
Ask HN: Should hard-tech founders join a problem or technology-first PhD lab?I'm an engineering undergrad considering pursuing a PhD with the long-term goal of founding a hard-tech startup. I’m undecided about the specific area and only have a vague sense of what interests me -- industrial decarbonization, mining / mineral processing, and advanced materials are a few areas that currently seem exciting.However, I'm unsure which type of PhD lab would provide better preparation: either a problem-first lab (e.g., like Yet-Ming Chiang at MIT) or a technology-first lab (e.g., your typical academic lab that focuses on novel science without a predetermined application, and where commercialization happens largely by chance — when a technology happens to have a valuable market application).I've looked at advice online from successful hard-tech entrepreneurs, but the answers are conflicting. Some say to work backwards from a problem, but others argue that problem-first approaches often don't work since deep tech is inherently different: you often can't force a scientific
