[ed56]

To the author: Would you have not taken a buyout offer from Yahoo! if you were in this kids position? All HN discussions regarding this topic have just screamed jealousy/disdain. It is as if people come to HN to read an intelligent argument to argue for their immature feelings. Also, the most important premise in your argument, that their technology was licensed, is incorrect. Their natural language technology was 100% proprietary according to them, and not "licensed from SRI" [0].

[0]: http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2013/03/26/what-does-30-mil...

[xradionut]

To truely understand what's going on here you have to follow the money. All of the money.

This is not a simple story of a hard working smart kid winning the tech lottery with a hot app/technology going from rags to riches. This is an arranged marriage, a PR stunt and a good-ole-boy deal all rolled into one. It's a VC fuck-you to all people that truly have innovative ideas, viable businesses, and dedicated employees that are trying to get management to notice solutions instead of golfing with "consultants" or blowing big money on solutions that could be built in-house for 1% of the costs.

The kid was born on third base, got home on a wild pitch and some folks think he hit a home run.

[jeremyjh]

I wonder if Yahoo has got the rights to make a movie about this fairy tale. That's about the only way I can think of for them to cash-in. But it seems more likely that they just got sucker-punched.

[rayiner]

I should not you can be disdainful without being jealous and vice versa.