The Entrepreneurial Commercialization of Science: Evidence From 'Twin' Discoveries

When are scientific advances translated into commercial products via startup formation? Although prior literature has offered several categories of answers, the commercial potential of a scientific advance is generally unobserved and potentially confounding. We assemble a sample of over 20,000 “twin” scientific discoveries in order to hold constant differences in the nature of the scientific advance, thereby allowing us to more precisely examine characteristics that predict startup commercialization. We find that teams of academic scientists whose former collaborators include “star” serial entrepreneurs are much more likely to commercialize their own discoveries via startups, as are more interdisciplinary teams of scientists.