>>Maybe 50, working for 2-3 years, to get a usable first cut and basic standard libraries? Paying them an average salary of 100k, that's "only" 15 million dollars.
I think you are underestimating the man-hours and cost. You will need a Google or some other tech giant to engineer this. Why not improve openJDK?
Youre right. I wish them well. Hope they make millions. I just think these talented individuals would have done better for themselves had they not focused on a trendy/hipster social network site (do we need another?) and more on "bootstrappable" software businesses.
Obviously not. These are just a couple MIT/Ivy/Stanford kids who PG liked and decided to give 20k to spend time at summer camp. No one could bootstrap this. The technology inst hard to copy, so if it could be bootstrapped we see a lot of them. Also, it over relies peoples use of Facebook, Twitter.
Funny how reports of this bogus conversation can make it to the top of HN, yet the articles I submit on possible future apple products always get deleted. =(
I think the fact that my comment didnt get downmodded out of existence shows how cool HN is. Nonetheless, the forum shouldnt (routinely?) engage in self-congradulatory homages to PG.