A Growing Number of Astrophysicists Are Leaving Academia To Work For Tech Startups (wired.com) 75
Space scientists are abandoning the heavens to help you decide what to wear and watch and listen to. Whether it's stars or Stitch Fix, it's all about machine learning. Wired: Chris Moody knows a thing or two about the universe. As an astrophysicist, he built galaxy simulations, using supercomputers to model the way the universe expands and how galaxies crash into one another. One night, not long after he'd finished his PhD at UC Santa Cruz, he met up with a few other astrophysicists for beers. But that night, no one was talking about galaxies. Instead, they were talking about fashion. A couple of Moody's astrophysicist pals had recently left academia to work for Stitch Fix, the online personal styling company now valued at $2 billion. Moody gawked at them. "They were like, 'You don't think this is an interesting problem?'" he says. Indeed, he did not. But when his friends described the work they were doing -- sprinkling in phrases like "Bayesian models" and "Poincare space" -- predicting what clothes someone might like started to sound eerily like the work he'd done during his PhD. Quantifying style, he discovered, "turns out to have really close analogues to how general relativity works."
Four years later, Moody works for Stitch Fix too. He belongs to a growing group of astrophysicist deserters, who have stopped researching the cosmos to start building recommendation algorithms and data models for the tech industry. They make up the data science teams at companies like Netflix and Spotify and Google. And even at elite universities, fewer astrophysics PhDs go on to take postdoctoral fellowships or pursue competitive professorships. Now, more of them go straight to work in Silicon Valley. To understand what's driving astrophysicists into consumer product startups, consider the recent explosion of machine learning. Astrophysicists, who wrangle massive amounts of data collected from high-powered telescopes that survey the sky, have long used machine learning models, which "train" computers to perform tasks based on examples. Tell a computer what to recognize in one intergalactic snapshot and it can do the same for 30 million more and start to make predictions. But machine learning can also be used to make predictions about customers, and around 2012, corporations started to staff up with people who knew how to deploy it.
Four years later, Moody works for Stitch Fix too. He belongs to a growing group of astrophysicist deserters, who have stopped researching the cosmos to start building recommendation algorithms and data models for the tech industry. They make up the data science teams at companies like Netflix and Spotify and Google. And even at elite universities, fewer astrophysics PhDs go on to take postdoctoral fellowships or pursue competitive professorships. Now, more of them go straight to work in Silicon Valley. To understand what's driving astrophysicists into consumer product startups, consider the recent explosion of machine learning. Astrophysicists, who wrangle massive amounts of data collected from high-powered telescopes that survey the sky, have long used machine learning models, which "train" computers to perform tasks based on examples. Tell a computer what to recognize in one intergalactic snapshot and it can do the same for 30 million more and start to make predictions. But machine learning can also be used to make predictions about customers, and around 2012, corporations started to staff up with people who knew how to deploy it.
Alternative to a start-up (Score:2)
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Amazing Rock (Score:2)
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That sounds like the latest bullshit buzzword. Do you guys "synergize" it so you can "move the needle" on the "customer journey" for "disruption"?
Fuck off, tomato. I bet your "cluster" is just your iPhone and a Facechat group.
Then you're way out of touch, bioinformatics is nothing new, I worked on a bioinformatics cluster a decade ago.
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...what are YOU doing to contribute to knowledge? What scientific problems are YOU solving?
That's what I thought. Run back to your device and post that latest duck selfie on Facechat.
I don't understand your argument -- One can legitimately criticize something while still being part of that group.
(ok, I get it, you have no rational argument to make, you're just trolling)
Re: Wasted talents (Score:2)
Every thing is about money. You need money to live money to eat money to stay warm and dry.
So if you are good at doing x but x pays like crap but suddenly someone wants to do W which is similar to X but pays a lot more you learn w.
That is why capitalism works it takes a person's normal greedy selfish nature and makes it useful for society at large.
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1. You are confusing capitalism with free markets.
2. You are confusing "useful for society at large" with "useful for those with purchasing power"
Essentially point 2 is important to understand in this context. What those former astrophysicists do is not very useful to society at large. They are working on advertisement (recommendation algorithms are part of this) which only became so big of an enterprise because it makes the rich a little bit more rich. If the wealth would be more equally distributed, it wo
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Astrologers too. (Score:3)
Lots of Astrologers are leaving their fortune telling and tarot cards to join startups too.
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Lots of Astrologers are leaving their fortune telling and tarot cards to join startups too.
McDonald's is still considered a startup?
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Lots of Astrologers are leaving their fortune telling and tarot cards to join startups too.
No, those go get MBAs and make their fortunes the easy way.
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Lots of Astrologers are leaving their fortune telling and tarot cards to join startups too.
I thought they all went to work for VCs
Hard Scientists - Data Scientists (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't hurt that the money is better, too. A lot better. Postdocs in industry average substantially better pay than mid-level faculty, and they get there without having to work at retail-level salaries as academic postdocs first.
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Apparently the correct usage of "alluded" eluded you.
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The money is not only better, it's fucking absurd.
$175k/yr for a typical senior dev? Fuuuck.
It's a good time to be in code. At least until the next hit and our salaries go back down.
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It doesn't hurt that the money is better, too. A lot better.
In astrophysics, yes. In many other STEM fields, not so much.
Regardless, hopefully these guys are paying into retirement because there’s no tenure in the private sector.
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And the probability of landing a tenure track job at a uni is quite small. The states have been cutting higher education for decades, I tend to think of it as the revenge of the MBA and Lawyers. They don't get science or engineering, and everything must turn a profit, hence whack the unis. The federal government is no better. And most of the pols are anti-science, funding it takes away money they could be spending on trinkets to their voters for the next election. And science does bad things for them, it pr
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It doesn't hurt that the money is better, too. A lot better.
In astrophysics, yes. In many other STEM fields, not so much.
I don't know which STEM fields pay well, if any. I'm in biotech and the major research university nearest my home starts faculty in my field at around $75k, with the expectation that they will work around eighty hours per week until they land their first big independent research grant (the very best and the luckiest might land that after about 3 years, others will lose their jobs going for it).
Regardless, hopefully these guys are paying into retirement because thereâ(TM)s no tenure in the private sector.
Tenure is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Along with it we see universities that are tying faculty salari
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Our state employee salaries are all public record so this is easy to look up.
Full time EE and CS assistant profs are starting above 100K and climb to 150K in 5-6 years. Full professors with research funding are drawing 220K to 350K - those which aren’t funded appear to earn around 150-180K (on a 9 month appointment). Tenure is still a thing here.
I’m sure astrophysicists are way below that though. And I don’t know how this compares to the private sector jobs these people might have.
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Our state employee salaries are all public record so this is easy to look up.
Based on the numbers you post, you likely don't live in the same state I live in. Different universities will have different starting wages for faculty, often based on cost of living.
Full time EE and CS assistant profs are starting above 100K and climb to 150K in 5-6 years
I don't immediately know what EE/CS faculty are paid at the major university nearest my house, but I do know what biomedical faculty are paid and they most definitely do not start at $100K here. Assistant faculty here start at $75-80 in anything biomed (including chemistry, biology, biochem, biomedical engineering, medicine
Slashdot still hates unicode (Score:2)
What did I run in to now? I had a ">" (greater-than sign) in my subject line originally here. It was dropped. The subject should have been
Hard Scientists -> Data Scientists
Hard Scientists - Data Scientists
Suggesting some sort o
Good thing, too. (Score:2)
Their talent is more useful down here than up there.
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Yah, that damn Einstein!! What was he thinking coming up with all that useless theory that allowed us to build the GPS system. If only some bright spark like you had told him to produce the theory so 60 years later the GPS system could be built, he'd have had so much more direction in his life.
No Jobs for Astrophysicists (Score:2)
My oldest daughter began her education in Astrophysics , her boyfriend is still in it.
She loved physics and space, but despised coding.
If you want to be an astrophysicists these days you need to code.
These guys having learned to code, and being intelligent , are a great fit for positions like this.
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"She loved physics and space, but despised coding."
This is perfectly normal. Ventricular Fibrillation can be quite painful, and the chest compressions can break ribs. No to mention that defibrillation is also somewhat painful. Most people (who are not masochists) do not like coding either.
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"She loved physics and space, but despised coding."
This is perfectly normal. Ventricular Fibrillation can be quite painful, and the chest compressions can break ribs. No to mention that defibrillation is also somewhat painful. Most people (who are not masochists) do not like coding either.
Astrophysicists need to know how to write computer code. /wink
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I see a growing problem... (Score:4, Interesting)
But when his friends described the work they were doing -- sprinkling in phrases like "Bayesian models" and "Poincare space" -- predicting what clothes someone might like started to sound eerily like the work he'd done during his PhD. Quantifying style, he discovered, "turns out to have really close analogues to how general relativity works.
Yes, but in the end, you are predicting fashion trends. The same trends that are fickle, change all the time, and are possibly mocked by the next generation. Profitable, perhaps, but not very helpful to mankind, I'd argue.
I've noticed what I would call a big problem lately: The smartest of us can so easily waste our time/lives today. I'm not talking about "having fun" or "zoning out on TV", etc., but rather situations like TFA describes, or the endless electronic device distractions, the constant "news" feeds, the delirious enthusiasm for the latest technology products to buy that don't enhance our lives much at all (or we ignore the downsides of each new thing we pile on) and/or the fact that certain situations have become so complicated, that we spin our wheels frequently dealing with their fallout, when, in reality, the reason for the complication doesn't pan out if anyone bothered to stop and actually think about it. Let me provide a poor example...
My old car came with a $200 option where the rear-view mirror automatically tints when it thinks it's nighttime and it senses bright lights from behind. All that complication, the electronics, the manufacturing, the pollution and energy behind the electronics' creation and continual use, just to replace the manual flip switch that they've had for several decades. Why? The thing even weighs more, reducing the MPG of thousands of cars. WHY? I also think that someone(s) smart spent much time basically making an expensive mirror.
There's a large bridge in town at such a position that the mirror (which you can't tint by hand) won't tint when the sunset is blinding from behind because the mirror knows it's daytime! And, after ~ 10 years, the LCD "tint" started to bleed, making the mirror useless. I replaced it with one from the junkyard for $5 which I still have 10 years later.
I think we could get so much further in a generation or two than fancier websites.
Re: I see a growing problem... (Score:1)
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I've noticed that same problem too. Although... maybe we've just replaced a previous generation's mechanisms for wasting talent (people dying from preventable diseases, spending their lives farming because 90% of the population had to, getting killed in massive bloody wars) with more benign ones (distracted by video games, working hard making complicated things that are profitable but unproductive).
I'd like to hope that we will mature as a species and learn to actually make good use of our best minds, but t
Straight out of Idiocracy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Straight out of Idiocracy? (Score:4, Funny)
Why? How long have you had a hairy erection?
Re:Straight out of Idiocracy? (Score:5, Funny)
Why? How long have you had a hairy erection?
Apparently not long enough
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And, what problem is to be solved by mapping stars that will never be seen by the human eye? How many people need to be dedicated to mapping stars that will never have a measurable effect on our planet?
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Those are real problems for older folks.
But they didn't solve it quite right: I now have a big long hairy wanker.
Kerbal Space Program (Score:2)
Scott Manley, noted scottish astrophysicist, and also noted youtube KSP... person? Influencer? Gave up his career in science to go work for a silicon valley FAANG company sometime in the last 2-3 years. Working on.... encoding algorithms? You can make $80-120k as an astro-p at a university, or you can start at $150k at a FAANG, probably closer to $200k with total comp. As a guy with a family it seems like a no-brainer.
Quandary- Make Millions or Explore Unknown? (Score:3)
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You know what you can buy with a six-figure salary?
A telescope. And a REALLY good one.
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Get out while the going's good (Score:2)
Re:Get out while the going's good (Score:5, Informative)
The cushy, guaranteed for life jobs will eventually disappear so they are better off doing things that are useful for the market.
FWIW: I do particle astrophysics, working with a bunch of pure particle physicists. You could do a search and replace: s/Astrophysics/Particle Physics/ in TFA and it would still be true.
I'll also point out that friends who have made the academia jump from "cushy" jobs to industry jobs making 2x or more the money also report having to work far less hard than they did in academia. They have weekends off! Wow! I'm getting ready to spend my weekend doing research, since teaching fills up the weekdays. Sounds "cushy" to me. Yes, I already have tenure.
Many people bust their asses on the academia track not for money, not due to indolence, but because they love what they do. Not everyone: but there sure are a lot of us.
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I'll also point out that friends who have made the academia jump from "cushy" jobs to industry jobs making 2x or more the money also report having to work far less hard than they did in academia.
Either you or said friends are lying.
Re:Get out while the going's good (Score:4, Insightful)
Either you or said friends are lying.
Or, we're not (I happen to value honesty highly, and have friends I trust), and you're generalizing to a situation you don't really know much about.
Pick one.
Typed as I leave class, and head off for a long weekend of work.
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Even that Enlightenment was a total wash. Imagine developing a lot of math and theory with no idea they could be working in the village black smithy for much more money. What the hell were they thinking. Too bad you weren't around back them to tell them to stop wasting their time.
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Alternative forms of education that don't leave you permanently indebted are beginning to catch on.
This is a US problem that most of other countries does not have, as we have free/accessible education paid by higher tax rates.
Re: Get out while the going's good (Score:1)
Going on for a while now (Score:2)
This is an Ad (Score:2)
This is an ad for Stitch Fix.
Nobody cares. The company is not worth $2,000,000,000.00. Idiot investors may have valued it at that. It's probably worth $200,000.00.
the college bubble burst is comeing but your loan (Score:2)
the college bubble burst is coming but your loan will still be there
This doesn't sound surprising or ironic to me. (Score:2)
Pure science has applications. Astrophysics being useful in a fashion app is no weirder than abstract algebra or graph theory becoming incredibly useful once computers came along.
In a... (Score:2)
Gap (Score:2)
Most scientists go into science for the love of science, not money. If you really dig money, science never was the best bet. But if their science pay grows overly lousy, then tech jobs will beckon them away.
Oh oh (Score:1)
Shit, I'd hate to have Sheldon Cooper as a coding partner. [c2.com]
Science becoming less fun (Score:4, Informative)
I've worked as a staff scientist at a national lab for the last 30 years, and IMHO the work has gradually become less appealing. Its difficult to pin down a major cause - more budget tracking more regulations, etc, a general bureaucratization of the work. Attempts to squeeze $2B projects into $1B budgets that result in the work all feeling sort of slip-shod. Its even possible that budget squeezed projects are overall more efficient (though that is not at all clear to me), but they are less fun to work on.
No one goes into astrophysics or similar fields for the money, they do it because the work is fun and interesting. As that declines, the field becomes less attractive relative to other fields I"m still here and not planning to leave, but I'd say the probability of my leaving has been gradually increasing with time. (though at the moment I have fun projects - though an insane level of work)
The question of how much society should spend on fundamental research is of course a fair one.
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After graduating with a master's degree in 2002, I spent a good part of the noughties looking for and trying out a number of PhD projects in physics. At a lot of places, it seemed I wasn't welcome -- they'd rather have one of the local "good guys" than me and my Cambridge degree. The ones I did start didn't work out for a number of reasons; the last one had a long commute to a noisy office where I'd do my actual work over ssh and X forwarding to a supercomputing centre. Of course, I had to be there every
Fast fashion (Score:1)
Not really news (Score:3)
Nearly my entire physics graduation year (degree in 1996) ended up in IT. Higher pay, better job security and a better life / job balance made the decision a no-brainer at the time as companies (both corporate and start-ups) were hiring left, right and center at the time.
I've kept astronomy as a hobby on the side. I decided in favour of IT when I discovered that the researchers at the uni were not working for a "common good" but the atmosphere was just like in any other company... so much for the myth of the ivory tower.
What a fabulous way... (Score:1)