I suspect the story behind this is simply "upper-class child with family connections finds success."
One common strain I see with child prodigies, or whatever you want to call them, is that their accomplishments are often greatly exaggerated and they usually don't end up contributing as much as many who make great contributions later in life (few famous historical scientists and artists, with the exception perhaps of Mozart, were what we would consider child prodigies, and many were quite the opposite). I don't know if it's caused by resting on their laurels, burning out, or them just not being as good as they claimed, but it doesn't seem like a healthy model at all.
Summly in particular doesn't come across as being all that complicated - genetic analysis of text is a well-researched and thoroughly trodden part of applied complexity theory - but rather a smart business move made by investors and businessmen mostly behind the scenes. D’Aloisio comes across more as a poster boy than anything - he's put up as this child prodigy, but I've never read or heard anything particularly new, profound, or even that interesting from him.
Plenty of artists: Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Bizet, Bieber (all right, maybe not the last one) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_prodigies
Others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_child_prodigies
And, Chopin's later work is indeed much more mature -- compare the difference for example between the Nocturne in E minor which he wrote when he was 19, and Nocturne in C-Minor, No 21, which he wrote shortly before his death. The difference is pretty stark -- and even non-musicians can sort of detect the growth. I can say likewise for most composers, their craft honed with time -- it's difficult for me to think of any composer who composed something tremendous in the very beginning just out of nowhere -- that kind of stuff doesn't happen.
Just a wild guess, but maybe all the "intelligence" of the app is courtesy SRI, which has proven expertise in the machine learning & natural language processing fields.
1. http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/summly-app-nick-daloisio-vi...
Now, for the rest of us: we've got some bootstraps to pull, because we can achieve success too, if we work hard enough (yes, that's sarcasm, not purple koolaid)
The class system is alive and well in the USA too. Less easily recognized perhaps, as the myth of the American Dream(sm) with its "look at these successful underdogs" is the perfect misdirection. Dig a little deeper and you'll most hugely successful startups came from money (i.e. "friends and family" rounds under rule 506).
I am also very curious about this so called "algorithm". For all I know, it could be a very well made genuine admin interface plugged into multiple turks. That is what I would have done.
Each line is a separate email. http://gizmodo.com/5830076/how-i-made-a-15+year+old-app-deve...
What an elevator pitch! If this Yahoo! thing doesn't pan out....
This story seems to boil down to an individual that created a moderately-functioning app who's success was enabled by his family connections and amplified by a media industry voracious for this kind of shit.
Yes of course it is, I think anyone in the UK would know that. But do you imagine you're making a contrast here? The class system is alive and well in most places. Do you know what Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have in common? They all grew up well to do.
If it's a factor, then it's perfectly valid. All this talk about "it's your own failure" only serves to stop anybody from attempting to change the overall class thing (not by his individual, outlier, success: systemically).
I don't see many rich black entrepreneurs coming from Mississippi or Alabama, for example. Or from "white trash" trailer parks. Or the latino California population.
Mostly upper and higher middle class white and asian families with mucho dinero.
Do you see anything different?
Let's take the top 100 successful startup founders of the last 10 years and check their backgrounds.
Isn't that basically the definition of upper class in any practical terms?
The parent of your comment is exactly the other prong of the faux meritocracy argument. One side is this story about the 15 year old kid who "made it". That's the carrot. The other side is, "yeah, if you don't make it, its your own fault. Just work harder, smarter, etc." That's the stick.
So, the implication is that we are living in a meritocracy. If you happen to be astute enough to point out how ridiculous that is on its face, then the response is that you're whining and you should be able to overcome anyway. Nothing needs to be addressed in the system and nevermind that the game is rigged. You just need to be less of a loser.
It's not an especially useful definition anyway, if your family has a lot of money it doesn't make much practical difference whether they got that via inheritance or via starting facebook you will get similar advantages either way.
"Practical difference" What are you talking about? Rich is rich. Upper class is upper class. Traditionally / historically being upper class has implied money. Having money has never implied upper class.
It's a very English definition.
The number of downvotes and poor quality of debate has been really quite shocking.