Why would you put someone with clear talent at building stuff in charge of running a startup? He'll get bogged down in lawyers, day to day operations and growth strategies.

Hire him and put him in R&D in some robotics company.

Y’know, sometimes smart, dedicated, curious, self-directed people are that way with a lot of things.

I was a professor for a long time. My observation was that often a top researcher was also a top teacher and even a top administrator. There are exceptions of course. But if someone is smart and effective at using their attention, those skills transfer to many things.

It’s a pain in the ass when allocating university roles. I want that person to do EVERYTHING ‘cos they always deliver.

Yes but also the robotics industry notoriously has an extremely low shipping rate. So choose your bog I guess?

... what tf?

On top of studying engineering at uni, his "side-gig" is being creative, empathetic, and fantastic at communication - and your prime recommendation is to "hire" him to be a specialist hidden away in the back office? Which interwebz forum are you on?

EDIT: My last question is clearly an echo-chamber statement. But that doesn't subtract from the fact that, yeah, should he found a business, yes, he'll deal with certain "BS". That is the weight we'll all carry. But he's quite likely capable of moving civilization forwards, so... :shrug: