Tumblr Founder Goes From High School Dropout To $250 Million
Tumblr has made David Karp a very rich young man.
The 26-year-old founder of the blogging platform never finished high school but now has sold his creation for a fortune. Karp recently sold Tumblr to Yahoo! for $1.1 billion, leaving him with a pretty nice sum.
Forbes estimates that Karp, who owns a 25 percent stake in Tumblr, will receive about $250 million from the deal (or about $200 million after taxes). The acquisition still needs to be completed, however.
David Karp may have a hard time living the life of the one percent. He has been living in a Brooklyn loft that’s sparsely furnished to fit his minimalist lifestyle.
“I don’t have any books. I don’t have many clothes,” Karp told Forbes in January. “I’m always so surprised when people fill their homes up with stuff.”
Karp created Tumblr in February 2007, giving users an outlet to on computers and mobile devices to post photos, text, quotes, links, music, and videos. It has since exploded in popularity.
The application, which is available in 12 different languages, has more than over 50 billion posts. There are also more than 100 blogs created through Tumblr.
The acquisition represents a major step for Yahoo! under the direction of new CEO Marissa Mayer. The purchase of Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash was part of her long-term revitalization plan.
Mayer had made other, smaller acquisition in the past, but Tumblr would be the most significant one of her tenure. Yahoo! executives reportedly expect the purchase to “jump-start its revenue growth and obtain a bigger presence in social media tied to digital devices.”
David Karp may have made a fortune off the Tumblr sale, but he’s still got a lot of room to make up with some other tech wunderkinds. Facebook founders Dustin Moskovitz and Mark Zuckerberg are worth $2.5 million and $12 billion, respectively.
[Image via Flickr]
