I didn't read the parent as saying 'not actually a millionaire because he's an idiot', you seem a little touchy here.
It seems reasonable to ask for that clarification - if you make the assumption that both brothers came into control of millions of dollars worth of available assets, you might wonder what they were doing with the money, especially as related to their continuing business ventures. The additional information that they don't actually have it answers that question.
'spindoctoring' indicates a conscious effort to increase the stature of the subject of the article, and is a word with a strong negative connotation.
The fact that they had an idea, built it and executed their vision successfully enough that another company bought them out are the bits that matter. That the buying party was significantly reduced in value after the acquisition is not their fault, and even if it had not it would have been stock (likely with all kinds of encumbrances) not cash.
Doing a stock deal is risky at best and can end very bad for the acquiree. Assets are not money, stock is not money, even so for a 17 year old that was an absolutely amazing track record.
I'm not clear on the details of that particular deal, and frankly I don't even care. All I know is that most people here would dream of doing a deal like that or even being in the position to make that particular mistake, and hindsight (the company acquiring tanking shortly thereafter) is 20/20.
> "The fact that they had an idea, built it and executed their vision successfully enough that another company bought them out are the bits that matter."
As far as I remember, it was a "buy the team, shut down the company" deal.
The very fact that people in this thread are mistakenly saying that eBay bought the company, shows how well the spindoctoring worked.
