Alexey Guzey is an independent researcher focusing on how to systemically increase the rate of biology discoveries and the idea that reviving the patronage system may be a way to do that. We spend most of our time talking about the project he's been working on for the past year but also touch on some of his thinking around connecting with people, which he's written about extensively.

Key Takeaways

1. Most people doing biology research are embedded in a system that incentivizes incremental consensus steps and divides researcher time
2. There are some institutions that stand at least partially outside of that system - Calico and Janelia being two examples
3. Maybe we should be supporting more crackpots

Resources

Alexey's Essay: Reviving Patronage and Revolutionary Industrial Research

Followup: How Life Sciences Actually Work: Findings of a Year-Long Investigation

Alexey on Twitter:@alexeyguzey

Alexey's Website

HHMI Janelia

Calico

Andrew York

Ronin Institute

Emergent Ventures

Phillip Gibbs - crackpots who turned out to be right