The first person who emails me to say that they applied for the SIAI Visiting Fellows program gets a Ray Kurzweil drink mix mailed to them by me for free, anywhere in the world.
In many countries, if you tell your parents and friends you're going to quit your job and start a company, they'll tell you you're crazy. That's what they told me. The USA is much more embracing towards entrepeneurial attitudes.
"Later in high school he created a sophisticated pattern-recognition software program that analyzed the works of classical composers, and then synthesized its own songs in similar styles. The capabilities of this invention were so impressive that, in 1965, he was invited to appear on the CBS television program I've Got a Secret, where he performed a piano piece that was composed by a computer he also had built. Later that year, he won first prize in the International Science Fair for the invention, and he was also recognized by the Westinghouse Talent Search and was personally congratulated by President Lyndon B. Johnson during a White House ceremony."
Stumbled upon this nice build though:
