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Ask HN: Could a 13 year old build a search engine like Nathan in Ex Machina?

3 points by tdevito ↗ HN
In the movie, the character Nathan built his search engine, "BlueBook", when he was only 13 and the original code he wrote was so groundbreaking that it inspired a comparison to Mozart. Could someone be so off the charts in terms of IQ that they could write an extremely complex codebase and build a company as a teenager?

9 comments

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db48x
Sure, in principle. In practice spidering the web requires a lot of infrastructure which a 13-year-old might not be able to afford.
tdevito
I had thought about that also, assuming his parents were middle class it's not impossible for them to give him a loan for a few thousand. But even if you were an amazingly gifted coding prodigy I can't see him being able to build a team at such a young age. Who would work for a 15 year old?
TheGrumpyBrit
A few thousand wouldn't even scratch the surface. You're probably going to want at least another four zero's on the end of that number. Per year.
badpun
I don't think there's any example of reasonably sophisticated and successful software done by a 13 year old, let alone one which requires lots of servers.
saluki
Anything is possible. Most couldn't but I'm sure there is someone out there that could. Especially if they have a mentor with those skills.
rajacombinator
Not familiar with this movie but I see no reason why not. Search engines are not that intellectually challenging nor do they need complex code bases - the underlying concepts are quite simple. If you don’t think some 13 year old build one, you simply haven’t been exposed to high intellect 13 year olds. I’m sure half of FANG employees (ok maybe just AG employees..) are training their kids to do this now.
astrodev
> I’m sure half of FANG employees (ok maybe just AG employees..)

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detaro
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