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Brewster Kahle's wikipedia page says that straight from undergraduate "he joined the Thinking Machines team, where he was the lead engineer on the company's mai

Brewster Kahle's wikipedia page says that straight from undergraduate "he joined the Thinking Machines team, where he was the lead engineer on the company's main product, the Connection Machine, for six years (1983–1989)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle#Life_and_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle#Life_and_career this statement has to be wildly exaggerated, it was a hardware project and he was a green software "kid". Anybody from Thinking Machines know what his actual job was?

justin66 2y ago
I have no idea but I have a suspicion that Thinking Machines was a company where the most senior people had “scientist” in their title rather than “engineer.”
ycombinete 2y ago
It’s been an unresolved topic in the Talk page for that article since 2019: The article also states that he was "lead engineer on the Connection Machine", the main product of the company. Given that he had just graduated with a bachelor's degree and the high profile startup was filled with PhD engineers and managers with experience... it's just not possible. Possibly, he was lead engineer on WAIS. 98.13.244.125 (talk) 02:54, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
- justin66 2y ago
  It’s interesting that the commentator didn’t even consider the possibility that the lead engineer might report to architects and/or scientists.
djmips 2y ago
First of all, being a "kid" doesn't mean you can't engineer hardware - didn't he graduate with a degree in computer engineering? Second, lots of people have gone from hardware design at their career start and into software later. The main hardware designer of the 3DFX chips does Java stuff now.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  thinking machines was extremely well financed and cutting edge research and attracted very high powered people deeper into their careers, like for instance Feynmann. The fact that a kid can found a company does not make it likely a kid was running this enterprise

justin66 2y ago

I have no idea but I have a suspicion that Thinking Machines was a company where the most senior people had “scientist” in their title rather than “engineer.”

ycombinete 2y ago

It’s been an unresolved topic in the Talk page for that article since 2019: The article also states that he was "lead engineer on the Connection Machine", the main product of the company. Given that he had just graduated with a bachelor's degree and the high profile startup was filled with PhD engineers and managers with experience... it's just not possible. Possibly, he was lead engineer on WAIS. 98.13.244.125 (talk) 02:54, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

justin66 2y ago
It’s interesting that the commentator didn’t even consider the possibility that the lead engineer might report to architects and/or scientists.

djmips 2y ago

First of all, being a "kid" doesn't mean you can't engineer hardware - didn't he graduate with a degree in computer engineering? Second, lots of people have gone from hardware design at their career start and into software later. The main hardware designer of the 3DFX chips does Java stuff now.

fsckboy 2y ago
thinking machines was extremely well financed and cutting edge research and attracted very high powered people deeper into their careers, like for instance Feynmann. The fact that a kid can found a company does not make it likely a kid was running this enterprise