<story><title>He Has Millions and a New Job at Yahoo. Soon, He’ll Be 18</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/business/media/nick-daloisio-17-sells-summly-app-to-yahoo.html?hp&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jaysonelliot</author><text>It seems like we&apos;re seeing evidence that the class system is alive and well in the UK. Listen to his posh accent, and look at the easy way he casually hangs out with Stephen Fry: &lt;a href=&quot;http://vimeo.com/52014691&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://vimeo.com/52014691&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I suspect the story behind this is simply &quot;upper-class child with family connections finds success.&quot;</text></item><item><author>dinkumthinkum</author><text>I hear what you&apos;re saying but I think what you&apos;re describing is not the most notable part of the story, in fact, possibly the least interesting part of it. I don&apos;t know what his algorithm is; I have some doubts as to it&apos;s efficacy but apparently Yahoo! did not. I&apos;m more interested in how this person got celebrities and billionaires interested in the product early on. Seems odd.</text></item><item><author>jaysonelliot</author><text>While stories like his are interesting novelties, I feel like they are distracting and counterproductive to the startup scene at large.&lt;p&gt;Instead of focusing on what Nick D’Aloisio has actually created, perhaps looking at this &quot;algorithmic invention, which takes long-form stories and shortens them for readers using smartphones&quot; and digging into what makes it special, the story is all about the jackpot of millions he&apos;s lucked into.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d love to know more about the technical details behind Summly, or what Nick went through to create it.&lt;p&gt;This kind of lottery mentality just gives the general public the impression that there&apos;s a gold rush going on, and causes the kind of magical thinking that&apos;s similar to teenagers all hoping to become the next rock star or sports legend, or in this case, startup founder, that will make millions, focusing on the money instead of asking themselves what they want to do with their lives.&lt;p&gt;For every teenage millionaire that hits the startup jackpot, there are thousands of hard-working entrepreneurs that build for the love of building. I&apos;m not saying Nick D&apos;Aloisio isn&apos;t doing what he does out of genuine passion - I don&apos;t know anything about him, I expect he&apos;s very driven and geniune - but I would rather focus on the work than the jackpot.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>benaiah</author><text>From the video, he also seems like he&apos;s greatly overhyping the whole thing (as is everyone else, of course). Genetic algorithms are not even remotely close to human intelligence, quantitatively or qualitatively, so his claims to that effect are nonsensical and misleading.&lt;p&gt;One common strain I see with child prodigies, or whatever you want to call them, is that their accomplishments are often greatly exaggerated and they usually don&apos;t end up contributing as much as many who make great contributions later in life (few famous historical scientists and artists, with the exception perhaps of Mozart, were what we would consider child prodigies, and many were quite the opposite). I don&apos;t know if it&apos;s caused by resting on their laurels, burning out, or them just not being as good as they claimed, but it doesn&apos;t seem like a healthy model at all.&lt;p&gt;Summly in particular doesn&apos;t come across as being all that complicated - genetic analysis of text is a well-researched and thoroughly trodden part of applied complexity theory - but rather a smart business move made by investors and businessmen mostly behind the scenes. D’Aloisio comes across more as a poster boy than anything - he&apos;s put up as this child prodigy, but I&apos;ve never read or heard anything particularly new, profound, or even that interesting from him.</text></comment>
<story><title>He Has Millions and a New Job at Yahoo. Soon, He’ll Be 18</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/business/media/nick-daloisio-17-sells-summly-app-to-yahoo.html?hp&amp;_r=0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jaysonelliot</author><text>It seems like we&apos;re seeing evidence that the class system is alive and well in the UK. Listen to his posh accent, and look at the easy way he casually hangs out with Stephen Fry: &lt;a href=&quot;http://vimeo.com/52014691&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://vimeo.com/52014691&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I suspect the story behind this is simply &quot;upper-class child with family connections finds success.&quot;</text></item><item><author>dinkumthinkum</author><text>I hear what you&apos;re saying but I think what you&apos;re describing is not the most notable part of the story, in fact, possibly the least interesting part of it. I don&apos;t know what his algorithm is; I have some doubts as to it&apos;s efficacy but apparently Yahoo! did not. I&apos;m more interested in how this person got celebrities and billionaires interested in the product early on. Seems odd.</text></item><item><author>jaysonelliot</author><text>While stories like his are interesting novelties, I feel like they are distracting and counterproductive to the startup scene at large.&lt;p&gt;Instead of focusing on what Nick D’Aloisio has actually created, perhaps looking at this &quot;algorithmic invention, which takes long-form stories and shortens them for readers using smartphones&quot; and digging into what makes it special, the story is all about the jackpot of millions he&apos;s lucked into.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d love to know more about the technical details behind Summly, or what Nick went through to create it.&lt;p&gt;This kind of lottery mentality just gives the general public the impression that there&apos;s a gold rush going on, and causes the kind of magical thinking that&apos;s similar to teenagers all hoping to become the next rock star or sports legend, or in this case, startup founder, that will make millions, focusing on the money instead of asking themselves what they want to do with their lives.&lt;p&gt;For every teenage millionaire that hits the startup jackpot, there are thousands of hard-working entrepreneurs that build for the love of building. I&apos;m not saying Nick D&apos;Aloisio isn&apos;t doing what he does out of genuine passion - I don&apos;t know anything about him, I expect he&apos;s very driven and geniune - but I would rather focus on the work than the jackpot.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>seivan</author><text>That&apos;s the impression I got from day one. Him or his parents had connections to get someone interested from day one.&lt;p&gt;I am also very curious about this so called &quot;algorithm&quot;. 
For all I know, it could be a very well made genuine admin interface plugged into multiple turks. That is what I would have done.</text></comment>