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Comment by peg_leg | Hacker News Reader

32?!?!?!

I remember reading an article talking about how he started anandtech when he was a teenager (maybe 16 or 17) and had to argue with his parents to let him do it.

In the article he says he started the original site when he was 14, in 1997.

What I want to know is how rich he needed to be to get all that hardware to review.

If I had access to all that hardware I might have done something like that as well.

> how rich he needed to be to get all that hardware to review

I believe manufacturers at some point just send them free hardware pieces to get reviewed.

How about when he was just getting started though. There would have been a long period when the site wasn't making money, he had to pay for hardware (which was more expensive in 1997) and he was so young he likely wouldn't have had any of his own capital. It would be interesting to know how it worked. Maybe they did send him hardware right from the start but it doesn't seem likely.

If you knew the manager of a big box electronics store in the 90's it was not hard to come by a large variety of computer parts.

The scene in 40 year old virgin where they destroy all the returns is pretty accurate to what is supposed to happen. What actually happens is they only destroy like a quarter of it.

Cool, I had a no idea. I was only really getting started in the late 90's and fortunately had family that were big into computers and would give me free parts so don't know much about that scene.

as opposed to...?

I assume GP meant "he's done all this at 32." It's pretty cool to semi-retire at that age.

Specifically, "all this" is a 17-year legacy. Incredible at his age, regardless of his wealth. XX Thousands of techies looked to a kid as the authority on hardware.

His writing looked a little weird at times, which folks took to be a foreign accent, not him actually being a kid at the time.

As opposed to 45 or 50, considering the sheer volume of incredibly thoroughly researched content he produced, for 17 years. Anand was writing better articles at 17 than almost anyone could at 32. Some people's careers don't even really start until they're 32 or older.

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