My name is Avi Marcus, I am a 29 year old, semi retired (sold my previous startup ) hacker from Israel.
Started programming at 8, started CS in college when I was 13. Flunked out because I was bored at 15.
Always been interested in artificial intelligence, but a year and a half ago I read a book on the way the human brain works and suddenly I had a vision of something programmers missed in all of the machine learning algorithms they built, which is a basic part of the human cognitive process, and I suddenly understood how to add it to existing algorithms.
Going out and winning the Netflix prize and/or KDD and refusing to release your code would bring you the best tests (and biggest paying customers) because of the publicity. I actually can't think of a better and faster way of building a business around machine learning. Beat the best teams in the world as an individual and you won't have to worry about how to make money any more.
I think we have to do neither; if he's clever (and if he's done what he claims, he surely is) he's not trying for us to take his word for it, or for us to say he's a great genius and all that. He's just looking for a way to monetize his discovering, and I think it's right.
From my experience genius isn't a boolean thing, people can be brilliant in somethings and horrible in other things. I try to acknowledge my limitations and ask for help in the things I suck at.
Anything else?