22-year-old builds chips in his parents’ garage • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by emteycz » Mon, Jan 24, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #330

emteycz wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. We all know poor people couldn't really do it, just as they couldn't do expensive sports and other expensive but still usual hobbies, for example. But this guy is not the only upper middle class person in the world - he's from a country with the largest, richest middle class of all countries; and so discussing the money here is IMHO the more out of touch thing - there is more people in the US with enough…

If you think your average American family can do this for their 22 year old, you’re out of touch.

Yeah I think most Americans could (not talking about averages here). It's roughly the same money as 1 year at an university, or a year of car lease payments, or a nice family vacation. Maybe two, but no more.

Anyone who rides a new-ish motorbike demonstrably has enough money to spare. Are motorbikes that unusual? Are second cars unusual? I don't think so. (and don't even look at how much people spend on cigarettes)

It's likely people wouldn't recognize the value and would buy the car or sports equipment instead and I'm not saying most people have the money on top of these other unnecessary expenses - but people prioritizing second cars/motorbikes/etc instead of their genius children are outside the scope of this discussion because they could, they just don't.

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

#332

Post by quantumwannabe » Mon, Jan 24, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #318

quantumwannabe wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you realize just how much higher the median income is in the US and how much space the typical family has. A homeowner who earns middle class wages would have the space for a home lab/shop (without renting additional space) and would be able to pay a couple thousand dollars for their son's hobby. The stereotypical middle-class soccer mom spends more than that a year on her kid's activities. This is repr…

> I don't think you realize just how much higher the median income is in the US and how much space the typical family has. You really don't realize just how low the median income in the USA is. It's $45k for the median full-time employed individual¹, compared to $39k (£29k) for the UK². You can put the figure in pounds into https://listentotaxman.com/ if you'd like to go further with this, and think of taxes, healthc…

Your American income number is for individuals, but your British number is household income, not individual (your source is confusing, but the official government site states that the median household income is £29,900 [1]). The US has a PPP adjusted median individual disposable income of $42,800; the UK has a PPP adjusted median individual disposable income of $25,738 [2]. These numbers are after all taxes and benefits are paid. Someone earning the median income in the US has health insurance through their employer; the average premium for a single individual is $106/month and the average premium for a family is $466/mo [3]. So that brings our median income for a single earner family down from ~$43k to around ~$37k, which is still far ahead of our median Brit (though it's likely the single earner with a family is earning closer to the household income, not the median income of all workers, which affects the numbers for both countries). And this is comparing the entire US to a richer part of Europe! If we were to use the median PPP adjusted individual income for the entire European Union (plus UK), it'd be even worse as the US is weighed down by its poor regions but the poor regions of Europe are being excluded. Sorry, but Europeans are a lot poorer than Americans, and your governments spread lots of propaganda to prevent you from realizing it. The European argument for social service benefits outweighing lower wages only applies for the poor; for anyone middle class or above the increase in wages is greater than the decrease in services. You can talk about inequality all you want, but when comparing the lifestyles of the median person that is irrelevant.

The typical American does not see *any* benefit to giving up their car and house. Every single benefit like If all you talk to are internet urbanists and tech people living in the Bay Area, you are *not* getting an accurate picture of how the average American lives. This is why urban activists (and Europeans who have pride for their hometowns) are constantly bewildered as to why anyone resists them and think it's because people just don't understand the benefits or are brainwashed by car companies, not that they've heard your arguments before or visited your ideal areas and decided that they just don't want to live in an area like that. Urban activist types tend not to be the type of person who would have a home shop in the first place or have any hobbies that require space and they have fewer (if any) children. They are a vocal minority in the US: only 19% of Americans want to live in a dense urban area [4].

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personal...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalen...

[3] https://www.investopedia.com/how-much-does-health-insurance-...

[4] https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/12/16/america...

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

#333

Post by halpert » Mon, Jan 24, 2022, 5:38 PM UTC

RugnirViking wrote: post #215

halpert wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why don’t companies adopt a flatter structure with higher compensated engineers? The goal of a company is to make money after all. If management could be removed and top engineers retained with higher salaries, then a company would surely have an advantage in the marketplace. Since this doesn’t happen, there must be more to the picture than people in upper management simply clinging to their jobs. If removing mi…

this kind of reasoning simply does not follow in the real world. There are many, many cases of some companies out competing others. Why? if they were all rational actors none would have any advantage over the other.

I’m not claiming management structure is the only factor in whether or not a business is competitive. It’s just a factor, and business usually try to optimize the factors under their control to be the most competitive. Of course, there are many factors outside of the businesses control as well.

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

#334

Post by Avamander » Mon, Jan 24, 2022, 6:01 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #321

bradlys wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry. Posters here don’t understand. Why didn’t you have FAANG internships? Why didn’t you have an incredible scholarship that overpaid you and allowed you to spend $2000+/month on non-essential expenses cause everything else was covered. Not relatable! Not relatable! Does not compute! People here are incredibly out of touch. $1000 for a poor college kid is a huge amount of fucking money. I had a full ride, monthly…

Not really. We all know poor people couldn't really do it, just as they couldn't do expensive sports and other expensive but still usual hobbies, for example. But this guy is not the only upper middle class person in the world - he's from a country with the largest, richest middle class of all countries; and so discussing the money here is IMHO the more out of touch thing - there is more people in the US with enough…

> We all know poor people couldn't really do it, just as they couldn't do expensive sports and other expensive but still usual hobbies, for example.

That's empirically not true and IMO kinda offensive. The example I brought up in my comment above is very real. Not all parents have overview what their kids do and have. When you've got food and housing, that provides the ability to spend that $600 bug bounty on "expensive hobbies" what you want. Not an electron microscope because your flat is 430 sq ft for four people, but a sleeper PC build, absolutely.

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

#335

Post by resueman » Mon, Jan 24, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

was_a_dev wrote: post #313

resueman wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you choose passion over money, it's not really luck anymore when someone has more money than you. An engineering undergrad can probably earn more in a summer internship than your stipend pays in a year.

This guy is a student. It's not like he has "chosen" money unlike myself I used to be a junior software developer (hence username) earning £40k - far above median income. Post tax, rent, bills I could save over the year to purchase the £5k electron microscope I mentioned quite easily. But then I'd need to rent space for it. And purchase the rest of the equipment. My points aren't some "look how bad I have it" gotcha.…

The others are misleading you with very limited perspectives. Are you comparing yourself to the father and the kid together or just the kid? The kid is using the parents' space. And while house prices have shot up recently pricing out the current generation, the parents are obviously not of the current generation. Housing in that part of New Jersey used to be quite cheap. They might be doing fairly well, but nothing he's done requires it. Frankly, a lot of what he's done suggests more blue collar access to tools, a truck, and ability to work with your hands fixing things.

The article says the microscope was $1k. That's about 750 GBP. The kid didn't make the purchase at the market rate when he just happpened to feel like it. He jumped at the right point when an opportunity presented itself. Everyone immersed in some hobby dealing with old equipment comes across such opportunities now and then.

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

#336

Post by hnthrowaway0315 » Mon, Jan 24, 2022, 7:23 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #327

hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. But I believe there is a process to explore his interests, pinpoint something, and then spend some money to further it.

Just remain flexible when his interests completely change six months in...

haha very true...

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

#337

Post by Symbiote » Mon, Jan 24, 2022, 8:23 PM UTC

quantumwannabe wrote: post #332

Symbiote wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think you realize just how much higher the median income is in the US and how much space the typical family has. You really don't realize just how low the median income in the USA is. It's $45k for the median full-time employed individual¹, compared to $39k (£29k) for the UK². You can put the figure in pounds into https://listentotaxman.com/ if you'd like to go further with this, and think of taxes, healthc…

Your American income number is for individuals, but your British number is household income, not individual (your source is confusing, but the official government site states that the median household income is £29,900 [1]). The US has a PPP adjusted median individual disposable income of $42,800; the UK has a PPP adjusted median individual disposable income of $25,738 [2]. These numbers are after all taxes and benef…

>>> I used to be a junior software developer

So I used the numbers for a full-time employee, and I believe they are both correct. [1] if you prefer a government source, £611 × 52 = around $43k (increase presumably due to this being 4 years later).

Your British number is for all households, including those where one or both adults doesn't work. However, they are comparable.

On urbanism, you've completely missed my point. Americans are forbidden from living like Europeans by their state and local governments [2], and I consider this completely unreasonable.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-family_zoning

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

#338

Post by erosenbe0 » Mon, Jan 24, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #322

erosenbe0 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really force it and there isn't a formula. I'm just a journeyman software jockey but my brother got into Harvard, Yale, and Stanford even after skipping a year of high school.

I totally agree. But I believe there is a process to explore his interests, pinpoint something, and then spend some money to further it.

You don't need necessarily need to spend much. Of course quality music lessons or gymnastics will consistently cost a bunch but the lion's share of things will not. I know plenty of impressive scientists who were very middle class growing up. Collect coins, stamps, or sports memorabilia. Practice sports statistics and trivia. Go for hikes and catalog leaves, plants, and insect specimens. Grow a garden or vegetable from seed. Learn cooking while teaching the physics and chemistry of it, or focus on the artistic aspects. Explore your local road maps and learn navigation skills. Put a world map on the wall, then throw a dart at a country and grab a book on it from the library. Draw comics or try digital art. Draw dinosaurs. Build PCs from spare parts or try retro computing or vintage electronics. Do online coding for kids. Try robotics kits. Learn how to do bike tune-ups and maintenance, then get old grody bikes from friends and refurbish them. Try a new game monthly like Chess, Go, or Backgammon. And an important one would be to take advantage of local geography and culture. For example, in Illinois and Wisconsin, we can enjoy the geology and ecology of the Great Lakes, or the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.

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

#339

Post by quantumwannabe » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 2:14 AM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #337

quantumwannabe wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your American income number is for individuals, but your British number is household income, not individual (your source is confusing, but the official government site states that the median household income is £29,900 [1]). The US has a PPP adjusted median individual disposable income of $42,800; the UK has a PPP adjusted median individual disposable income of $25,738 [2]. These numbers are after all taxes and benef…

>>> I used to be a junior software developer So I used the numbers for a full-time employee, and I believe they are both correct. [1] if you prefer a government source, £611 × 52 = around $43k (increase presumably due to this being 4 years later). Your British number is for all households, including those where one or both adults doesn't work. However, they are comparable. On urbanism, you've completely missed my poi…

Household income is always compared including all households; you can't exclude people who don't work as they are people in your country and how they live is important. No matter what income statistic you pick, on average, Americans earn significantly more than Europeans, even after taking benefits into account.

It is not illegal to build in a European style in most of the country; we have entire areas built in a similar style. Zoning is also not a fixed thing in the US; it is very common for zoning rules to change as the area grows. Most of the country is not the San Francisco Bay Area. Contrary to popular online belief, only 19% of Americans want to live in dense cities, so our cities actually mostly match people's preferences. Zoning and land use rules make it illegal to build American style cities in much of Europe as well, so far all you know, most Europeans would like American-style living they were allowed to have it. Here's a ridiculous example of some of your continent's NIMBYs not allowing a rural landowner to open a small restaurant [1]; the same sort of people are also opposed to building any form of suburban housing.

[1] https://archive.is/bAVOs

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

#340

Post by JohnBooty » Tue, Jan 25, 2022, 3:17 AM UTC

jeegsy wrote: post #326

JohnBooty wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, absolutely. I think the best way to understand this kid is that he is definitely at the intersection of privilege and talent. That is not to take anything away from his achievements. This kid's kicking ass.

> That is not to take anything away from his achievements The entire purpose of mentioning his privilege at all is to take away from his achievements. Otherwise, why mention it. Surely it is obvious to all who read the article that you would have had to have access to capital to do what he did?

If you want to believe my opinion is something other than the one I'm explicitly stating, that is a very strange decision.

For the record: I'm not sure how much more clear I can be, but I do not feel that it takes away from his achievements whatsoever. I made my statement in reply to another poster who seemed to have the impression that this level of opportunity was the norm in America. That was the full extent of my "purpose."