Explain to me how despite our students year after year scoring straight As, topping World academic tournaments, maths olympiads etc and GLCs full of highly educated scholars over 30 years, 2 major sovereign funds with highly paid executives claiming to have the nose for good and exceptional investment missed having stories like this. How did a kid aged 15 do it and a HongKonger seemed to find this kid half way around the world. And how did Ashton Kutcher get into the act.
In all these years, Temasek has not even scored an ice cream cone worth mentioning.
Brother and sister David and Catherine Cook were 17 and 15 respectively when they launched My Yearbook in 2005.
It survived the rival Facebook and the couple, from New Jersey, are together worth £6.5million.
In all these years, Temasek has not even scored an ice cream cone worth mentioning.
Message from Nick posted on Summly website
In true Summly fashion, I will keep this short and sweet.
I am delighted to announce Summly has signed an agreement to be acquired by Yahoo!
Our vision is to simplify how we get information and we are thrilled to continue this mission with Yahoo!'s global scale and expertise.
After spending some time on campus, I discovered that Yahoo! has an inspirational goal to make people's daily routines entertaining and meaningful, and mobile will be a central part of that vision. For us, it's the perfect fit.
When I founded Summly at 15, I would have never imagined being in this position so suddenly.
I'd personally like to thank Li Ka-Shing and Horizons Ventures for having the foresight to back a teenager pursuing his dream.
Also to our investors, advisors and of course the fantastic team for believing in the potential of Summly.
Without you all, this never would have been possible. I'd also like to thank my family, friends and school for supporting me.
Most importantly, thank you to our wonderful users who have helped contribute to us receiving Apple's Best Apps of 2012 award for Intuitive Touch!
We will be removing Summly from the App Store today but expect our summarization technology will soon return to multiple Yahoo! products - see this as a ‘power nap' so to speak.
With over 90 million summaries read in just a few short months, this is just the beginning for our technology.
As we move towards a more refined, liberated and intelligent mobile web, summaries will continue to help navigate through our ever expanding information universe.
Other teenage sensations
Nick’s success echoes that of Adam Hildreth who was just 14 when he launched the Dubit Lit website, a social networking site for teenagers.
It made him £2million in five years and now Adam, of Leeds, is estimated to be worth £24million.
Cameron Johnson was just nine years old when he started his own business in Richmond, Virginia, selling invitation cards.
Cameron, now 28, used the profits to set up his own online company EZ Mail and he is worth an estimated £3.2million.
Brother and sister David and Catherine Cook were 17 and 15 respectively when they launched My Yearbook in 2005.
It survived the rival Facebook and the couple, from New Jersey, are together worth £6.5million.