Slashdot Log In
13-Year-Old CEO Steals the Show At TiECON
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun May 20, 2007 05:05 AM
An anonymous reader tells us about a 13-year old Silicon Valley CEO with a plan to change the way kids learn chemistry. Yesterday he stole the show at TiECON 2007, the big entrepreneur conference held in Santa Clara, CA. VentureBeat has the story and a video interview. The company's VP of sales is the CEO's sister. She's 11. They're looking for $100K to ramp up production and distribution.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
13-Year-Old CEO Steals the Show At TiECON
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 259 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
13-Year-Old CEO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:13-Year-Old CEO (Score:5, Funny)
(http://bakahoushi.deviantart.com/)
Specifically, it requires a deal with the devil. Trade in your soul and common sense for investor cash and lawyers. (It's not like the devil has a shortage of the latter)
Re:13-Year-Old CEO (Score:5, Funny)
Re:13-Year-Old CEO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:13-Year-Old CEO (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday January 30 2007, @08:29PM)
Also, go talk to Paul Graham. He knows more than you do, given the fact that when he was running a startup he was juggling the jobs of CEO, programmer, system administrator, sales, and just about everything else a big business shuttles off to seperate departments. He defines the PHB as a manager who doesn't program.
Also, way too often, the CEO often doesn't know anything about programming, Ballmer just to name one, and in those cases, disaster results. A computer company CEO that doesn't know how to program is like an engineer who doesn't know the laws of physics or how his building materials work. This would never even be considered for an engineer but is almost par for the course for a bad computer company.
Also, ambiguity isn't the end-all-be-all for difficulty. Actually, your primary job should be to know enough to remove that ambiguity. The only way you can have near-complete ambiguity is if you're given no input at all. And if you're a CEO with no input at all, there is a communications problem on your side which needs to be fixed.
Re:Cynicism of "/." qualifies you as a poster. (Score:4, Funny)
His site (Score:5, Informative)
Lack of experience (Score:5, Funny)
that dilbert comic about OS's comes to mind: (Score:1)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 06, @07:16AM)
I only think of that because theres so little info in the article about the actual company, so I can't comment positivily on these smart kids innovative skills.
I actually am rather impressed by the youth of today. They get a bad rep. I'm relying on them to undo a lot of the damange my generation is going to do, if they haven't already started.
~WBGG
PS if anyone has more links pertaining to this, please publish them!
Re:that dilbert comic about OS's comes to mind: (Score:4, Funny)
(Last Journal: Monday October 01, @08:54AM)
Anonymous my foot (Score:1)
May I be the first to say (Score:1)
On second thought, let me in the same breath welcome our new prepubescent overlords! (Who knows what those critters are capable of? *trembles*)
Stealing childhood (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Stealing childhood (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.seriesdb.com/List/)
>to be doing this sort of thing. Childhood is something that should be
>treasured and nurtured. It is very sad they way that kids are rushed
>to adulthood so they can become consumer units. I find the sight of
>10 year old adults quite pathetic.
Yes, it is so awfull that children don't have the time to grow up that they had 400 years ago.
I mean back then, girl had a whole 13 years to be kids before they got married off. And boys got to play and have fun untill the age of 11, at most, before they had to help their fathers with the work.
It is so true that nowadays kids have their youth stolen from them.
I mean, sure, back then kids had to work a lot harder from a younger age. and now they have to hold only parttime jobs while they go to school.
Back then kids had to work hard during the summer vacations, in the field, farming. Whereas now they can relax and spend time with friends.
Back then kids pretty much had their entire life planned and settled down by the age of 16, but now they have the choice of what work they want, and they have the time to study for it, and can wait till they are a whooping 25-26(hell, even further) before they settle down.
But yeah, kids these days, having their lifes stolen from them.
I know i would MUCH rather have my 9-14 year old kid work in a coldmine with me, than my 13 year old kid be the CEO of a little company, because, gosh, being a CEO would steal his youth from him. And working in the coalmine would only steal countless years from his life.
And i would MUCH rather have my girl married off, as soon as she hit puperty(11-13), to someone twice or thrice her age(20-30+) instead of getting to decide for herself at any time between the age of 18 and
Yes, lets go back to how it was, when kids had time to grow up.
Kids aspiring to be CEOs? (Score:5, Interesting)
The kid's idea is stupid anyway, sure you can roleplay very basic things with it by providing an analogy, but that analogy doesn't work consistently and does not allow for a deeper understanding of chemistry. So unless you are satisfied with the "iron card and oxigen card equals rust card", it does not allow for a deeper understanding. Don't tell me kids are not supposed to learn more at that (around twelve) age, you're probably expecting too little of them.
Either this kid is a gifted one, in which case he'd better spending his time working on something that has use or he's not and probably articles like this are doing a disservice by encouraging him and by taking his idea seriously. The kid apparently has charisma, but that is only enough for deluding people.
Talking about public education, initiatives like this boy's degrade education. For example not teaching children proper algorithms [wikipedia.org] for basic multiplication, division and addition but instead encouraging them to come up with their own reasoning is the equivalent of starting a coding project with two tonnes of sand and some heavy metals. Most of the kids fail at it. It is not against self development and creativity to build upon the work of others, as progress is incremental.
WTF is wrong with slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly - how about aspiring to TEACH KIDS IN WAYS THEY WANT TO LEARN?
There, read his webpage [elementeo.com] - find out what his intentions are, rather than just making stuff up.
If you can impart two or three important concepts in this game, which seems more than likely, you've basically got Super Flashcards. And frankly, just getting kids to KNOW the names of elements is one step to getting them to ask questions about elements. What happened to slashdot's ability to dream? I don't get it, I really don't.
Bottom line is, Anshul Samhar inspires, whereas YOU just piss on the parade.
If I got 100K when I was 13... (Score:2)
yeah whatever (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 06, @07:16AM)
wonder if they're hiring? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 06, @07:16AM)
*shrug* never worked for someone younger than me
Why does the age matter? (Score:1, Insightful)
Scary isn't it?
Chemistry (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chemistry (Score:4, Insightful)
You make some good points, but I think you're overlooking a couple important things.
First of all, I really doubt that the intention of this game is to completely replace a chemistry class, much less a high school chemistry class; after all, this is a 13-year-old still in middle school. I think the intention of this game is to get kids interested in chemistry and teach them the basics (regardless of how basic it may be) without alienating them from the subject.
Secondly, it's understandably easy for anyone who sees "13-year-old CEO" to start hurling criticisms and nitpickings. If you just put those aside for a moment though and look at what's been produced, you'll see that the game really could be beneficial to kids that played it. Sure, they're not going to learn about acid-bases or gas laws or this and that, but that clearly wasn't the point of the game. It is what it is and it certainly has the potential to teach kids chemistry, perhaps even instilling a fondness of the subject in many of those who play (and ideally I suppose they would register for chemistry classes and enjoy learning the subject in much more detail). After all, things are apt to stick better in your memory once you associate them with something and, since a ton of kids love games, this may just be a great way for them to learn.
Too young (Score:2, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday June 19, @07:48AM)
I'm 26 (Score:5, Funny)
Where did you guys all go
Give the kid a break (Score:2, Interesting)
ferguson?? (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Thursday September 21 2006, @07:20AM)
We've all had ideas like this... (Score:2, Interesting)
We had a similar thing (Score:4, Interesting)
From what I can see that's where this kid is coming from. Sure, the game won't teach you things like redox reactions, or actual experimental processes, but if you get a good grounding in the basics it makes it much easier to understand the more complex things later on.
I hope ... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://elmuerte.com/)
But... (Score:1)
re-title: 13-year-old's parents push him to be CEO (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.devinmoore.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday May 24, @06:16AM)
it is EASIER for children to start a business (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.karastathis.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday April 05 2005, @07:51PM)
It would help if it were good chemistry... (Score:2)
Just glancing through his website I hit a pretty glaring chemical error: "27 Elements: This is the bulk of your army... from gases like Hydrogen to metals like Iron to halogens like Phosphorus; these creatures are the ones that will bring you victory!"
Hopefully this was done by his flunky webmaster and doesn't reflect the attention paid to chemical details in the actual game...
puppets (Score:2)
Anybody can change something (Score:2)
I smell vaporware and marketing hype. But hey, it's business. What should I be expecting from a bunch of suits? I do however pity any student which has to go through this program.
Edutainment (Score:4, Informative)
(http://orf.cx/)
But for those of you who think this is limited to grade school... at the college level I am familiar with a professor who uses a similar approach. Imagine looking at a Snickers bar and talking about conglomerate rocks, or talking about geological stratification with a peanut butter sandwich. And getting numerous teaching awards for it.
There are some of us who scratch our heads and wonder exactly what he is doing in college. He doesn't teach the upper level classes, but he is a hit with the intro classes. I have seen absolutely no assessment data indicating whether his approach is actually helping these students learn. Perhaps it is, perhaps not.
Over the years I have come to the realization that there is no one right way to teach, and that not everybody responds equally to a given teaching approach. I (a college professor) and my sister (an MD) both like the "soak up as much knowledge from the knowledgeable professor at the head of the class" approach. Chalk notes on the board, copied by hand to to the notebook, working on assignments outside of class, asking specific questions after getting stuck on something for hours, etc... that approach works for us. I really hate games and interactive working-with-other-students approaches in the classroom. I find it to be a copout by the professor; he or she is the one with the knowledge, not my fellow students (who are likely to be less knowledgeable than myself).
But some students do respond more to this approach. The "inquiry based learning" approach is catching on like wildfire in some schools, and some of this has bubbled up to the college level. There are many who sing its praises profess its superiority to "chalk and talk" but from what I can glean from conversations with those in the field of Education, this approach is not clearly better (as determined by test scores), but that it does work better for some (just like the traditional method works better for my sister and me).
As someone in the sciences, I have found that learning is really hard, and not always pleasant, and I do not hesitate to remind my students who are struggling with the material. I feel their pain. But no amount of entertainment will substitute sitting down with the text/notes/assignment and slogging through this stuff alone in the library for hours. I think the idea of individual hard, grueling work as an approach to learning has fallen out of favor. The majority of my students do not study outside of class until a day or two before the test. I can pretty much gage what the scores will be before I even collect the tests based upon the kinds of questions I am asking, and the depth of knowledge required to answer these questions correctly (think thermodynamics here).
In conclusion, I see some - not all - of these approaches as style vs. substance. I think we can all agree that engaging students with the material is always good, but that there is no single approach which will engage all students at the same level. Perhaps the best approach (one which I am gravitating towards) is a mixture of traditional and somewhat less traditional approaches.
Nike! (Score:3, Funny)
It's gotta be Nike, and finally, thank god!
We can credit them with tearing down the corporate 'ceiling' for children. They used to be stuck only in sweatshops, but now.... well, now the sky's the limit.
Here's to you Nike!
Sadly, the company folded when... (Score:1, Funny)
(http://trimbo.blogspot.com/)
His CFO had to report that the company had lost $5.35 when a bully stole its lunch money.
He was exposed for spending corporate funds on comic books and Big League Chew.
I could probably go on forever with these. The reality of this story is that venture capitalists are so desperate to turn anything into money that they apparently see no problem with trying to monetize an 8th grader.
This kid is my hero. (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the game's actual usefulness... I remember how much more exciting world history was for me because I recognized the names of cultures and cities from Civilization II. This could inspire the same kind of fascination in kids for Chemistry. Most kids aren't taught a lot of Chemistry until the middle of high school, and I don't think anyone other than the creators think this can replace textbooks completely, but how cool would it feel to walk into your high school chemistry class and already know about valence and the periodic table from a card game you played in middle school? If this game inspired a lifelong love of chemistry in a few kids and helped a few more understand the basic concepts... that alone, I think, would be worth it.
Think of the children (Score:2, Funny)
RPGs were responsible for an adult learning too... (Score:1)
(http://rayrichards.org/)
Theft (Score:1)
Hire a graphic designer and a copyeditor (Score:2)
These kids have a concept. Now they need people. Hand-drawn art and crude bitmap editing may cut it when you're making a game for your friends, but if you want to look professional, you need someone who knows what they are doing. You need someone who knows how to use a vector graphics program (probably Adobe Illustrator), you need someone who knows how to use a page layout program, and you need someone with artistic talent. In other words, you need a graphic designer.
I don't go it alone when I'm working on a major site. I have a graphic designer creating compositions and producing the final images for the site. I have a layout designer who takes the graphic designer's vision and converts it to CSS. I have a copyeditor to make sure that the text is clear and concise. I have a (white hat) SEO professional analyzing link structure, page layout, and code structure, to ensure that the site is properly indexed. And, in some cases, I have a human factors professional doing user testing to ensure that users will be able to find what they are looking for.
Now, I know quite a bit about graphic design. I can use Illustrator and Photoshop. I also know plenty about CSS and XHTML - I can hack together a website just fine. I'm decently good at copyediting, I know the basics of SEO, and I have an eye for UI design as well. But I'm not as good at any of those things as the people I rely on. They are more effective, more efficent, and make fewer mistakes.
They make me look professional. I make them look professional.
When you're 13 (that was only 6 years ago for me!), the desire is to do everything yourself. But that's the last thing you want to do. Maybe you've picked up a copy of Photoshop. Maybe you can scan photos into your PC and make graphics. What you lack, however, is the experience that's necessary to look professional.
That's OK if you're starting a business. Most of our clients have no idea how to run a website. That's fine, because that's not what their business is. If you're big, you can have dedicated professionals who will work on your website. If you aren't, there are companies like mine who will do it for you. We can make you look as good as the big guys because we are as good as the big guys. This is our whole business - just like the professionals who work for lare companies, we practice our trade every day.
So, my advice to these kids would be - hire people who know what they are doing. At a minimum, they are going to need the services of a copyeditor (to ensure that card and instructional text is clear, concise, and free of grammatical and spelling errors), a graphic designer (to prepare print-ready, professional graphics for the cards), and an accountant (business = accounting and taxes, two things that 13-year-olds tend not to be very good at).
Find people you can trust. Find people you can count on. Their professionalism will make you look professional.
Re:13 Year old CEO? (Score:3)
Re:13 Year old CEO? (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Wednesday September 10 2003, @10:12AM)
Re:13 Year old CEO? (Score:4, Informative)
12-year old Nigerian is a certified Java Programmer [javalobby.org]
12 year old programmer creates web browser [msdn.com]
Pakistan's youngest certified Microsoft programmer - 9 years old [nwsource.com]
Covered in slashdot before [slashdot.org]
Re:13 Year old CEO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:13 Year old CEO? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the whole point. It's not meant for those studying year 12 chemistry, its meant for kids. Nobody is teaching thirteen year olds "the procedure for a titration? The workings of an atomic absorption spectrometer? Electron configurations? Secondary interactions?" They are teaching them the basic concepts of chemistry that this game attempts to put forward.
Re:Relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Relevant? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.themeuge.com/)
Exactly - can't have them selling their vote for hotdog and fries when selling it for the safety of their eternal soul is much more sexy.
Re:Relevant? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://thewaxwingslain.com/)
You could not be more wrong. This attitude is what separates drones from fully-formed human beings.
Sure, most teachers aren't good enough to do both, but it's that handful of wonderful teachers for whom teaching while entertaining come naturally that can instill a lifelong love of learning. It makes me sad to think you have never found learning entertaining. I can remember classes in music, film, physics, mathematics, literature and history that were great fun and in which I learned a great deal.
I pray that yours is not a widespread point of view on Slashdot because it could mean that our educational system has failed worse than I thought or that there is a high correlation between people who take an interest in technical matters and those that have no soul.
Re:Relevant? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd appreciate that you wouldn't make far reaching assumptions based on a short post of mine. Especially if you happen to be wrong about it. I have been lucky to have great teachers in high school and it was a joy to learn in their classes. They made mathematics, physics and history interesting, but their goal wasn't to entertain me, but to teach me.
Re:Relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://tp.org/jay)
I believe either method can be successful. For some students (yourself included) perhaps they would never allow themselves to be entertained while learning so that method will not work. I believe whatever method, and I am sure there are others, is employed as long as the student is engaged they will learn something. If the student simply does not care and is busy daydreaming or thinking about other classes they are engaged in, well, I can't believe they will ever gain knowledge on the subject.