
This teenager is hot property in Silicon Valley - pzaich
http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/entrepreneur/cant-drink-cant-vote--but-this-teenager-is-hot-property-in-silicon-valley-20120620-20mt9.html
======
javajosh
I've notice that these articles are good at generating one thing: envy. The
problem with comparing oneself to the person portrayed in an essentially
random article are many. But first and foremost is the utter lack of context:
I'd argue that Lachy's peers at his high school would be better off comparing
themselves to him. And even then I would hesitate, as luck really does count.
The rest of us fall prey to a kind of assumption of universality: that his
context is roughly the same as ours, and so the only difference are variables
we can control. That's not true!

The one quote that I really like in the article was from his "fan" headmaster,
David Gee. "I think he’s a great example of someone who has followed his
passion, hasn’t let age be a barrier and hasn’t said ‘well I can’t do this
because I’m 17’" That's a fantastic sentiment, and I share it. The most tragic
reason to fail is because of some delusional belief that failure is tied to
some innate quality like age.

Note that these two sentiments are not at odds! It's true that context can
prevent your success, but we don't usually know _which_ part of that context
is to blame.

~~~
joneil
I live in Perth where this guy is from, and Wesley is one of the most
expensive and most highly regarded schools around. Given the sentiment of the
headmaster, I'm not surprised it's doing so well... Seeing beyond "get my
school's average up" and seeing genuine talent and potential, then fostering
it - that's the sort of school I'd send my one-day kids to.

~~~
lewi
I went to school with Lachy and it was really great to see the complete
support of the head (Mr. Gee) behind his endeavours.

Also this isn't a once off occasion that he has helped and supported students.
My brother during his final year was heavily involved in Cycling at a national
level. His commitment was at school was minimum, Gee saw this and helped the
best he could.

Plus he has an uncanny ability to greet every student by name. Great guy.

~~~
niels_olson
My kids have gone to more schools than I care to consider (I'm military): the
headmaster's ability to remember kids' names is a minimum necessary sales
tactic. Of, oh my, 10? headmasters, they all know my kids by name on an
impromptu basis. I wouldn't make too much out of it.

~~~
davidjohnstone
Schools vary. Possibly by geographic location and size. Having 1500 or so
students doesn't help.

I went to a similar school (as in, really expensive) as the OP in Melbourne.
The principal was universally well regarded, and even got a Member of the
Order of Australia (a couple of steps below a knighthood) for his contribution
to education, but he knew very few of us students by name.

When I was at uni, I noticed a Who's Who book in the library, and flicked it
open to the page that my old principal was on...

~~~
astrange
And?

------
DontBeTaken
As a 17 year old, this makes me feel under accomplished. While I do have
skills in regards to computery things, I'm hitting a block when it comes to
developing backends to sites. I know HTML and CSS decently but programming
languages that I'd need to learn just seem to bounce off.

On the plus side, I'm good at other things too, like photography / producing
electronic music (no Madeon though. He makes me feel under accomplished as
well). And I know that I shouldn't be too hard on myself to be good at things
- I'm only 17. But part of me wants to be known as someone who's really good
at something at a younger than normal age.

This person's story is really cool - it's too bad immigration has him caught
up. Startup visas would be nifty. Could he go to college in the US? Even
though he clearly doesn't need a college education (and questionably a bit of
those who go to college, but that's another debate), it could serve as a sort
of foot in the door for getting settled in America. I'm probably wrong about
this but also curious as to what would make this not a viable option.

~~~
dobetaken
(Throaway so I can be more candid)

I'm approaching 21 in a few weeks and I've been making 6 figures since 19, I
could have articles written about me but I choose to remain relatively quiet
about my "success", millions of people use the things that I produce. My
advice to you would be just do it, just do whatever it is you want. It's
probably unique to each individual but I personally find that when someone
tweets about my products or the things that I have produced it's the greatest
feeling in the world, but when someone says "whoa you're 20 and you've done
that?!" it's so hollow. Imagine your achievements being talked about because
of your age? The internet is not discriminatory towards age, you can be 15 or
90 and achieve great things, why have them trivialized by an uncontrollable
personal attribute.

As an aside I am also a poor programmer, although I can do everything I need
to I am not a "rockstar" like a large portion of HNers would lead you to
believe you need to be, but you don't, what matters is that you actually do
stuff. Sit down, write code and maybe you'll achieve something great, but if
you spend your time lamenting about how it's never going to happen then it
never will.

~~~
betakingthis
I always stay away from the comment section on this type of blog post, but
your reply has encouraged me to add my own two cents just this time. Also a
throwaway. I have a very similar story to you. I'm a little bit younger than
you, and I've been very financially successful for a few years from my own
ventures. I like to stay entirely out of the tech blogs for privacy reasons,
but at least a few HNers know of my companies.

With all due respect to those involved, these blog posts are usually just
linkbait.

The young people I know running the 7 or 8 figure per annum companies like to
keep the stories to themselves.

Last week, an old business friend of mine raised an 8 figure round for his
already highly profitable B2B software business. At his age he can't even
legally drink in the US. The tech bloggers would wet themselves with this
story, but he has kept it entirely under wraps for a few reasons. The thing
about it is - literally one day after he closed the round, he was back to all-
day coding sessions. He always says that if you just have focus, you can have
anything. And this is truly evidence to support that.

Don't worry about what bloggers write or what others are doing. Focus on
building something of value, experiment, never quit, and in no time you'll be
the one deciding whether or not you want the tech blogs to write about you,
not the other way around.

------
nchuhoai
Re: Visas for non-degree holders

I'd love to connect with people like lachyg or others who are related to the
struggle of finding ways to pursue their dreams in the US without having a
college degree.

Im currently enrolled an in US institution and working on CPT, but there is
nothing I'd love to do more than quit school in the fall to work full-time,
however as the article notes, any ordinary visa does not apply to non-degree
holders. After consultation with our lawyers, a marriage or mentioned O1 visa
are the only option.

I know several people in a similar situation who went through the O1 route,
however they all say its a ridiculously hard process and requires extensive
documentation of the "national and international acclaim". Admittance to YC/TS
helps a lot (which we are trying right now)

~~~
nchuhoai
I don't understand why someone would downvote me. I'm just trying to follow my
dreams and passion

------
qeorge
We sold Lachy the PSDtoWP.com domain a couple years back. Helluva negotiator,
would never have guessed he was 15(?) at the time. :)

Glad to see it worked out. Congrats!

~~~
raldi
What had you been using it for?

~~~
reddit_clone
A PostScript to Word Perfect converter ?

~~~
sidwyn
Photoshop to Wordpress.

------
zacharyvoase
I can sympathise with the visa situation. I'm 19 and don't have a degree, and
I've been in exactly the same situation—you go through the whole interview
process and then suddenly the company's lawyers tell them there's no way you
can get a visa, and weeks of time have been wasted for both parties. It would
be funny if it weren't so tragic.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind living on a boat for a while:
<http://www.blueseed.co/>

------
frontier
I want to know how he was able to so easily become an affiliate on Amazon...?
(As a fellow Australian) I tried a few years ago and Amazon wouldn't even
allow me to purchase advertising (let alone join the affiliate program or
sell) without having US tax numbers, bank accounts, etc.. I have an Australian
pty ltd company and had to go through a third parties to get my products
listed on there.

~~~
NickRenold
He wasn't selling products on amazon, just linking to products that were
already for sale and getting paid by Amazon for the traffic. See "product
links" on this page: [https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/land...](https://affiliate-
program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/landing/tools.html)

~~~
frontier
Yes.. this is an Amazon affiliate program, you will _require_ a US credit
card, US bank account and US postal address to join this program. ie. for when
they pay you your commissions it needs to be reported.

If you are not from the US, these things are not easy to obtain.

And last I checked they wouldn't even allow me to buy Amazon PPC advertising
without these things either!

~~~
kika
Usually debit card goes everywhere where credit one is needed. Debit card, US
bank acct and a US postal address are easily obtainable for approximately
$800-1500 one time payment (couch class ticket to US and tourist visa fee). I
walked into the bank (R.I.P Washington Mutual) on Castro st. in MV, CA and
left it half an hour later with the bank account. The debit card followed in
the mail a week later. I had a address of my friend, but I could have used a
PO box. Now you can buy US postal address online and have all spa^H^H^H mail
forwarded to your email address scanned.

I then repeated this process in 2008 to incorporate, opened the business
account and raised money (and put them on the account).

Now I'm living in the US, on a work visa, having no degree.

Guys, US is a fantastic country for anyone who actually _wants_ something. Put
some creativity here and there and it works flawlessly. I laugh when I talk to
US citizens (or read them online) who go on endless whining on how police
state this country has become, how much burden you have to put up with to open
the business, how the school system is in the toilet, etc, etc. They just
don't know what they're talking about. Any US system could be ridiculed and
laughed upon, and sometimes it deserves it. But it's fucking efficient.

Go open the debit card, bank account, business, whatever in, lets say France
(I love this country, I've been there like 30 times and it's never enough). If
you succeed you can come back to the US and apply for National Interest Waiver
for being a person with extraordinary abilities in science AND arts AND
business. Haha.

~~~
frontier
Interesting.. 26 hrs flying time just to open a bank account is a little
extreme.. but next time I am there on vacation I'll definitely be calling into
a bank and giving this a go!

------
davidjohnstone
Would you consider staying in Australia?

I suppose the startup scene here is nothing like it is in Silicon Valley/New
York/etc., but it's not non-existent either.

~~~
lachyg
I feel at home here in San Francisco. There are a multitude of companies I'd
love to work for.

~~~
GuiA
Interesting that you would want to work for a company rather than start your
own (optionally taking part in YC, etc.).

What is your reasoning behind that?

~~~
lachyg
Currently I don't have an idea I'd REALLY love to work on. Something I'm
passionate, knowledgeable and enthusiastic about. So until then, keep gaining
skills.

YC is definitely something I'd love to do.

------
talmand
Are there any other details available on this young man's actual tech-related
talents? The article only really presents him as good at coming up with
business ideas and successfully executing them. Why is he a hot property for
the tech industry exactly? The only tech skills I see mentioned are HTML and
CSS. It would seem to me several different industries might be interested in
chatting with him since he appears to be an idea guy worth pursuing.

Is there no tech industry in Australia to court him or that he's interested
in? Why does he have to get a visa to move to the US, if the big companies
want him why not let him work from Australia? I guess maybe he sees value for
him to move there, I get that though.

I'm not discounting his abilities since starting several profitable companies
to be sold later is rather impressive, regardless of his age. I'm just
interested in what skill sets he has that the tech industry appears to desire
so much. Is it because he's a self-starter that gets things done or some other
reason the article doesn't state?

~~~
no_more_death
Popular articles only mention technologies that are buzz-word friendly.

------
bradfeld
Yet another example why we need the Startup Visa.

------
kamakazizuru
yet another loss for the US due to the lack of a startup visa. I'd be curious
to see as study that looked at all the startups that tried to make it to the
US but failed and ended up being succesful somewhere else - as a result of
which the US missed out on the revenues they would've generated. (I know this
guy isn't trying to move a startup there - but so far he seems like a pretty
strong candidate for being someone to start a potentially succesful one -
reminds be a bit of the stripe guys actually!)

------
MatCarpenter
Great read, best of luck.

------
sean12345
If he has enough cash he could apply for EB-5 visa.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EB-5_visa>

------
dools
_My grandfather taught me HTML_

Whoa O_o

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
He's lucky, I learnt it from a brief section in the 2003 edition of _A Rough
Guide to the Internet_.

And then spent years thinking CSS was a proprietary, evil, non-standard
Microsoft technology, for some reason.

------
dutchbrit
Well done Lachy - you always keep surprising me! Sam

------
dutchbrit
Well done Lachy!

------
ccontrast
Classic Lachy.

------
dakimov
Good luck, Lachy! You're a great guy at your 17, and I'm just an incapable
trashbag at my 28 being a skilled experienced software engineer, but haven't
done a single startup yet because I cannot figure out how to come up with an
idea. You're so much better than me, but I'm not jealous, just keep it up, and
you'll become a new Zuckerberg in a few years.

------
dsolomon
Why would he take a cut in pay and move here?

------
dakimov
<http://youtu.be/f3XeRCAAkZY>

------
mehulkar
Whattaguy

~~~
douglascalhoun
Indubitably!

------
klt39429
And with talented kids like him around, Obama decides to give work permit,
financial aid, and legal status to illegal immigrants?

~~~
chris_wot
An incredibly flawed and ridiculous argument.

Flaw 1: You imply that no illegal immigrants are talented, or contribute to
U.S. society.

Flaw 2: Your argument presupposes that providing legal status, financial aid
and work permits to illegal immigrants will prevent talented people from
wanting to work in the U.S.

Flaw 3: Providing work permits, financial aid and legal status to illegal
immigrants is done for many reasons, and your argument presupposes that it's a
bad thing. You need to demonstrate that this is the case before your argument
can have any weight.

~~~
klt39429
Quoting chris_wot1:

Flaw 1: I didn't say no illegal immigrants are talented. Let's say odds for an
illegal immigrant to be talented is 50/50, while we know skilled workers like
this kid is 100% talented (track record proven so far) -- so why makes it easy
for the former group but not the latter?

Flaw 2: If there are slots available, they should be allocated to talented
individuals. Evidence has shown many entrepreneurs and college graduates
(legitimately) have gone back to their countries because of inability to
obtain visas here.

Flaw 3: It's a bad thing. If you compare it to how tough it is for a legal,
skilled worker to come here. Besides, I personally know countless people are
planning to send their kids here illegally before 15 to benefit from this new
regulation. But that's the whole new debate. My only point here is: Why not
make it easier for talented individuals instead of illegal immigrants?

~~~
chris_wot
For flaw 1 and 2, show me the evidence backing your claim. For flaw 3, your
point doesn't respond to my point, in that there are a whole bunch more
reasons why Obama allowed through illegal immigrants.

Your reasoning isn't much better than "those skilled immigrants are taking our
jobs"

