High School Dropout Sells His Website For $1.1Billion

Yep, I guess education is not the only key to success as we have been led to believe all these years. Founder of Tumblr, David Karp, this past week became the world's most successful high school dropout by selling his 6 year old company to Yahoo. 

The deal is the biggest ever for a social networking site, even larger than last year’s sale of Instagram – a picture-sharing platform – to Facebook. The deal is all in cash rather than shares in the merged company. As part of the deal, Mr Karp will remain as Tumblr’s chief executive for at least the next four years.

Mr Karp dropped out of school with his parents’ blessing at the age of 15. He set up Tumblr in 2007 and within two weeks it had 75 000 users.

Prior to the sale his estimated net worth was $200million, with some analysts now suggesting that Karp’s 25 per cent share of Tumblr will have earned him up to $275million.

The combination of Karp’s wealth and youth places him firmly into the 21st century’s most exclusive clubs – the young millionaires who made their money online - yet Karp’s public profile is surprisingly discreet, especially when compared to the archetypal cyber-tycoon, Mark Zuckerberg.

Oh yah... and he makes all of us hate the fact that we live in a continent that will not allow us to reach such heights because in this continent one has to deal with bureaucracy and bigotry over creative talent.