Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 351 posts

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

#111

Post by hnthrowaway0315 »

was_a_dev wrote: post #49

I've followed this project for a while. And while it truly is an impressive feat, I just wonder how did he afford all this equipment. I'm 24 and a physics PhD student, and just afforded my first soldering iron. I lack the space, let alone the equipment to attempt anything close to this. What a lucky, talented guy!

I think it's easier to get the money if one has funding from parents or friends, after all most of this stuffs are dirty cheap (under $1K) and he has a whole garage to play around, but it's MUCH more difficult to learn the skills described in the article!

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

#112

Post by reasonabl_human »

b112 wrote: post #74
vostok wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for this? Spying sounds like a pretty interesting job if you can make something similar to FANG.

Algo coders, predictive analysis of publicly available data, large societal trends prediction, using social media data to detect malign intent prior to action, analyzing the same to look for foreign activity, hacking foreign infrastructure, etc etc, CIA/NSA and other agencies hire these types right from University typically. They also fund startups which may be used for national interests and so on. Much of the time,…

Source?

Lived and worked in D.C. and have a TS/SCI, sat for FSP…. The IC doesn’t pay even close to big tech rates. There is also no mystery around someone contacting you, just apply to the NSA / CIA / etc. if those paths pique your interest.

Startups working on IC-relevant tech getting funding via non-traditional means is absolutely true but not guaranteed.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

#113

Post by madengr »

rosndo wrote: post #45
icefox11 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your definition of "anything" appears to encompass only "positive" things.

Is being rich a “negative” thing now? It’s just a completely worthless observation, take the pointless virtue signaling somewhere else.

[dead]

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

#114

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

yarky wrote: post #103
nicoburns wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and that's why we should be taxing the hell out of these companies. It's not just about raising revenue. It's about allowing other companies to compete with them.

What's the logic here? Do you somehow think that taxes will encourage innovation ? Anybody can compete, but apparently most of us choose not to. Who forces a young talent to settle for a job instead of taking the risk to innovate ? Maybe risk-taking for innovation is what could be the encouraged through taxation.

>Do you somehow think that taxes will encourage innovation ?

That's what some EU members think. Ask us how that's going :)

That's why most of the big and wealthy companies hare are around 100 years old or more, vs about 30 years old in the US.

Here in Austria you can get various government and EU grants for your startup and tax waivers on social security, and if by some miracle, you don't crash and burn like 95% of startups and manage to produce a semi-profitable company in the end, then you have to pay to the government retroactively all the social security contributions and taxes that have been previously waived over the past years, which is the final nail in the coffin for most companies here never growing or scaling beyond a couple of guys from uni in an apartment kind of company.

Therefore most of the innovation happens nearly exclusively within academia, as "outside" it's a pretty hostile tax environment that mostly favors those 100 year old companies that already have solid revenue streams.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

#115

Post by was_a_dev »

hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #111
was_a_dev wrote: post #49

I've followed this project for a while. And while it truly is an impressive feat, I just wonder how did he afford all this equipment. I'm 24 and a physics PhD student, and just afforded my first soldering iron. I lack the space, let alone the equipment to attempt anything close to this. What a lucky, talented guy!

I think it's easier to get the money if one has funding from parents or friends, after all most of this stuffs are dirty cheap (under $1K) and he has a whole garage to play around, but it's MUCH more difficult to learn the skills described in the article!

As mentioned, getting that equipment would cost an order of magnitude higher in my part of the world.

However, there is no doubt the feat pulled off here is impressive and insanely difficult to do. I most likely couldn't replicate it, but I wouldn't be able to find that out.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

#116

Post by DarylZero »

sennight wrote: post #30
oaiey wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Richness is a factor to enable this but the differentiator is will. A lot of rich kids waste their time with BS... This one worked hard and showed will to do something. Let us appreciate this.

Not that long ago the vast majority of scientific progress originated from rich men doing it in their free time. Does it really matter that they published their results for bragging rights instead of a need to fulfill some goofy academic pipeline requirements? Because those that think that money is the only thing standing between them and meaningful achievement... well, no amount of money will change that for them.

I was with you at first but then...

> Because those that think that money is the only thing standing between them and meaningful achievement... well, no amount of money will change that for them

What? Why couldn't they just be right? You yourself just said:

> Not that long ago the vast majority of scientific progress originated from rich men doing it in their free time

Is a person still not allowed to understand the fact that if they had more money they could accomplish more things?

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

#117

Post by Symbiote »

hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #111
was_a_dev wrote: post #49

I've followed this project for a while. And while it truly is an impressive feat, I just wonder how did he afford all this equipment. I'm 24 and a physics PhD student, and just afforded my first soldering iron. I lack the space, let alone the equipment to attempt anything close to this. What a lucky, talented guy!

I think it's easier to get the money if one has funding from parents or friends, after all most of this stuffs are dirty cheap (under $1K) and he has a whole garage to play around, but it's MUCH more difficult to learn the skills described in the article!

It's rather inconsiderate to refer to $1K as "dirt cheap" when replying to someone who says they can only just afford a soldering iron.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

#118

Post by kortex »

nicoburns wrote: post #96
TrackerFF wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to compete with FAANG, Finance, and Consulting. Unfortunately, that's where a lot of people end up.

Yes, and that's why we should be taxing the hell out of these companies. It's not just about raising revenue. It's about allowing other companies to compete with them.

I'm quite pro-taxing-corporations, but I don't see the connection. How is taxing certain tech companies more going to make the field more competitive? IMHO anti-trust laws are the tools need here. I don't see how you could target just the FAANG-esque companies with higher taxes without collateral impact to the very competitors you want to get more market share.

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

#119

Post by [deleted] »

Symbiote wrote: post #117
hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's easier to get the money if one has funding from parents or friends, after all most of this stuffs are dirty cheap (under $1K) and he has a whole garage to play around, but it's MUCH more difficult to learn the skills described in the article!

It's rather inconsiderate to refer to $1K as "dirt cheap" when replying to someone who says they can only just afford a soldering iron.

[deleted]

Re: 22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage

#120

Post by fartcannon »

yarky wrote: post #103
nicoburns wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and that's why we should be taxing the hell out of these companies. It's not just about raising revenue. It's about allowing other companies to compete with them.

What's the logic here? Do you somehow think that taxes will encourage innovation ? Anybody can compete, but apparently most of us choose not to. Who forces a young talent to settle for a job instead of taking the risk to innovate ? Maybe risk-taking for innovation is what could be the encouraged through taxation.

The money being required to live a normal life is the problem. A Star Trek style cashless society would allow people to live their life as they see fit, and would undoubtedly unlock a huge jump in human ingenuity.

But I don't think we are evolved enough to deal yet. We'd just end up in a communist prison life or something as people selfishly try to get more for themselves. Roddenberry thought an event like finding extraterrestrial life would be the push humans need, but I'm not so sure anymore.

Post reply on HN