I wasn't going to post this comment...but...so be it.

I continue to be disappointed every time I see projects or companies with teams full of PhD's. I am sure there are some that are fantastic, but that has not been my experience.

We have a number of PhD's in our family and circle of friends. Some have trouble putting together Ikea furniture or can't fix a toilet. Maybe they just don't want to. And maybe that's the root of the problem.

I don't know what it is in PhD education that might cause this. I stopped after my BSEE due to life circumstances (parents sick, had to go to work and provide for the entire family). Yet, having come from an entrepreneurial family my life has been about just that. Because of this I like to think I became a Computer Scientist (more on this later), Mechanical Engineer, Optics Engineer, Manufacturing Engineer, Machinist (CNC and manual), Expert Welder, Expert Woodworker and a whole pile of other skill sets I can't even recall now.

In other words, having acquired a solid technical and scientific foundation through my EE education I launched into entrepreneurship. This forced me to learn other disciplines because back then I didn't have the money to hire people. So it was years and years of 18 hour days doing and learning at the same time. Devouring books with a purpose and applying the knowledge right away in real world practical scenarios. When I wrote an occasional paper, article or ran training sessions at conferences they were always characterized by real-world applicable and actionable information rather than the walls and walls of unintelligible formulas that characterize PhD publications.

On the Computer Science part. I don't think a Computer Science degree existed when I was in school (early 80's). If it did it may have existed in places I could simply not afford to attend. These were the days of such things as the Elf single board computers (google it). If you wanted to work with computers you had to become an EE and build them yourself, sometimes out of raw chips (as I did many times with 6502's, 8080's, 8085's, 8086's, 68K, etc.). If you have experience wire wrapping you are my people.

I know solid experienced PhD's exist. I do know a few of them. Most of them are in aerospace. And most of them got there by being tinkerers since before going to college. I other words, they were natural-born makers before they entered academia. This meant building things in the real world, failing, learning, trying again, etc. Some of these guys have worked on some really amazing projects anyone would recognize when mentioned, for example, stealth technology.

The one characteristic that distinguishes these PhD-led projects from the ones that make me say "Yup. Another bunch of clueless PhD's" is that they are practical, very real and have goals and milestones that are met or exceeded. No pie in the sky stuff. At least none I've been aware of.

I am not criticizing this project in particular as much as making a general statement and asking the question: What is it about PhD education that creates this kind of an effect? Are they too used to functioning in a world of grants for research that seldom touches reality (or leads to anything in the real world)?

To speak to this project. This looks like a bunch of guys who are really good at writing grant proposals who got together and got some money from Intel to play. I remember attending an SBIR converence many years ago. I walked away calling it the "PhD club of America". It's PhD's giving PhD's money to play. And in a lot of cases --not all-- nothing practically useful come out of the process. Yet it feeds the PhD machinery.

Interesting.