Independent researchers should import models from the Cal Newport's career capital framework in these discussions (80000hours.org/key-ideas/#car). Academia is imperfect, but offers a path to acquiring more career capital over time & obtaining more autonomy.
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So what types of career capital waves & trajectories need to be thought about for independent research? I think did a great job here IMO, by building towards her more ambitious research idea over time (but starting with the Ford grant).
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I don't think funding alone is the challenge. Even if you secure initial funding, you still have to have a clear story of value to your funders and how you've increased that 'value' to get more. Traditionally that was publishing papers in competitive journals, what replaces that?
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Overstating slightly: Sometimes I wonder whether "independent research" is an oxymoron. Funding always comes from someone.
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If research has an audience willing to pay for *output*, then you have customers. I'm not convinced most real research with customers to please is possible in most domains.
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If you have an audience willing to pay for your *input* (necessary for the uncertainty and timescale of real research), then you have sponsors. Those sponsors have some goals for their investment and administering your funding requires some infrastructure.
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Of course the specificity of sponsors' goals and their alignment with your own may vary, but at that point it seems like you've recapitulated some sort of "non-independent" structure.
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A couple extremes which might be exceptions to this include (a) content creation monetized across a large audience, and (b) internal/external consulting with a skillset core to your research.
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If the profitable work of (a + b) can take < 10–20h/w of work, I can perhaps imagine enough bandwidth for real research. But I'm not sure how big that market is or how widely applicable across domains.
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One boundary-condition route which seems relevant: many folks could work as an sweng for Google for ~5–10 years, then simply fund their own work indefinitely thereafter. A stable version of "drawing down savings for a few years."
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But I suspect that even in this ideal-seeming case with funding taken care of, the work would often naturally evolve to something more institutional: a "center," an "institute," a startup, etc—simply as an avenue for greater impact/insight. See also:
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I was briefly calling myself an independent researcher: somebody who self-funds spec R&D on their own ideas. In theory it’s something like indie-research : academic research :: blogging/self-publishing : traditional publishing.
But the idea doesn’t really work.
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That seems right! Do you have a rough guess as to what % of Google engineers could do that? Saving 200–400K/y to endow $100K in consumption over 5–10y is certainly doable, but I don't have a sense if that's 1% or 10% (or more) of engineers' compensation.
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Assuming 4% returns, target 2.5M savings. Levels.fyi suggests this would be challenging for a sr sweng (~10 years at 50% pre-tax savings), doable for a staff sweng (~7.5). I’d guess around 10% >= staff. Normally takes 5-10 yrs to reach.
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Yeah, "earning enough money to subsist" probably isn't the limiting factor here.
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It was for me.
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