Random Walk: Atlas

Each flow traces funding sources to outcome categories across 51 discoveries. Width indicates the number of discoveries following each path. Many flows cross categorical boundaries — money invested in one field producing breakthroughs in another.

The Sheet

# Discovery Year Span (yrs) Crossed Origin field Outcome field Funder type # Funders Mechanism Near-deaths Depth

The Random Walk Project is dedicated to unexpected science: when directed research collides with other directed research. The transformer was meant to improve Google Translate. Warfarin began as rat poison. Penicillin sat in a literature search before it became medicine. We seek to better understand the past and identify the future research that powers our world.

Founder Ara Varma was previously at HAX (SOSV) and Loft Orbital. Random Walk is open-source because great science is a public good. Our ultimate goal is to induce more collisions that bring the next breakthrough to the world a little sooner.