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Havish Gupta

Figuring Out • 1m

Sam Altman's First Startup! So before founding OpenAI and leading Y Combinator, Sam Altman founded Loopt! Loopt was a location-based social media app launched by @sama in 2005. It was very similar to any other social media platform, like it had chats, status, but the core feature was its location-based map (similar to Snapchat). But Why Choose Location? That's because, in 2005-6, mobile service providers started offering cheap GPS plans. Before that, GPS was expensive for some reason. So the idea was nice, and the timing was kinda good. That's why Loopt was funded by Y Combinator in their first batch and later by investors like Sequoia too. And the Best Part? They had partnered with Sprint and later with AT&T and Verizon, which led to Loopt coming pre-installed in mobiles. But Despite All That, Loopt Failed.. That's because of privacy concerns, battery drainage, and the inclusion of the same features in Facebook. Also, it was hard to monetize because of low traffic. Thus, after raising $39 million, it was acquired by Green Dot for $43 million (for its tech patents, not its user base), and then Green Dot shut its service very soon.

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𝗦𝗮𝗺 𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗺𝗮𝗻 : 𝗔 𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗔𝗜 Born in 1985 in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Developed an interest in computers and programming at a young age, getting his first computer at age 8. Studied compute

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Anonymous

Would Dogeball/ Loopt / Gowala kind of location-based nearby social networking would work in 2024? As, social user accessibility and familiarity with social networking is well established in 2024. @all

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Vishu Bheda

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𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝗦𝗮𝗺 𝗔𝗹𝘁𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗚𝗣𝗧. But at 19, Altman dropped out of Stanford & raised $30M to build a social media. Then, he became President of Silicon Valley's $600B "Harvard for startups". Under his leaders

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Anonymous

The image of Saturn captured by the Hubble Telescope also includes two of its icy moons. The dot on the right is Mimas, while the one below is Enceladus.

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Amit Soni

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A wonderful read, ideas and insights by one of the inspirations Sam Altman

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