That was necessary but not sufficient for him to have built what he has. He deserves credit for what he has done.

His efforts are really cool.

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.

For sure, but I bet not all kids with support from their family do cool things. Or put it in the other way, you have to prove yourself worthy before getting any fund (even from parents).

> Or put it in the other way, you have to prove yourself worthy before getting any fund (even from parents).

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.

An exception to prove the rule. Throwing money at a kid, unwarranted (slight interest makes it unwarranted), spoils the kid.

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.

The other factor is access to youtube to find likeminded people and have things explained and see what is possible. When I was young I loved computers but even install Linux or learn machine code seemed like this impenetrable world that was “for adults”. I think the modern internet is great for people sharing knowhow.

That said this man is a genius!

Disagree. Didn't have YouTube, Google, etc and still cracked video game protections when i was 10.

Nobody is saying that Youtube/Google/etc are necessary. Clearly people managed to do cool and clever things before those resources were available.

It's beyond obvious, though, that having good resources is helpful and opens this kind of thing up to a larger number of participants.

What were your resources to learn this?

"Unzip rar file, copy, paste."

Probably just used warez from torrents like everyone else did when they were that age.

> 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."

What this "kid" has done in his garage would still be impressive with more than modest support from the venture community.

So did I and I'm not that smart

Thanks for not politicizing this kid’s achievements.

So basically a member of the middle class in a developed country. How remarkable.

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

You likely do and haven't realised.

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.

That's only upper-middle class though.

So not much of the middle class.

Many. Middle class is a lot of people. Usually it goes into sports, though.

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)

I think it depends on how middle class they are. If they are new immigrants who just get a pair of jobs I think even 1K is a lot of money. However over time they should be able to build up the fund for their kids. And again some families have a lot of kids with different interests, so that's also tough to allocate 10K for each of them.

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.

How about the distibution of income for youtube accounts with millions of views? which is what the article says he has.

He also has a patreon account linked on there.