The point is to dig up something cool in the vast universe of information and actually deliver it. It is nice there are friends and university Professors who knows about this certain technology way deeper but can they _really_ deliver ? Sure, they will teach other kids and those kids will teach others or maybe going to be employed at some tech company. This kind of success is just more potent a visible. It really depends from what angle you look. This guy has financial, educational and social success. From standpoint of the startup culture, I think he's done very well. Anything can be judged only by comparison to something else.