Sustaining the Underfunded: Nadia Eghbal

Nadia is one of the most brilliant (and young!) minds in the tech industry right now.

I particularly like that she wants to tackle important issues and problems, rather than go with the crowd and have a "normal" career in tech or VC land. I admire that.

Having said that, precisely because the topic of "underfunded" is so ambitious, I am not 100% sure that 1) Her current view and proposed approach works, or that 2) open source infrastructure is worth funding (from a strict RoI perspective).

It seems to me that a more meaningful answer would be to find a "hack" to involve governments in things that are obviously crucial for the public good; my current view of government activity, however, is particularly dire.

So... Stuck with a potentially better idea, that I doubt could happen in our current situation.

I’m so glad someone is bringing attention to this. I recall last year when it was announced that Numpy was receiving its first grant (for a mere 650k), and most HN comments were like “wow, I never really thought about how they were funded!” Public goods require community investment.