Stephen thinks researchers, entrepreneurs, and artists are nearly identical — all "trying to create something new from something that doesn't exist before." The danger isn't the research brain; it's getting "caught up in the system" and optimizing for things like this year's publication, which he calls a useless skill outside that context.
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Stephen rejects the idea that switching from a research-scientist brain to a founder brain is a big leap. "The three groups are very similar: researchers, entrepreneurs and artists… they're all trying to create something new from something that doesn't exist before." He contrasts this with consulting at McKinsey, which he says is genuinely different from both. He even points to his father — a "prolific researcher" with tens of thousands of citations — as someone who "would have also crushed it" as an entrepreneur using the exact same energy, just channeled into research. The real failure mode is institutional. As Stephen puts it, PhD students — and the same is true for consultants or really anything — "get caught up in the system and then you start optimizing for… how do I get this publication this year," which is a useless skill outside that context — though the underlying "learning skill" is very useful.