Sam Altman dropped out of Stanford to build an app almost nobody used — it still sold for $43.4 million

Sam Altman, who would later become the founder and CEO of OpenAI and the mastermind behind ChatGPT, decided to leave Stanford University at the age of 19 to create a location-based social networking app called Loopt. In March 2012, just two years after its launch, Loopt was sold to Green Dot Corporation for $43.3 million, despite the app's limited popularity in the competitive social media landscape of the time.

The acquisition provided Green Dot with strategic benefits, including mobile payment products, customer acquisition methods, and a team skilled in real-time location-based messaging. While Loopt failed to establish itself as a dominant consumer app, the deal demonstrated the value of technology, intellectual property, and talent even when a product does not achieve mass-market success.