The intern probably had direct access to the data and access to the people with domain knowledge inside the company. The engineers at IBM were probably separat

The intern probably had direct access to the data and access to the people with domain knowledge inside the company. The engineers at IBM were probably separated from the problem by many layers of bureaucracy (meetings, project managers, technical specs). Even working inside a company, without access to the right data and the right people you aren’t going to get anywhere.