. Lost track of her, so I don't know how she did. (Pubmed just told me she has 2 papers.... so she did alright actually!)

Summary - I think this is a totally personal thing. If you can be talked out of it, you probably shouldn't go. Some random dude being able to talk you out of it is the least problem you are going to face completing the degree. If that is enough of a deterrent, you are hosed when the real pressures come to bear. You see your friends leading "normal" lives and making real money and going on vacation (imagine not going to lab on Xmas day!!!) and buying houses and all sorts of normal stuff.... A guy talking negatively about it is the least of the problems you will face. We probably all should denigrate it.

Start up vs. Product manager

In the last post, some guy left a question in the comments about the fact that he is straight out of the lab and has an offer to be a product manager. Wants to know what to expect. AND also has an idea for a start up and wants to know about that.

So - to deal with the start up first. If it is in the Bio area, and you have no business experience, I wish you the best of luck. It is possible that your idea is THAT good. I don't know. I would doubt it and would guess you have a long road ahead of you making errors.

THAT SAID - if you believe in it and can't live without doing it and don't mind working your butt off and probably not making any money - worst case -> you will come out of that with a lot of great experience. Best Case -> you get rich. Only you can make this call.

Product manager.
Entry to the business world. There are at least two jobs that dress themselves up as product managers. One is a tactical role and the other is strategic.

In a tactical role, you will be doing things like putting flyers together, scouting the competitions pricing and running promotions to combat them etc... You will have minimal involvement in product development and will really only be focussed on the next 3 months. You will give feedback to the strategic folks and hope that your ideas lead to a product. There will, likely, be a bit of friction there for everyone to overcome.

In a strategic role, you will not be too involved in the day to day stuff. You may get sucked in to some sales training (depends on the company) but will likely be mostly focussed on what products do we make next. How much can we charge for them? How much will they cost to make, and can we make any money at that price? Those last questions translate to "should we make them".

At many of the companies, and I have an idea about who you could be going to, the roles are blended. There are not seperate folks for the strategic and the tactical. I think this is the best place to learn as you can see what you like and don't like. A general idea would be that the bigger the company, the more "silo'd" people are. Break through 1000 people, and there is likely a split between tactical and Strategic. Below 500 - there probably isn't. In between - All bets off.

He also asked if his shot at getting offers from other places is good. Hard to say without seeing your resume, but I would likely go with the first offer I got just to get in the game (what I actually did when I got in to it). Getting a second job will be MUCH easier with the first one out of the way. If you want out of the lab, I would get out of the lab.

You guess at 80-90K for the pay. I wouldn't rule that out, but as someone just coming out of school you might drop in to the 70's. Depends on the company and what the bonus looks like (i.e. lower salary may have higher bonus - not guaranteed but I would expect it).

I like places with growth, and would be attracted to that. No matter what - you will learn a lot. I would get on with that learning and not wait around.

Benefits...and why don't people use them.

As part of the acquisition, toward the end, I got involved in making sure that we paid out the right people for the right things and looked after people so they didn't get really pissed off. I learned some things that blew me away.

Most people in the company did not make use of our attempts to give them free money.

Example: Many did not contribute the amount to their 401K that we match to. This means, in essence, that they didn't want to accept money that the company was trying to give them for free. These were not bottom of the payroll type people either, so it wasn't that they couldn't afford it, it was that they didn't pay attention and figure it out.

Another Example: ESPP. Stands for Employee Stock Purchase Plan. In essence, the company is trying to give you stock that you can sell, that day, for a 15% increase in price. Sell it that way, and figure that you pay 50% in taxes, you still make and automatic 7%. That is WORST case. If, during the 3 or 6 month period (companies do it differently) the stock of the company went up, you make more. SO - in the worst case you make 7%. In the best case you make...more. Not taking this bet is just a silly financial decision. Again, most people don't take advantage of this. Absolutly nuts.

Please don't let this be you. I will be embarrassed for you. Your HR people are making fun of you, but they are a bit limited in the amount they can push on you or ask you. They can't force you to be bright, but trust me - they are laughing at you for not doing it.

You won't find and HR person not doing these things.

Job

So, we got acquired. It is all done now except for all the integration. A bit like saying a football game is over because the first play ended. Quite a bit of the game left... But for me, I am busy again.

There is this weird period where the deal has been announced, but you haven't formally been acquired yet. You are, but you are not, done. In this period, for someone in business development, you can't really get much done. As long as the deal moves ahead, you can't really get much else through. The new buyers may not want to do something, but you aren't legally allowed to really get in to it and figure it out. So....you get bored.

Then you go on job interviews. Or at least I did. A bunch of other people did as well. Some left, but not really too many people and not really anybody who mattered too much. I got offers. I thought about it real hard. I talked to the guy who would be my new boss. I thought some more. I talked to my wife a LOT. I decided to stay. That boils about 3 weeks of a bit of trauma down to a nice paragraph.

So...Don't have to relocate. Do have to meet a bunch of new people. Do have to figure out the politics of a new company (because I am sure they exist, I just don't know the rules yet or where the bodies are buried).

Should be fun... Now I am getting the big big company perspective.

The power of the internet....

Not...

From the New York Times article (in the magazine) about a variety of artists cultivating fan bases via the internet and how that works/doesn't for them.

These days, Coulton is wondering whether an Internet-built fan base inevitably hits a plateau. Many potential Coulton fans are fanatical users of MySpace and YouTube, of course; but many more aren’t, and the only way for him to reach them is via traditional advertising, which he can’t afford, or courting media attention, a wearying and decidedly old-school task. Coulton’s single biggest spike in traffic to his Web site took place last December, when he appeared on NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday,” a fact that, he notes, proves how powerful old-fashioned media still are. (And “Weekend Edition” is orders of magnitude smaller than major entertainment shows like MTV’s “Total Request Live,” which can make a new artist in an afternoon.)

This points out something that many need to remember. The internet is just another tool. It is not the magical elixir that will replace all the other tools. It has power, but it also has limitations.

..and for the record, I have a lot of Jonathon Coulton music running my ipod.

Perfect Storm on Tech Transfer offices?

In my last post, I was talking about the effects of KSR on the world in general, and mentioned that I thought tech transfer offices may be about to have a bad day. Also mentioned the Medimmune case in conjunction with that.

In thinking more about that...it could be a really bad day for the universities on this front.

• NIH budget is declining.
• Number of researchers has been ramping up for years (due to doubling NIH budget).
  
• Cost of reagents has been increasing at greater than rate of inflation

SO

• Researchers need money

SO

• Look to licensing to fill hole with money (amongst many places)
  
• "Go to companies" - They are rich - take their cash

NOW

• Obviousness bar is lower
• Challenge to patents after taking a license is easier

SO

• Company may choose to may you come after them (belief in winning in court)
• University may offer cheap license to tempt company to take license rather than a court battle.

Bias against

• Big wins. The more money there is at stake, the more tempting that shot at the court case looks. If the universities keep their royalties down, to avoid rising to the "worth a challenge" level, they will keep their patents but they may not make very much money
• Licenses without most favored nation clauses. I probably won't ever sign another one. If someone else challenges, I want to reap the reward of the university bribing them to back off. This will have to happen at some point.
  

Other predictions

• Some University will go to court. One of them will think it can push it. I don't know if they will win or not, but it will set the tone for a lot of things. We will all watch that case VERY closely to see what happens. Much case law will be written in the next while here and it will matter a whole lot.
  

Ummmm....problem. Do I think this will come true? To some degree yes. I also think we will also see a lot of the fallout of their just plain being more licensing offices and more of a mandate to them to market their stuff. That leads to just plain more people chasing a money pool that isn't really growing that much. Each University will, therefor, get less cash.

As a side note to any who might think "but my University is, like, really good at licensing and we are world famous and we will totally be able to stomp out U. of Hicksville". NOT. I don't care what university you are. I need the IP. All your licenses prevent me from using your name anyway so it doesn't matter whether I license from Famous U. or U. Hicksville.

In any case - I am glad I don't run a University Tech Transfer office right now.

more on KSR

In my other post, written while I was still reading the decision, I sort of didn't say anything. Just posted the, to me, interesting bits of the decision.


Now, some things I think are going to shake out of this in no particular order.

• Less license income for Universities. I think this because a lot of what I see coming out is incremental improvements that involve heavy use of someone else's patents. This is precisely the stuff that the ruling goes after.
• MORE legal battles. I know I am emboldened today. I assume many others are as well. Someone is going to role the dice in court on this in a bigger way just to see what happens. Kind of hope it is us, but would guess someone will be cautious one here and back off.
• Put together with the previous ruling in the Medimmune case (and some commentary on it) , which essentially says that "A licensee in good standing can still challenge the validity of the patents" - I see licesors pushing for high up front fee's and licensees pushing back. The high upfronts dont make commercial sense if the technology doesn't work out but the licensor needs to worry about the attack on the patent. Given the lower bar to get it thrown out on obviousness, the attacks will be more frequent. OR the royalties I am willing to pay will be lower, as the cost to fight a patent is still a couple of million dollars and I may not want to bother.
• MORE INNOVATION. Many biotechs and pharmas are freaked about this BIO filed a brief in opposition to the way this came out. I think they are wrong, but I am in a different business than they are. I fight every day with the patent landscape. Cleaning up a lot of this crap and getting it out of the way will make my life a WHOLE lot better. We will push stuff out much faster if we can clear a lot of the cruft out the road. This will take a decade to come true, as that is the speed things move at, but a boy can dream.... I think the 1 patent 1 compound people will still have a defense if they truely did something. If not, they won't and there will be a problem. I leave that up to someone who knows that area to speak to (derek?)
• We will spend less on IP filings. If we apply a bit of a filter to our filings we could save money. We won't of course... we will keep on going the way we have been going and see what the patent office does to them. My hope is that they start kicking more back and that we get a chance to actual weed our garden. As long as it isn't happening to us only, it is good. If everyone's garden gets weeded, there will be space to actually ship product.
  
• This will help, I think, Diagnostics a lot more than it helps Pharma and biotech. The diagnostics world, as it moves toward molecular diagnostics, is a patent mess. Cleaning that up will help this transition a whole lot more. Pharma and biotech are pitching companies with smaller amounts of IP coverage that if they don't have it they have nothing. That increased level of risk will make them harder to get funded. Diagnostic companies, on the other hand, are generally not bringing IP to the table and are instead trying to duck dodge and weave around it (or exclude everyone else from using the IP they do have.)
  

That LinkedIn thing....

In my post on finding the new frustration of 10+ years, and the hidden fact that there is always another barrier to getting really cool jobs, I talked about LinkedIn and the fact that I was using that.

I got questions about that, so here are answers (I'm generous that way... or bored with nothing to do, I leave that as an exercise for the reader).

LinkedIn is one of those social networking sites. Given that you know someones name and email address, you should be able to send them an invite and you two get linked together. Were you linked to me (and Bill, we should sort that out) you would be able to see everyone that I know (who is also a LinkedIn member) and, if you wanted to get a job to them you could try and use me to put you in touch with them. If they like me (slim hope...) and I like you then it should help to get your resume in front of them. Given the HR filter that stops a lot of resumes, there is value in this.

I also have used it in the past to find people in companies. Given an introduction from someone they know, I get farther on the first call than I might otherwise. It works for that, and I have used it for that a lot.

For jobs....no data yet. No leads yet. But that is true of every other method I am trying and is also likely some fallout from the fact that I am impatient and have only been really looking for 1 week. We will see how things shake out....

Is LinkedIn necessary to get ahead in business. Probably not, but I do see an awful lot of people in our industry in there. Can it help you get a job. Probably. Anything that gets you in front of people is worth trying. Sure beats spamming Monster.com as a strategy.