12 Year Old Gets $6.5M for Gaming Company 180
Bayscribe writes "A Silicon Valley company co-founded by a 12-year-old has just raised $6.5 million in venture capital. PlaySpan, based in Santa Clara, Calif. says it offers game publishers a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items. It calls itself the first "publisher-sponsored in-game commerce network." Arjun Mehta, a 6th grader, says on his Web site that he is passionate about software that can make the game experience more "rewarding," and that he started the company last year in his garage. He paid for it from earnings made from selling online game items he won."
bubble 2.0 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:bubble 2.0 (Score:4, Funny)
Incorrect linkage (Score:5, Informative)
Sloppy.
Re:Incorrect linkage (Score:5, Funny)
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Or maybe
Just like a national car chain that pays bonuses to mechanics who find 'additional' problems, this leads to conflicts of interest.
Whatever it is, it's obviously a management problem at Slashdot because "samzenpus" isn't the first editor to slap a story up w/o reading. Editors here are not editors... they're READERS, and often not reading.
This problem harks to the days of Hemos posting dup
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Re:Incorrect linkage (Score:5, Informative)
Re:bubble 2.0 (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, those are the diapers these babies are still wearing.
Who invests money in 12 year olds? Who is so insane to do such a thing? Sure, 12 year olds can be bright, talented and even gifted, but I wouldn't trust a 12 year old with 6.5M $, nor his 11 year old vice-president of sales sister for that matter, to make correct business decisions.
I think it's time I try to sell this kid my 6.5M matchbox car. It's a classic collectors item, worth meeeeellions on ebay.
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Maybe someone that wants to lose 6.5M?
I love the end of the article "No word on when PlaySpan will be launching."
His entire company is a website describing a great idea and that's all it is. The software will never launch. Why would it? He has 6.5 million, technically owned by his parents because children don't really control anything unless they're emancipated, he can't even sign a contract.
If I was his parent
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The dad is quite a big business man and appeared to be teaching the kid the lesson that you don't make mon
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Re:bubble 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure I've seen this before (i.e. Second Life) and no company worth it's salt would have any trouble implementing this themselves.
Silk Roads (Score:2)
Re:bubble 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
These wonder-kids never spring up out of trailer parks where mom and dad flip burgers and the most advanced high-tech device they own is a VCR.
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Re:bubble 2.0 (Score:5, Funny)
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Masturbating, mostly. (Score:2)
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Re:His future plans (Score:5, Funny)
Finally! A Slashdot story we can all relate to!
Re:His future plans (Score:5, Funny)
Even better
Aren't dangling participles fun?
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Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dropped out of university. There is a huge difference between doing that and dropping out of school.
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dupe (Score:2)
Re:dupe (Score:5, Funny)
In other words, could someone check whether that company still exists?
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That joke requires you to have a lower userid than the parent.
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Re:dupe (Score:5, Funny)
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All you whipper-snappers and your stable baryonic matter: you're spoiled rotten! When I was just a lad, all we had were muons, quarks and neutrinos and we liked it. Then some Mr. fancypants came along and invented the lepton, which was a big deal at the time.
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riight. (Score:5, Funny)
a bit like "doogie howser MD" only real, remember that?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Have you met the venture capitalists?
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Yet you flog one person for suggesting that, but flip when the discussion turns to the VC's...why the hypocrisy? Your original point was a good one, having not met the kid, lets not judge him...but you'd best carry that through or you start coming off as an ass.
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Look, I get your point, and you'd be in the clear if you hadn't gotten up on a high horse about it...but you did, and now you come off as a hypocrite. Clear enough?
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All types are 12 years old at some point. VCs experience selection pressures that weed out all but the most parasitic and useless examples of humanity.
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So you do, in fact, care how brilliant he is, yes?
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Confused (Score:2, Informative)
misleading title (Score:2)
I thought the kid had sold his company for $6.5m
It's not really the kid running the company. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently the kid isn't an actual co-founder, nor the CEO. It's his father running everything, the kid is just a sensationalist marketing tool.
Really, I highly doubt these kids even know a tiny fraction about the technical aspects of what they're selling or how it's done. They'll get lots of money for sure, and also learn a whole lot along the way, but they're definitely not the brains or management behind the operation at the moment.
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Kids today grow up so fast (Score:5, Funny)
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Lame (Score:1)
I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll have to ask her sometime.
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I'll have to ask her sometime.
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I'll have to ask her sometime.
Sometime. Not now though.
Because your much too busy right now.
What with alternating between reading slashdot, and touching yourself.
The correct link.. (Score:5, Informative)
http://venturebeat.com/2007/09/19/playspan-run-12-year-old-ceo-gets-65m-in-venture-capital/ [venturebeat.com]
Which is not to say that investing $6.5M in a company run by a 12yo makes much sense but stranger things have happened at sea.. or so they say.
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I was around the same age during (first) the
Re:The correct link.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Basically when you're under about 16 you're relying mostly on your parents to help you with anything you do, in this kids case his parents are out there pushing the idea as far as they can. In my opinion this kid is probably just like any other (and how I was when I was the same age)
What really doesn't make sense (Score:3, Interesting)
1) They support it fully, and thus facilitate it themselves like, say, Linden Labs. As such there's very little market for a secondary company, the operators already take care of things and they can offer things nobody else can, like security of transactions.
2) They hate it and it is a banable offence. Blizza
Re:What really doesn't make sense (Score:4, Interesting)
The company seems to be aiming to sell their product / service to people who run MMORGs. I a few MMORGs start using it, then you could have interesting situations where people are trading objects in one world for ones in another. This could lead to inflation and exchange rate fluctuations between the two worlds much as you currently get between countries. I wonder what their plan is to counter this.
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Are you sure it's not that "finished goods" are less valuable than their components due to the skills-xp factor?
The actual amount of money in the world doesn't matter, unless it overflows or detracts from the experience of new players. The current way of things means that players must take the "beat up animals for money" track over the "make tools for other players" route.
Hmm yase (Score:1)
Micropayments? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's face it, in a couple of years you'll get a game, say, Tekken where the character only has one costume. You'll then have to download the additional 5 different costumes at $2 a go. They'll do the same with maps and you'll only be able to play online with people who have also bought that map...
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Remember Quake? The game
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The best part - I personally bought the extra car packs. I started a system link game, unknowingly using a car from that pack (BMW M3). The other player was unable to race, but with no error message or anything. We just couldn't start it.
Solution? I had to go to the other machine and look over the cars *he* had to find one that I could use. Ended up buying the packs on his account too, just to get it done with.
This SUCKS. At least *tell* me if I can't use the car w
After reading the real article (Score:4, Insightful)
The harsh reality (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm. Isn't this already patented? (Score:5, Funny)
That's NOTHING (Score:2)
We humans seem to very quickly forget the not too distant past.
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Where's the perpective? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have done a little, and no, it's not the kid in a vacuum making these
accomplishments. He's 12 years old and smart, not a super genius born with 142
man years of VC experience. That's not built into the genetic code or injected
in the pop tarts he eats. But his support network does have this VC experience.
You could have achieved similar things as a child, if:
- You lived in Silicon Valley
- Had a support network with VC pitching experience
- Had family with connections to above said group
- Had family that planned for your achievements
I've read gushing stories of young entrepreneurs that seem outlandish or super human
in accomplishment for their age. But, when I dive down into the details, more often than not, I find cases of ready made systems that will not let the child fail.
Stories of a young furniture magnate with 2 warehouses and a booming business, only to find that his father owns 12 warehouses as is accomplished in the furniture business. The media loves portraying these kids in a light of pure achievement with no mention of their contacts, support and guiding but that is dishonest reporting.
I guess it makes for a less interesting story when you see the looming shadow of a father pulling strings for the child like a puppet behind the curtain.
The child seems happy enough with the attention though.
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It's true of almost all of these situations. If it weren't for the parents and their connections, kids like this wouldn't even be introduced to such possibilities, much less given the resources for them, the enc
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http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/ [greenspun.com]
"[His grandfather] established a million-dollar trust fund for William (Bill) Henry Gates III. In some of the later lessons, you will be encouraged to take entrepreneurial risks. You may find it comforting to remember that at any time you can fall back on a trust fund worth many millions of 1998 dollars. "
"William Henry Gates, Jr. and Mary Maxwell were among Seattle's social and financial e
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Well, guess what...this kid and his family succeeded. GOOD FOR THEM. They're going to live and eat well for a long time. They aren't going to live
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Nobody is saying they shouldn't use their connections and insights to their advantage. We're saying that it's not newsworthy. Presonally, I'm tired of media articles about some wiz-kid who founded his own company or invented some genius device and immediately got it into production and became wealthy before he had pubes when the kid already had the connections and avenues open for him to begin with.
Think of it this way. Which is a news story? Spoiled child of wealthy
Ooh, ditto! (Score:2)
Mascot (Score:2)
What, a sock puppet you say, now that sounds like a really stupid idea! Ah, what the hell, let's get a Superbowl ad too while we are at it!
Wrong title, fixed title below (Score:4, Informative)
Eh the link in the article links to wrong story (Score:1)
Submitting your own articles to Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of explains a lot, actually.
How very Web 2.0 Bubble...
Well, there goes 5 minutes I'll never get back.
Founder is his Father - Karl Mehta - a Hack (Score:5, Informative)
Please don't waste a min of your time on this crap. Arjun, his son, has no clue about what's going on - his father is using him for the dramatic effect.
If only it IPO'd (Score:2)
I wish ... (Score:2, Funny)
Games Company Wannabes (Score:2, Interesting)
They tell us how they have a great "idea" for a game. They want programmers to work for them; we ask what they will contribute, and it's "ideas". We tell them that it's like someone with no experience in car design saying they have a great idea for a car,
not run by kid (Score:2)
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