Being an Entrepreneur in Industry vs. Education: Team vs. Individual

Gordon Ringold, Affymax Research Institute

Ringold talks about the fundamental differences between sole entrepreneurship in the academic setting versus entrepreneurship in an industry setting: a change in dynamics from a sole activity, to teamwork from different disciplines to solve fundamental problems. Industry has learned this long before the academic environment – that you need to bring people together from various industries and disciplines, with different skill sets to solve fundamental problems, he says. It is rare that a fundamental problem, which leads to an applied product can be solved by a team of engineers only. It is the intersection of disciplines that leads to innovation and discovery – teams need to be built of different disciplines and skill sets in order to be most effective, he adds.