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sakunthala's comments

sakunthala | 11 years ago | on: Improbable: enabling the development of large-scale simulated worlds

One of my best friends at university dropped out to work with these guys when they were still < 10 people. I was really perplexed since they were living and working in one of the founder's house, and had no product released, and seemed to be working on something vague and pie-in-the-sky involving gaming. It seemed like a self-indulgent vanity project. There aren't too many legit startups in London, so I didn't expect much and teased him mercilessly that he'd joined a cult.

A year or so later, they'd gotten actual offices and had become something of a phenomenon. People were quitting Google to join them. A pretty famous game developer (creator of Day-Z) was in their office working on his next game. It seemed they'd managed to reach their ambitious technical goals, which was really, really strange and unexpected, but it still didn't click with me that they were doing well, and they were among the most rapidly growing companies in London. I liked the people a lot however, and continued to hang around their offices on Friday just to chat, taking very little interest in their technology.

No point to this story, just that spotting a great company can be hard, even when it's right under your nose. Even more so when it doesn't fit your mental image of what a great company should look like (i.e. not in London, not making video games, etc.)

sakunthala | 11 years ago | on: For Frustrated Gifted Kids, A World of Online Opportunities

For your average, middle-class parents this isn't practical. They have jobs & school is pretty much free daycare they wouldn't want to give up.

There are so many advantages to entering college at 14. For a start, it looks great on your resume. Which means you have a whole host of cool work opportunities when you graduate, meaning you can start a fun and interesting career at 18- rather than slog on through the system, waiting to be recognised at 22-25. Source: know a lot of Thiel fellows.

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