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

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

#261

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

was_a_dev wrote: post #212
rdtwo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I mean so what. College room and board is 30-50k I’m sure he can get the microscope running for less than that

My PhD is funded by a research council and my stipend is £12k. After rent, food and bills there is some room. But it's laughable to think I could repair and run an electron microscope. Already mentioned, finding a broken microscope for £1k wouldn't happen here. And you're seriously underestimating the resource requirements to operate such a machine

So find some professor at a university with an electron microscope and convince them to let you borrow it some times.

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

#262

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

resueman wrote: post #219
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know many middle class families who would buy 10s of thousands of dollars worth of equipment for their kid.

Well that goalpost sure made a leap. Spread it out over six years and imagine the kid is pulling in real cash with a youtube channel showcasing his projects.

The 1000 dollars bill is for a single piece of equipment, a full lab is considerably more. The median household income is 70k in the U.S, in western Europe it's closer to 30k. The income distribution on youtube follows a power law. I don't think that puts it within reach of your average middle class family, even over 5 years.

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

#263

Post by fristechill »

james-redwood wrote: post #236
jcims wrote: post #200

Story about a young person kicking ass and half the comments in here are from yeahbutters. Wordcloud - https://imgur.com/zeagyNf

HN anecdotally attracts some very cynical and negative commenters.

Yes, we can honour him for his achievements at the same time as acknowledging that he's been very lucky. Otherwise we have to ask whether we're being inspired by envy and not merely by a desire for justice.

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

#264

Post by rdtwo »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #261
was_a_dev wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My PhD is funded by a research council and my stipend is £12k. After rent, food and bills there is some room. But it's laughable to think I could repair and run an electron microscope. Already mentioned, finding a broken microscope for £1k wouldn't happen here. And you're seriously underestimating the resource requirements to operate such a machine

So find some professor at a university with an electron microscope and convince them to let you borrow it some times.

I think those days are over. Universitys are super corporate now they want to own everything you touch

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

#265

Post by kkjjkgjjgg »

rdtwo wrote: post #264
kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So find some professor at a university with an electron microscope and convince them to let you borrow it some times.

I think those days are over. Universitys are super corporate now they want to own everything you touch

Ok then think of another cool project that doesn't require an electron microscope.

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

#266

Post by Taniwha »

kragen wrote: post #217
futharkshill wrote: post #25

> Zeloof’s family was supportive but also cautious. His father asked a semiconductor engineer he knew to offer some safety advice. As impressive and independent as this is, you have to wonder if any other gifted child could have done the same feat. The article seems to skip over this point, how many people know a "semiconductor engineer"?

There are ten thousand semiconductor engineers kicking around Silicon Valley and Albuquerque and Portland, and another hundred thousand in Shenzhen and Taipei and Seoul. So conservatively ten million people know a semiconductor engineer. Instead of focusing on the problem that only one person in a thousand knows a semiconductor engineer, we should figure out how to fix the much worse problem that out of the ten milli…

There are probably 1000s of logic designers kicking around Silicon Valley, probably not 10s of thousands. These days little semiconductor engineering is happening there, all the new fabs have been built elsewhere for decades now

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

#267

Post by bpodgursky »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #241
bpodgursky wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of middle class families who spend 10s of thousands of dollars on sports camps, dance lessons, ski instructors, piano tutors... if their kid was really excited by electronics instead I can see a lot of families helping with that hobby. Like yes that is a sizeable sum of money worthy of consideration but it's not at all prohibitive or unusual for a middle class family.

I would describe what you said as upper-middle class at least. Everyone seems to have different definitions though and the tech crowd is probably skewed up.

I'm sure it skews that way but I've seen middle or even lower-middle class families invest a ton of resources into sports or dance specifically.

(also, a lot of working class Asian families invest heavily into music)

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