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'He's About to Graduate College and Join SpaceX as an Engineer. He's 14.' (yahoo.com) 91

Posted by EditorDavid from the teen-triumphs dept.
"Kairan Quazi will probably need someone to drive him to work at SpaceX," writes the Los Angeles Times — because "He's only 14." The teen is scheduled to graduate this month from the Santa Clara University School of Engineering before starting a job as a software engineer at the satellite communications and spacecraft manufacturer... The soft-spoken teen said working with Starlink — the satellite internet team at SpaceX — will allow him to be part of something bigger than himself. That is no small feat for someone who has accomplished so much at such a young age...

The youngster jumped from third grade to a community college, with a workload that he felt made sense. "I felt like I was learning at the level that I was meant to learn," said Kairan, who later transferred to Santa Clara University... Kairan's family told BrainGain Magazine that when he was 9, IQ tests showed that his intelligence was in the 99.9th percentile of the general population. Asked if he's a genius, he recalled his parents telling him, "Genius is an action â it requires solving big problems that have a human impact." Once accepted to the engineering school at Santa Clara University as a transfer student, Kairan felt that he had found his freedom to pursue a career path that allowed him to solve those big problems.

While in college, Kairan and his mother made a list of places where he could apply for an internship. Only one company responded. Lama Nachman, director of the Intelligent Systems Research Lab at Intel, took a meeting with 10-year-old Kairan, who expected it to be brief and thought she would give him the customary "try again in a few years," he said. She accepted him. "In a sea of so many 'no's' by Silicon Valley's most vaunted companies, that ONE leader saying yes ... one door opening ... changed everything," Kairan wrote on his LinkedIn page...

Asked what he plans to wear on his first day, Kairan joked in an email that he plans "to show up in head to toe SpaceX merch. I'll be a walking commercial! Joking aside, I'll probably wear jeans and a t-shirt so I can be taken seriously as an engineer."
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'He's About to Graduate College and Join SpaceX as an Engineer. He's 14.' More

'He's About to Graduate College and Join SpaceX as an Engineer. He's 14.'

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  • Just think how well off people would be if they could start a working career at 14. It means that by the time you reached 30, you would have reached an amazing position where you could decide to stay there, or try some entirely different field...

    Along with making real money that he can start investing from that young age and let grow for so long.

    Hopefully his co-workers are accepting of working with someone so young, but it sounds like he has good interpersonal skills since he interviewed so well.

  • Child Labor Laws? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by buzz_mccool ( 549976 ) on Monday June 12, 2023 @01:24AM (#63594478)
    How can employing a 14 year old be legal (and ethical)?

    • Re:Child Labor Laws? (Score:5, Informative)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday June 12, 2023 @02:04AM (#63594526)

      How can employing a 14 year old be legal (and ethical)?

      It's getting easier ... Sampling from: states relaxing child labor laws [google.com]

      - Child labor laws are under attack in states across the country [epi.org]
      - New State Laws Are Rolling Back Regulations On Child Labor [npr.org]
      - Lawmakers in 11 states seek to weaken child labor laws [usatoday.com]

      Republicans push for teenagers as young as 14 to work in restaurants, industrial jobs.

      The legislation in Iowa would, for example, allow children as young as 14 to work in meat coolers and industrial laundries. In Ohio, Republican state senators last month approved a bill that would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work until 9 p.m. during the school year. And in Minnesota, a proposal would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work on construction sites.

      And also shield businesses if those children were injured/killed on the job.
      - Child labor protections are the latest Republican target [vox.com]

      Per the Iowa bill, children as young as 14 would be allowed to work in certain jobs in meatpacking plants. That bill would also protect businesses from responsibility if a child were injured or killed while on the job. The Iowa Department of Labor declined Vox’s request for comment on the bill.

    • I don't know how the law worked, but Andy Weir was working at Sandia at age 15.

      • I got my first legit job at 15, in California even. I worked as a Trackwalker at Roaring Camp railroad. I followed the narrow gauge steam train up the mountain on foot, and made sure it didn't start any fires. I carried a radio and a McCloud. Sometimes I even worked a full day, especially during the summer, when it was 100 degrees on the tracks. We had water and salt tabs on the engines.

        I'm solidly against having children working in meat packing plants, but children have been able to work in a variety of co

        • I'm solidly against having children working in meat packing plants, but children have been able to work in a variety of conditions all along.

          Here are the rules for California [maisonlaw.com].

          Among them: "there are certain jobs that nobody under the age of 16 can work at. Under California law, some of those jobs involving working on a railroad or a boat, in excavations, mines or tunnels or as a driver.

          Minors who are 15 and under must attend school full-time unless they've graduated... When school is not in session, th

          • I did work on a railroad, and what's more, I was getting on and off moving trains.

            It was a great job, and if I could make good money doing it, I'd do it again.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          Ha, my first job was at 15 but it was at a shitty sandwich shop with miserable coworkers. Your first job actually sounds pretty decent!

        • by being encouraged to think Elon is anything but a lucky ass.

          Elon is more than a "lucky ass", even if he is lucky and an ass. Frankly, a statement like that is more telling of your nature, but lucky for you, you're a nobody.

          • Not sure what you're defending here. This kid will learn the hard way what it's like to work for an insane pathological liar. Feels bad man.

            • Why are extreme socialists unconcerned with the accuracy of their accusations, only that the guy they condemn gets hanged?

              If Elon Musk was insane, and a pathological liar, its very unlikely any of his business ventures could have succeeded. (If anything, the legal requirements of being a CEO means having to be accurate with the quarterly report calls.)

              Elon is obviously a sane, sociopathic (or possibly psychopathic) liar. And then you have to evaluate the effect of his autistic personality has on the quali

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by skam240 ( 789197 )

                Why are extreme socialists unconcerned with the accuracy of their accusations, only that the guy they condemn gets hanged?

                Probably because you're spinning fiction, no one in any meaningful numbers is calling for harm to be done to Musk. I would be curious to know more about who you're calling "extreme socialists" though. In my experience most people throwing comments like this around do so for anyone left of center as unless you're from a country outside the US there really arent meaningful numbers of actual extreme socialists to be found.

              • Why are extreme socialists unconcerned with the accuracy of their accusations, only that the guy they condemn gets hanged?

                Not sure where this "extreme socialists" shit came from.

                Elon is obviously a sane, sociopathic (or possibly psychopathic) liar. And then you have to evaluate the effect of his autistic personality has on the quality of his expression.

                Probably a spot-on analysis.

                Musk is definitely far more than a lucky ass, but like most successful business people, a very healthy dose of luck did in fact land him in the position he's in.
                I'd say luck and vision.

                Of course his capacity for harming business ventures appears to be about as good as his capacity for finding a niche that really needed an entrepreneur.

    • How can employing a 14 year old be legal

      America!

      (and ethical)?

      lol.

    • If SpaceX is a family farm, then yes.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      How can employing a 14 year old be legal (and ethical)?

      Kids often get jobs, because it helps them earn a little pocket money. It's something every kid wanted in order to help save up for that game or toy or whatever - to be able to be like an adult, earn the money and buy the thing that the parents say you can't have.

      Thus, kids with paper routes were/are a thing where they'd get up early in the morning to pick up a neighbourhood's worth of papers and deliver them before school. It didn't pay terribly well (

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You know how, sometimes, you hear about a thing called "elections?"

      Turns out elections are real, and about half of the people who bother to show up, pick Republican. If you don't show up and vote, then there's a reasonable chance that Republicans will get to write the laws.

      And, in fact, that's exactly what happened. Furthermore, it might even happen again. Remember to show up.

      • Except SpaceX is in Los Angeles, in a state where the Democrats have a super majority.

        As Mark Twain aptly put it, no oneâ(TM)s life, liberty, or property is safe while congress is in session. All political parties are out for power.

        I think a lot of politics is so much more explainable once you realize that itâ(TM)s all about power.

    • The main reason child labor is looked down upon is because they need to be in school. But it seems he's done with that already, so it's kind of moot.

    • What about Elon Musk do you think is ethical?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dvice ( 6309704 )

        > What about Elon Musk do you think is ethical?

        We have a lot of people who get rich by selling guns, gambling, alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, etc. but you want to target the one person who is trying to save Earth from Global warming, save humankind from extinction by building city to Mars and trying to save freedom of speech by spending his own money on Twitter. How ethical is that?

    • When I was working part-time as a high school kid in Michigan, it was possible for a 14 year old to work for a company, but there were really strict rules about how many hours and at what times he or she could work. Once you turned 16, those reals were less strict, but you still couldn't work late nights or during school hours. But there were exceptions where the school would provide the business with a letter saying that you were authorized to work during school hours, if your work had some sort of educa

    • So why is this a problem for this particular 14 year old but not for the 5 year olds, whose parents make videos that make millions or 5 year olds playing in movies or 5 year olds in the fashion industry?

  • Haven't we learned by now? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vistic ( 556838 ) on Monday June 12, 2023 @04:15AM (#63594672)

    Being a child prodigy does not mean you are destined for greater things as an adult, it just means you missed out on being a child.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )

      Being a child prodigy does not mean you are destined for greater things as an adult, it just means you missed out on being a child.

      Come on, man: Doogie Howser turned out alright. I saw that documentary. That kid saved people's lives.

    • I suspect Bill Gates is at peace with the tradeoff.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by coop247 ( 974899 )
        Gates finished high school and spent two full years at Harvard before starting his own software company.

        Not exactly community college and a shitty job at some corporation.

        • Gates spent his youth being a part-time programmer. He already had industry work experience before attending Harvard.

          And tons of Harvard graduates live life without making a mark on society, other than getting a Harvard degree and holding a job for the rest of their life.

          Not exactly community college and a shitty job at some corporation.

          He probably attended community college because his parents didn't have the wealth and connections to get accepted to Stanford or the Ivies (and they tend to be reticent about accepting students so young anyway). Its a shitty job to you; t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ranton ( 36917 )

      Depends on what you mean by great things I guess. They are probably no more likely to become successful entrepreneurs and future billionaires than anyone else (probably less so), but are they more likely to get into prestigious and impactful research roles? Or something similarly "great"? I couldn't find any research online tracking the success of these child prodigies, but you at least claim to feel we should know this kind of information by now.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by nomadic ( 141991 )

      It seems pretty clear that most child prodigies peak early but don't maintain the same rate of improvement. So when they hit 25 they're pretty much just normal smart people.

  • Or if he is, let's hope he uses it to fill a house with popcorn.
  • We've heard a lot about child prodigies over the years, but how successful are they after 10-20 years would be an interesting story. You never hear about them being millionaires that I'm aware of. Like an other comment said, they lose their childhood early, but then did they even have one after going thru advanced schooling like he did.

  • This is an idiotic stunt (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday June 12, 2023 @05:38AM (#63594768)

    Somebody with a big ego is behind this, probably a parent. Nobody that is 14 years old has the life-experience to be a competent engineer.

    • Most 20 something engineers don't have much life experience either. It can be a real struggle to get creative, intoverted people to work together as a group. Especially after university ruined them with years of isolated study. Hopefully 14 is young enough to undo the damage quickly.

    • Ya, dunno. They graduated from a School of Engineering. I did too.
      I've never met a 14 year old who stood a snowball's chance in hell of doing that, so I don't think I can lump this particular 14 year old in with what I know of 14 year olds.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PJ6 ( 1151747 )

      Somebody with a big ego is behind this, probably a parent. Nobody that is 14 years old has the life-experience to be a competent engineer.

      Being a practical art, you don't really learn about engineering until you actually do it for a while.

      School can help. I don't know what you mean by life experience, other than the keep-your-head-down mentality some people learn from office politics.

      He won't be the timid type though.

    • Neither has a 24 year old who just finished university.

      A competent engineer starts a freshman. Regardless what his age is.
      And he becomes competent with experience in his trade: not by just aging.

  • Community college and then Santa Clara?

    Not go to a more rigorous university, with a 99.9th percentile IQ? Seems odd. Why not UC Berkeley? Stanford? Caltech? And that's just staying on the West Coast. All of them have understanding how to handle young brilliance.

    It would be very interesting to speak with someone who learns at such a ferocious rate. Maybe we could all get better at it. Someone like that is building their abilities and advancing their level of understanding with each waking moment, wit

    • Yeah, there's something fishy about that college path. Sailing through low-challenge courses is not super impressive. Space-X better be careful about assigning him any tasks that actually matter.

    • Yeah...Go to a real engineering school, like Purdue

  • I don't care how smart he is, he is missing a lot of basics, and basic information. If TFA is accurate (who knows), then 99.9% is an IQ of 145 or so. That's the level where the kid needs a good, academic private school - nothing more.

    Either he's a whole lot smarter than that (IQ 160+) or this is going to end badly. Maybe both...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hodr ( 219920 )

      IQ tests (real ones) skew based on age as well, so results that might score you a 145 at 9 may be a 130 at age 19. As is often the case, young geniuses can end up being simply a little above average as adults.

      But they are also often missing a lot of the social development that a normal education would provide. Imagine being 9 years old in college. From the moment this kid left 3rd grade he had not one age-appropriate interaction with his peers.

      We actually have a lot of examples of this, mainly child acto

    • In 7th grade, school was trying to figure out why I was screwing up all the time and why my grades where all over the place. Went through a slew of cognative and sensory testing in hopes to pin down the problem. One test was IQ, which I scored 152 average. 30+ years latter I'm a total fuck up and can barely hold a job. IQ is nothing when you can't focus, lack civil social skills, and can't communicate effectively with people. School teaches kids how to deal with social and academic problems, in a controlle

      • One test was IQ, which I scored 152 average. 30+ years latter I'm a total fuck up and can barely hold a job. IQ is nothing when you can't focus, lack civil social skills, and can't communicate effectively with people.

        And so you found your way to Slashdot. A tale as old as time. Good that you found your niche. We mostly just shout at each other.

  • He is likely going to fail at GIRLS,... except he'll throw a ball like one.

  • geniuses don't build products (Score:3)

    by peterww ( 6558522 ) on Monday June 12, 2023 @07:57AM (#63595064)

    About 5% of engineering is having great ideas. The other 95% is how you treat your co-workers, prioritization, scheduling, swimming through bureaucracy, politics, yak shaving, testing, etc. It's boring and annoying. It takes years to make a good idea bear fruit.

    I really hope they give him some kind of research position where he can just flex his brain and not be impeded by the daily grind.

  • This seems like a prime example where working from home and not in-person might be a benefit in being taken seriously.

    On the internet no-one would necessarily notice his age, but in person it could be impossible to be taken seriously. Best of luck to him, but talk around a water cooler may be completely foreign to him. How will others react to him as barely a teenager?: appearances do matter, despite peoples' intentions.

    I wish him luck in finding his course.
     

  • Precociousness isn't the same thing as intelligence and also isn't correlated with later performance. By and large, savants like this kid just hit an adult plateau faster than normal but are rather middle of the pack at adult performance. They have a bit of an experience advantage, but every year they lose a bit of that as their peer group catches up. He's not a genius; he's just an early bloomer.

  • I give this kid 6 months of 80 weeks, tops.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kmoser ( 1469707 )
      Naah, he's young, strong, and ambitious. He'll last a good few years, just long enough to grow a neckbeard so he can *really* be taken seriously.
  • Was the first thing that came to mind.
  • Elon will call him a pedo.
  • This story about a 14-year-old joining SpaceX as an engineer sounds like straight-up PR bull. I mean, come on! How's a middle-schooler gonna handle the complexities of engineering in a major space company? Sounds fishy to me, like they're just trying to grab headlines and boost their image. It's probably just some elaborate PR stunt. Speaking of real student struggles, check out https://assignmentbro.com/ca/ [assignmentbro.com] , it's a legit resource for students dealing with tough study times, offering helpful tips and guida

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bob_Who ( 926234 )

      This story about a 14-year-old joining SpaceX as an engineer sounds like straight-up PR bull. I mean, come on! How's a middle-schooler gonna handle the complexities of engineering in a major space company? Sounds fishy to me, like they're just trying to grab headlines and boost their image. It's probably just some elaborate PR stunt. Speaking of real student struggles, check out https://assignmentbro.com/ca/ [assignmentbro.com] , it's a legit resource for students dealing with tough study times, offering helpful tips and guidance. Way more reliable than this SpaceX story, fo' real.

      Agree entirely. This has nothing to do with his engineering ability applied to SpaceX. It is 100% pure USDA Corporate P.R. and its the best kind. Elon won't have to pay a penny for a single commercial or ad because this is all free news. And the little monkey will draw enough interest and curiosity from world media to give musk a lot of mileage. But why him? He's probably predictable, with full psyche profile that seems to show he won't OD on fentanyl or or torture cats or get roped by circus clowns or

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