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.
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
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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.
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