If you don't mind dealing with faculty politics and report to a boss, go for the PhD. The benefit is that you get a reasonable salary and funding, and managing others badly does not bring fatality to the venture you are pursuing. You can also focus on your research, without immediate financial worries.
If you don't like a boss, if you want to build your own team that you are in full charge, and if you want to expand the team to pursue partly financial success and partly research goals, go for the Startup. In fact, this is what I did, and I am happy to be in full control right now, even though it is harder to manage people and manage finances in addition to R&D.
If you think of your supervisor like a boss, that's wrong, IMO. You should pursue your own ideas in your own way, and your supervisor should do just that, supervise you and guide you as best as he can, then let you do what you want with his advice.
Of course it's hard to build a team as a PhD, at best you can get some reasonably competent master students to do some work for you.
Well, I accept the term boss doesn't fit well. But still, in very competitive institutions you need to deal with lots of politics, do post-docs over post-docs to get a lab of your own or at least be more in control of the research. I think a startup that is financially successful is a good shortcut to that. You can become a CTO and go whatever direction you want.
Comments
Here is my way of decision making on this:
If you don't mind dealing with faculty politics and report to a boss, go for the PhD. The benefit is that you get a reasonable salary and funding, and managing others badly does not bring fatality to the venture you are pursuing. You can also focus on your research, without immediate financial worries.
If you don't like a boss, if you want to build your own team that you are in full charge, and if you want to expand the team to pursue partly financial success and partly research goals, go for the Startup. In fact, this is what I did, and I am happy to be in full control right now, even though it is harder to manage people and manage finances in addition to R&D.
If you think of your supervisor like a boss, that's wrong, IMO. You should pursue your own ideas in your own way, and your supervisor should do just that, supervise you and guide you as best as he can, then let you do what you want with his advice.
Of course it's hard to build a team as a PhD, at best you can get some reasonably competent master students to do some work for you.
Well, I accept the term boss doesn't fit well. But still, in very competitive institutions you need to deal with lots of politics, do post-docs over post-docs to get a lab of your own or at least be more in control of the research. I think a startup that is financially successful is a good shortcut to that. You can become a CTO and go whatever direction you want.