5 ms·

Are any other young tech nerds (I'm the same age as the person in the article) a bit annoyed when people mention age? I mean...half of the news I hear about gr

by blhack 16y ago

Are any other young tech nerds (I'm the same age as the person in the article) a bit annoyed when people mention age? I mean...half of the news I hear about greplin is about the founder being 19 years old. Who cares? Greplin is a cool service, it's not relevant that the founder is 19 and, honestly, if it were me I would be a little offended. Same thing with this. Who cares that the person who donated money is 23? Why not just: "Kik founder donates $1 Million to support Waterloo student entrepreneurs"? /pet peeve This does sound like an awesome project though :). A bit like the "hacker hostel" I think ever geek dreams about at some point. Good on Ted Livingston for supporting it.

akashs 16y ago
In general, I'm with you, but in this case, it's significant in my opinion. There's very few people who at 23 could even think of donating $1M, especially money they've earned on their own. Meanwhile it's fairly common to hear about some founder/CEO in general donate $1M. I think mentioning the age is just to highlight how great this guy is. Just saying "Kik founder" might take away from it.
- blhack 16y ago
  I guess. It just kindof sucks when you're younger, sometimes it feels like people are saying "Yeah, that's really cool...for a kid". I really don't care that much, I was just curious if other people my age felt the same way.
  - akashs 16y ago
    I'm with you and do feel the same way for the most part. Just think that in this article specifically, it's in a good way.
  - jonp 16y ago
    I read it as "That's really cool ... and especially cool at such a young age". I'd say the age makes it a rarer and hence more newsworthy event.
deafcheese 16y ago
I always feel a twinge of sadness knowing that I can never be a 19 year old who invented something again.
- blhack 16y ago
  Yeah, but you can be a person that gives 19 year olds the tools that they need to invent things, which in my opinion is even cooler.
c2 16y ago
It is annoying, only because it is obvious tabloid-level gossip and has nothing to do with the events involved. We should be talking about the Canadian start up scene, Waterloo in particular, not this guy's age. But something tells me something about his age is the reason this got upvoted so much. Age is no different then skin color, marital status, or any other attribute you could assign to a person. I always (try to) by default ignore it from headlines and articles.
- pvilchez 16y ago
  I'm not a fan of trying to put spin on anything - when I submitted the story, the only edits I made to the original title were to satisfy HN's 80 character limit.
  - c2 16y ago
    I understand, the spin came directly from Velocity.
- o1iver 16y ago
  So you ignore age/skin color/marital status/etc? So it is not more impressive if a single mother with 3 kids starts a startup than a 45 year-old rich serial-entrepreneur. It is not more impressive if a 16 year old solves one of the millennium problems (as opposed to a 65 year old career academic)? Of course it is more impressive and I wouldn't ignore these factors...

by blhack 16y ago

akashs 16y ago

In general, I'm with you, but in this case, it's significant in my opinion. There's very few people who at 23 could even think of donating $1M, especially money they've earned on their own. Meanwhile it's fairly common to hear about some founder/CEO in general donate $1M. I think mentioning the age is just to highlight how great this guy is. Just saying "Kik founder" might take away from it.

blhack 16y ago
I guess. It just kindof sucks when you're younger, sometimes it feels like people are saying "Yeah, that's really cool...for a kid". I really don't care that much, I was just curious if other people my age felt the same way.
- akashs 16y ago
  I'm with you and do feel the same way for the most part. Just think that in this article specifically, it's in a good way.
- jonp 16y ago
  I read it as "That's really cool ... and especially cool at such a young age". I'd say the age makes it a rarer and hence more newsworthy event.

deafcheese 16y ago

I always feel a twinge of sadness knowing that I can never be a 19 year old who invented something again.

blhack 16y ago
Yeah, but you can be a person that gives 19 year olds the tools that they need to invent things, which in my opinion is even cooler.

c2 16y ago

It is annoying, only because it is obvious tabloid-level gossip and has nothing to do with the events involved. We should be talking about the Canadian start up scene, Waterloo in particular, not this guy's age. But something tells me something about his age is the reason this got upvoted so much. Age is no different then skin color, marital status, or any other attribute you could assign to a person. I always (try to) by default ignore it from headlines and articles.

pvilchez 16y ago
I'm not a fan of trying to put spin on anything - when I submitted the story, the only edits I made to the original title were to satisfy HN's 80 character limit.
- c2 16y ago
  I understand, the spin came directly from Velocity.
o1iver 16y ago
So you ignore age/skin color/marital status/etc? So it is not more impressive if a single mother with 3 kids starts a startup than a 45 year-old rich serial-entrepreneur. It is not more impressive if a 16 year old solves one of the millennium problems (as opposed to a 65 year old career academic)? Of course it is more impressive and I wouldn't ignore these factors...