R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness

I built the most powerful research tool I have ever used — more impactful than AI. It lets you compare ideas, generate abstracts, and get instant feedback. I don’t know why researchers keep scrolling past it.

I keep hearing that academia is dying. That we’re in an existential crisis. That peer review is broken. That the system is collapsing. And I get it. I’ve been deeply concerned about parts of it, too—especially peer review. When it’s bad, it’s almost useless. But when it works, it’s beautiful. And hard. Still, I don’t buy the narrative that we’re watching the death of the academic system. Because o...

Sometimes I’ll see a new bill passed or read a shocking headline—and my first reaction is the same as yours: “What the hell is happening to the world?” I’ll get grumpy. I’ll vent to my wife. I’ll think, “This is dumb.” But then I stop. Because I’ve learned that we, as human beings, are terrible at making sense of complicated systems. Even if something seems obviously harmful—or genuinely is harmfu...

There is absolutely far too much hype around innovation. I say that as someone who teaches innovation for a living and then tried to build something myself. I have spent unbelievable amounts of time, effort, and money on the Reciprocity platform. And the great irony is that it was meant to help researchers in a field that talks nonstop about innovation. Yet when you look around, almost no one actu...

There is a lot of mystery and ambiguity around the career of a researcher or scientist, and the general public often gets it wrong. Reporters and commenters talk about science in a certain way, but when you are in it, you know it does not work that way at all. Different domains are very different in how they operate in the scientific way, and there is a lot of nuance that people never see. What th...

Is Business Strategy Just Luck, Privilege, and Repetition? Over time, I have become increasingly cautious about what strategy truly means. I have spent much of my career studying it, teaching it, and trying to apply it. Yet the longer I engage with the topic, the more I have come to wonder whether we sometimes overstate what we can actually achieve. Respecting the Tradition It is important to ackn...

There is a lot of discussion about the validity of science right now. Researchers talk endlessly about how to make results “more valid,” how to fix problems, and how to improve the system. But here is what I actually think. It is not about “bad apples.” It is almost never about that. The real issue is culture. And culture often comes down to one or two people inside a community who stress performa...

Everyone says to optimize. To fit in. To specialize. But what if playing it safe is exactly what’s holding you back? In this raw and honest episode, David Maslach shares what most people won’t say out loud: Being weird might be the only reason your career survives. Drawing from experience as a tenured professor and researcher, he explains: • Why the best ideas start as misunderstood • How “goofy”...

Hey assistant professors that are just starting out. I just wanna remind you to live with as much joy as you possibly can. It is very easy to focus on what you need to get to and be very strategic in terms of who you are going to work with, but the key thing to always focus on is joy. Make sure that you are smiling every day. Make sure you have some laughter every single day. Look for those moment...

My dad used to sit in the backyard and just watch his garden. No phone. No emails. Just stillness. It never made sense to me when I was younger—how he could be happy with just that. But now I understand. He wasn’t chasing anything. He had arrived. In academia—and in so many elite careers—we’re trained to chase. Chase status. Chase metrics. Chase recognition from people we don’t even know. I feel t...

This is one of those moments I promised I’d be real with you. Nothing polished. Nothing fancy. Just the truth. Right now, I’m grumpy and tired after work—and honestly, that’s all I wanted to share. Not as a rant, but as a reminder. Because we’re surrounded by advice telling us to love every second of our careers, to feel passion at every turn. And if you’re not feeling it, then maybe something’s w...

Most people ask: “Why do universities produce so little innovation per dollar spent?” or “Why don’t university labs focus on real-world innovation?” The problem is that we keep using metrics that don’t capture what’s actually happening. Universities are playing a very different game than companies. They don’t just chase performance. They teach. They serve public missions. They take on harder probl...

I’ve spent the last 10 years building a platform to make research better. To make it less lonely. To make it more joyful. To make rejection less painful. At first, I thought people would jump in. I assumed: “If I build something good—something that helps—people will just show up.” They didn’t. I kept building anyway. And along the way, I learned the hardest part of innovation isn’t the tech. It’s...

The research career is hard in a way that’s not often talked about. It’s not just intellectually difficult — it’s personally difficult. It functions a lot like entrepreneurship. You are left entirely to your own demise. You have near-total autonomy, and what that does is amplify whatever your default tendencies are. If you are a high-anxiety person — which describes a large number of successful re...

I’ve become increasingly skeptical of the peer review system—not because the intention behind it is bad, but because of the complicated world in which it’s embedded. On paper, the process sounds idealistic: submit your research, get anonymous feedback, revise, and resubmit. But in practice, it’s a messy system shaped by invisible games, ambiguous standards, and enormous variability in what counts...

Why do we choose this strange, difficult career of research—and what makes it worth it? David Maslach sits down with Olav Sorenson, Professor of Strategy at UCLA Anderson and one of the most influential voices in organizational theory and entrepreneurship. “We’re professional problem solvers.” In this powerful conversation, Sorenson shares how curiosity—not credentials—built his career. From almos...

Most people give up. They try a few times. It gets hard. It gets quiet. No one notices. So they stop. And that’s why the game is winnable. That’s why you never see professors building open platforms. Why researchers tell you not to start something new. Why smart people will laugh at your idea and say, “That’s not how it’s done.” They’re not wrong. They’re just done. But I’m not. Every day, I show...

I’ve never liked how we talk about retirement. Like life just… ends at 65. You stop being relevant, you stop pushing, and you’re supposed to disappear into golf courses and travel ads. That might have made sense in 1955—when making it to 70 was a miracle. But that’s not our world anymore. Most of us will live far longer than we think, and if you’ve made it this far, chances are you’re healthy, sha...

As a professor and researcher, you’d think I’d be certain about things by now. But the more I study the world, the more I realize how little we actually know. We act like understanding is easy—as if truth is just waiting to be downloaded. But most knowledge is fragile. Most beliefs are assumptions in disguise. And still, everyone around us—especially in academia—pretends like they know. This creat...

You are more capable than you think. Most people won’t tell you that. The world will make you feel small. Rejections pile up. Deadlines feel impossible. And sometimes it feels like quitting is the only way forward. But here’s the truth: if you’ve made it this far, you already have a level of grit, intelligence, and persistence that few people ever reach. You don’t need to “prove” yourself to anyon...

I’ve been thinking a lot about ultra-wealth—what it means when someone can earn more money in a year than most of us will see in a lifetime, and still have their wealth grow faster than they can spend it. On one hand, they earned it—through luck, skill, or strategy. On the other, we’ve created a world where a few people now sit above every system, every law, and maybe even time itself. This isn’t...

When I began my academic journey, I assumed science was about accumulating facts that would eventually point to some clear understanding of how the world works. I believed, like many do, that each study added a brick to a larger structure we call “truth.” But over time, I’ve come to appreciate a more complex view. In many areas, evidence is often ambiguous, methods rest on assumptions, and interpr...

I’ve been building a platform for years. And here’s the truth I wish someone had told me: You won’t know what you’re doing—most of the time. Building anything real means making decisions with half the data, managing problems you didn’t know existed yesterday, and waking up unsure if you’re wasting your life. Some days you feel like a visionary. Other days, like a fool. That’s normal. The hardest p...

(And no, I’m not talking about romance.) One of the most underrated forces in our working lives is love. Not romantic love—but the kind of love that feels more like what a good parent gives: steady, safe, present. You mess up, and they’re still there. They guide, they coach, they believe in you. It’s the kind of love that says: You’re not your worst moment. You’re still worth it. Let’s figure it o...

The fastest way to wealth almost always feels the slowest and the most painful. Everything that truly moves the needle—high-return assets like index and mutual funds—feels boring, ordinary, and slow. Entrepreneurship and flashy startups may seem exciting, but they come with spectacular risk and rarely pay off. Research, psychology, and economics all point to the same truth: long-run, low-risk inve...