ScienceCorp is building a retinal implant that has already restored vision enough…

Brief

ScienceCorp CEO Max Hodak presented at Startup School 2026 on a retinal implant that restored vision enough for a patient to read a 300‑page novel, then shifted to operations: he argued that procurement, hiring and other internal systems determine startup speed, insisted founders can’t delegate judgment, and tied iteration rate to success.

Key details

Hodak argues that a startup’s hidden infrastructure—procurement, how the “17th employee” buys things, and hiring systems—determines how fast the company can move and its rate of iteration.

Hodak asserts founders cannot delegate their judgment, recommends rigorous hiring and rethought performance reviews, and claims that action (experiments) produces information and that iteration rate separates success from failure.

Science is building a retinal implant that restores vision to people who have gone blind. One patient has already used it to read a 300-page novel.

Building a company like that requires a lot more than getting the technology right. At Startup School 2026, @ScienceCorp_ CEO @maxhodak_ explains how the company buys things and hires people, and why those systems determine how fast it can move.

He also gets into why founders can’t delegate their judgment, and why there’s no set of five bullet points that makes a startup work.

01:02 - Science’s Retinal Implant
02:41 - The Hidden Infrastructure of a Startup
03:25 - How Your 17th Employee Buys Things
06:15 - How Infrastructure Creates Speed
07:03 - What Does an Experiment Actually Cost?
09:27 - How the Best Startups Hire
10:18 - Building a Rigorous Hiring Process
13:26 - Judgment, Horsepower, and Agency
16:17 - Rethinking Performance Reviews
18:53 - Rate of Iteration Separates Success From Failure
20:43 - You Can’t Delegate Your Judgment
22:47 - Action Produces Information
24:31 - The Operating System of a Company
25:10 - Q&A

Video

Brief

Why it matters

Key details