Nick D’Alosio

When I was 17 years old, I was still trying to figure out how to take the subway to Manhattan by myself from Hollis, Queens much less selling a company I started a few years earlier to one of the best known brands in the country.

The New York Times just did a page one story about a very unusual 17-year-old.

Nick D’Alosio is a young computer software programmer from Manchester, England and he just sold his news-reading app, Summly, to Yahoo this week for a reported $30 million. The app takes long stories and makes them pocket-sized for smartphones. It involves some sort of an algorithmic invention.

Summly’s investors include Wendi Murdoch, Ashton Kutcher, and Yoko Ono. The most important one was Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong billionaire, whose investment fund supported D’Alosio’s idea early on.

Yahoo is trying to reinvent itself as a mobile-first technology company.