Firstly, you originally posted this article so I can see that you are biased against cynical dismissal of the company. (I tend to feel that in openness you should have declared that in refuting my skeptical take on Evernote, but now I've done it for you.)

Secondly, it seems from your background that you are 18 and your self-identity is closely linked to programming 'apps' and the whole money-for-dotbubbleapp2.0 thang. I am happy for your (apparent?) success thus far, as you yourself spin it. However, I would suggest that you consider that perhaps you do not have enough perspective yet to understand that this whole thing is just a game... a very stupid game... and ultimately not necessarily producing anything at all that is meaningful or useful to humanity, the economy, the country, or your dog: despite big scary amounts of money being thrown around.

In answer to your question: I am serious. It appears to me that it is not untrue to say that nothing Evernote has done has actually been new or unique. All they've done is drawn a cloud around some stuff that existed before (I can hear the squeak of the whiteboard marker right now...), put some marketing dollars down and made some sexed-up UI's for a few device types. That's it.

Then got a bunch of money.

Of course, they probably wasted a lot more money doing it less efficiently ... and used a lot of stupid Silly-valley oldboy networks to get the cash ... and burned a lot of time. And maybe actually did produce something new along the way. But basically... nothing new. Skepticism is king.

TL;DR? That's sad because I can't them recommend that you try The Art of UNIX Programming or any tome on code generation. But I hope you do. Also, take a tip and don't aim for fame "One day I hope you won't need to look me up to find out who I am" (puh-lease!) ... we were all 18 once.