I want my kid to start early on something he is interested in too but I don't really know how to do that. I know the general rules (expose him to a lot of stuffs, watch him do things, etc.) but don't know how to implement them properly. I myself wasted a lot of time in my childhood so I guess that's why I don't know how to do it properly.
He also chased programming like a starved Tiger, doing things like looking through corporate trash bins for source listings and that sort of stuff. Not to mention that Allen was also a person of extreme intellect and Ballmer is actually a mathematician combined with a charismatic business brain and a small nuclear reactor in one.
Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen first met as teenagers in the late 1960s at Lakeside School in Seattle, when Gates was in eighth grade and Allen was in tenth grade.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/02/microsoft-co-founders-bill-g...
See also Levy: "Inside Bill's Brain Calls BS on Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers Theory":
Inside Bill's Brain lays the Gladwell Theorem to waste. By delving into Gates' very early life, Guggenheim reveals that, basically, Bill Gates arrived on Earth as a Martian. From the instant baby Gates joined his well-off clan, he understood there was a giant impedance mismatch between his cosmic intellect and that of the world. There's an amazing moment when he recounts the time his parents had him take a test to get into an exclusive private school for the sixth grade. He asked himself, did he want to go, figuring that if not, he would purposely blow the test.
Regarding the custom photolithography machine, I recall seeing some pictures of chip workers from the 70s that essentially did the same thing.
A group of women (I'm pretty sure it was all women) were responsible for manually drawing out (actually more like cutting out) the chip designs on these big sheets, which were then projected down to create the photoresist masks.
However, that garage space alone is expensive. It's larger than many small hackerspaces.
I know of very few children who have access to that much lab/storage space all to themselves.
I really don’t know where you got this mindset but it’s 100% not true. I know many parents who throw many resources at their kids whenever their kids show even slight interest in something. Even if they don’t show interest in many things - they still get great access.
That is not to take anything away from his achievements. This kid's kicking ass.
That said this man is a genius!
It's beyond obvious, though, that having good resources is helpful and opens this kind of thing up to a larger number of participants.
Probably just used warez from torrents like everyone else did when they were that age.
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?
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."
A decent quality upright piano is about $10000.
Some kids have go karting or motorcycle racing hobbies. Some have archery, golf, etc. They all cost a lot of money over time. Hell, some kids sail! That's really not cheap.
So not much of the middle class.
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.
(also, a lot of working class Asian families invest heavily into music)
Look at what he did:
> Photolithography machines are expensive—up to $150 million—and so Zeloof made his own by bolting a modified conference room projector bought on Amazon onto a microscope. It projects his designs at tiny scale onto silicon wafers that Zeloof coats in material sensitive to ultraviolet light.
> One of Zeloof’s best finds was a broken electron microscope that cost $250,000 in the early ’90s; he bought it for $1,000 and repaired it. He uses it to inspect his chips for flaws, as well as the nanostructures on butterfly wings.
Damn this guy is good.