What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly • Hacker News Board

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#131

Post by dmpk2k » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:16 PM UTC

rollo_tommasi wrote: post #89

api wrote: post #74

What this really underscores is that conventional capitalism provides little incentive for fundamental innovation. All this stuff we're gluing together is the product of state-funded research, mostly from the cold war era. DARPANet, the web (CERN), DARPA research on "augmented human intelligence," etc. Stuff like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY (I bet you thought Xerox PARC invented that stuff, right? Or…

If those PhD are really so smart, they should have had the foresight to be born to Morgan Stanley executives, like the Summly kid.

Some people don't live their lives to interact with high-power investors, but contribute vastly more value to society than people who do live their lives to do so.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#132

Post by mbetter » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:20 PM UTC

jpdoctor wrote: post #17

> By definition, Yahoo's directors know how to spend Yahoo's cash reserves best. This is absolutely incorrect. There are many instances in which there is a personal financial connection between a board member and an acquired company. For example, a board member is a limited in a VC fund. Didn't bother reading after that.

Ten points for missing the point.

You get more points than the informative posts because you are the glue - the viscous, translucent glue that makes the Hacker News comment pages always stick together into a big, messy ball of self-satisfied cluelessness.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#133

Post by lwat » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:20 PM UTC

pan69 wrote: post #16

This is my (pessimistic) take on this Summly thing. I think the following scenario happened: 15 year old kid does something with computers and for some reason the press is all over it. Some smart investors thinks; "hey, I can use this to make money". They invest money into this 15 year old which gives him more press coverage. Wait a few years and the investor gets his buddies at Yahoo to buy it for a substantial amou…

I'd be surprised if this didn't play a major role here.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#134

Post by gmu3 » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:22 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #68

If "brogrammer" is a thing, this picture is next to its definition in the dictionary: http://hackingdistributed.com/images/egs-small.jpg

It's funny I had him as a professor, and it must be him, but I don't remember him looking anything like that picture.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#135

Post by lmg643 » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:26 PM UTC

Do we know that the purchase agreement did not include a multi-year license to use the SRI technology across yahoo, or are we just reading a lot of wild speculation?

It is altogether possible that yahoo made a foolish purchase, but it is also possible that they made a great purchase and we are just guessing at the details and assuming that all $30 million went to the staff they acqui-hired.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#136

Post by Choronzon » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:27 PM UTC

Actually extracting metaphors via Natural Language Parsing of Ulysses interests me far more than yahoo blowing money or some lucky kid winning the lottery.If its not an isolated example the field is more advanced and interesting than I suspected. I dread to think what parsing Finnegans Wake would be like.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#137

Post by rayiner » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:31 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #120

rayiner wrote: post #68

If "brogrammer" is a thing, this picture is next to its definition in the dictionary: http://hackingdistributed.com/images/egs-small.jpg

Why, because he's wearing sunglasses? Color of his shirt? He has short hair? Is near water? Which is the trigger?

The Oakleys, the beach, the looking off to the side. It's not any one thing, it's the totality of the circumstances.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#138

Post by enjo » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:34 PM UTC

pan69 wrote: post #16

This is my (pessimistic) take on this Summly thing. I think the following scenario happened: 15 year old kid does something with computers and for some reason the press is all over it. Some smart investors thinks; "hey, I can use this to make money". They invest money into this 15 year old which gives him more press coverage. Wait a few years and the investor gets his buddies at Yahoo to buy it for a substantial amou…

If this is true, imagine what it's like to be a Yahoo engineer. You just lost the ability to telecommute. You've suffered through downsizing. Morale is (by all reports) completely in the tank, and now they dump $30M into a 17 year old?

I'd want to know where my chunk of the pie is.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#139

Post by MartinCron » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:36 PM UTC

rollo_tommasi wrote: post #89

api wrote: post #74

What this really underscores is that conventional capitalism provides little incentive for fundamental innovation. All this stuff we're gluing together is the product of state-funded research, mostly from the cold war era. DARPANet, the web (CERN), DARPA research on "augmented human intelligence," etc. Stuff like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY (I bet you thought Xerox PARC invented that stuff, right? Or…

If those PhD are really so smart, they should have had the foresight to be born to Morgan Stanley executives, like the Summly kid.

Most of the people who don't succeed financially made a terrible choice of who there parents were. It's probably the single most important choice one can make.

Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly

#140

Post by alexvr » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:37 PM UTC

iso8859-1 wrote: post #118

alexvr wrote: post #50

As a fellow 17-year-old, I have nothing less than respect for Nick. You're obviously doing something right if you sell your company for $30M before you're an adult. Who cares if he's not an AI researcher? The scholar who wrote this article can't bash this kid's product until he actually builds something useful. If he came up with a revolutionary AI theory, great. But the people who take an experimental idea and see t…

Be careful starting out with the age bomb in a forum full of "grownups" :) Yeah, he did something right. But the article didn't question that. The analogy to Tesla is not fitting because Tesla actually does innovate.

I should have known better about the age thing. I know it's a stretch to compare the two, but Summly seems more innovative than "a unique new social network" if you know what I mean. I give the kid tons of credit.