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

British teenage designer of Summly app hits jackpot

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 64 posts

Re: British teenage designer of Summly app hits jackpot

#3

Post by toyg »

A MacBook when he was 9 ? Damn, I'm 32 and still cannot really justify one. And I'm sure his parents had nothing to do with his funding arrangements, of course.

I hate to talk about privilege, and this kid is clearly smart, but the smell of upper class is hardly bearable, sorry.

Re: British teenage designer of Summly app hits jackpot

#6

Post by GFischer »

toyg wrote: post #3

A MacBook when he was 9 ? Damn, I'm 32 and still cannot really justify one. And I'm sure his parents had nothing to do with his funding arrangements, of course. I hate to talk about privilege, and this kid is clearly smart, but the smell of upper class is hardly bearable, sorry.

I'm 30, and I don't own a MacBook either, but I don't see them as above an upper-middle class income bracket, I'm certain you can afford them if you're into software development.

I wouldn't give them to a 9-year old either, but his parents are "a lawyer and an investment banker", so it sounds reasonable (and I guess that being the son of an investment banker probably helped the funding).

Edit: here's GigaOm's original interview linked in the BBC article

http://gigaom.com/2011/12/13/meet-the-internets-newest-boy-g...

Re: British teenage designer of Summly app hits jackpot

#7

Post by toyg »

GFischer wrote: post #6
toyg wrote: post #3

A MacBook when he was 9 ? Damn, I'm 32 and still cannot really justify one. And I'm sure his parents had nothing to do with his funding arrangements, of course. I hate to talk about privilege, and this kid is clearly smart, but the smell of upper class is hardly bearable, sorry.

I'm 30, and I don't own a MacBook either, but I don't see them as above an upper-middle class income bracket, I'm certain you can afford them if you're into software development. I wouldn't give them to a 9-year old either, but his parents are "a lawyer and an investment banker", so it sounds reasonable (and I guess that being the son of an investment banker probably helped the funding). Edit: here's GigaOm's origina…

I said "justify", not "afford". I could afford to buy a house in Hawaii, but that doesn't mean I could justify the expense :)

Re: British teenage designer of Summly app hits jackpot

#8

Post by llambda »

Isn't it redundant to summarize BBC articles? A bit off topic, but I do think it's a horrible way to demo your app considering that the BBC's online news outlet has been publishing articles that feature "paragraphs" which are rarely longer than a single sentence for years. In other words, summarized news. Still an interesting concept. Quite interesting that this idea has already been pointed out well over a year ago out by one HNer, Geee, via Open Text Summarizer. Makes you wonder what he's actually using to summarize the content.
Post reply on HN