Josh Wolfe at Forbes.com lists ten people they think are the "movers and shakers" in the world of nanotech. For some reason the list is in an annoying pop-up "slideshow" rather than a good old-fashioned web page. The list is:
- Mihail 'Mike' Roco, Director, National Nanotechnology Initiative
- Richard Smalley, Co-founder, Carbon Nanotechnologies
- Larry Bock, CEO, Nanosys
- Charles Lieber, Chair of Chemistry, Harvard University
- Mark Modzelewski, Executive Director, Nanobusiness Alliance
- Chad Mirkin, Professor of Chemistry, Northwestern University
- Stan Williams, Director of Quantum Science Research, Hewlett-Packard
- Phaedon Avouris, Manager of Nanometer Scale Science and Technology, IBM
- George Pataki, Governor, New York State
- George W. Bush, President, USA
Bush is listed for having "boosted the federal government's investment in nanotech" and Pataki for similar state-level reasons. But can it really be true that the top-ten nanotech folk are all from America or is Josh Wolfe wearing blinkers? (via BoingBoing)
Those professional involved in nanotech, especially investors and people at companies, do not take these people too seriously. Josh Wolfe and Mark Modzelewski are shameless self promoters with backgrounds that would qualify them more for a second rank journalist at a tabloid journal and a second ranked associate at a sleezy PR firm. For those who question the above, please attend a presentation by Modzelewski for five minutes and read Josh Wolfe's tabloidic nanotech stock promotion email spams and come to your own conclusion.
One conclusion people have made, especially considering such entities as Forbes branding Wolfe's newsletter, is that there is some serious nepotism or "ethinic support" action going on. Its a propaganda effort to create something that isnt there-- to the point that it will be acknowledged and accepted without actually being investigated and verified (i.e. these people are "experts"). Well, that wont happen with these jokers and people see the reality both here and abroad......
Agree that Josh Wolfe and Mark Modzelewski are basically just trying to make enough noise and scramble for the top of the nanotech wave hoping to ride it wherever it takes them. When you look at their largely irrelevant backgrounds it is amazing that they have scrambled so far so fast.
Their bios are pretty funny to read. They claim to have experience of just about everything.
I agree with the above 2 comments. I was looking at the Money Show list of speakers for the San Francisco meeting this week and tapped on Josh Wolfe's topic and thought it sounded interesting.
Then looked at his bio and see he's been involved in.... the investment banking biz in the hosptiality sector, 'published research on AIDS in the NEJM' (or Lancet ot something) and somehow between these two fields learned about nanotech sufficiently to be held up as an 'expert'? Huh?
What am I missing?
Ever open minded I read his Forbes blog. It was in short, a disaster! Stringing long obscure words togehter to form a sentence with nary a thot, is not journalism. Or even good blogging.
Hey, at least it's free.
And Wolfe was named one of the Top under 40s in the field? Go to any university and you'd find 50+ post docs that could do his work in their sleep.
Anyway, just goes to show that anyone can claim any expertise....and get people to believe it.
Sad commentary on the state of science and tech.