Stephen Wolfram Talks Startup Incubators

Stephen Wolfram is a physicist with a mind as large as his goals. The inventor of the Mathematica software and the Wolfram Alpha search engine, he claims that his business and scientific mantras are the same, and is always aiming to make his mark on the scientific community. Born in London in 1959, Wolfram was educated at Eton College and St. John's College in Oxford and published his first scientific papers at age 15 before moving onto the California Institute of Technology, where he earned his PhD in particle physics at the incredibly young age of 20. He would later join the teaching staff at CalTech and receive one of the first MacArthur Fellowships at age 21. He currently resides in Concord, MA. Wolfram's list of accomplishments is always growing. He is the founder of the Center for Complex Systems Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign, and he is also the creator of the computer algebra system SMP (Symbiotic Manipulation Program). Through his latest development, Wolfram Research, Stephen's current mission is seeking out algorithms in the computational universe. “When one wants to create an algorithm, traditionally one says, ‘ok, let's engineer them…' The alternative is that there are all these programs out there, they do all these sophisticated things, let's just go search through trillions of them and find one that does what we want it to do.” Stephen swears by this method, and assures one that it is a highly effective way to come across that special algorithm that will help one achieve the set notions. Recently, Wolfram spoke with Inc.com to describe his intentions of raising money to quickly “spin off new technologies into separate companies in education, business systems, and health care.” “One area that we are starting to work on is automatic medical diagnosis,” the doctor says. “That's one area where I think we can really do something good. That's making things better a little bit.” While Wolfram says that there are a lot of ideas in the mix, it has been challenging to get everyone involved on the same plane to garner appropriate funding. He admits to there being a lack of organization, but is working towards a more systematic way of creating the companies and technologies that he wants to see. “Most people who have done incubator things like this have failed,” says Wolfram. “But that doesn't put me off… It really makes sense for us.”