Stephen Wolfram Talks Startup Incubators, Algorithms & More

Stephen Wolfram is a physicist with a mind as large as his goals. The inventor of the Mathematica software and Wolfram Alpha recently sat down with Inc.com to discuss everything from aliens to economies of scale.

Wolfram's list of accomplishments is seemingly ever-growing.

He's the founder of the Center for Complex Systems Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is the creator of the computer algebra system Symbolic Manipulation Program, or SMP.

Through Wolfram Research, Wolfram's mission is to seek out algorithms in the computational universe.

“When one wants to create an algorithm, traditionally one says, ‘ok, let's engineer them…'," he told Inc.

"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,” he added.

Wolfram said this method is a highly effective way to come across that 'special algorithm' that will help achieve any preconceived set of notions.

In the interview, Wolfram also discussed startup incubators, and the idea of raising money to “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,” he added. “That's one area where I think we can really do something good. That's making things better a little bit.

“Most people who have done incubator things like this have failed. But that doesn't put me off...it really makes sense for us.”

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