Getting Around, Making Good

"I saw him at school all day and absorbed all night into his computer. It became very clear David needed the space to live his passion. Which was computers. All things computers."
Barbara Ackerman

"When I first met David he was 20 years old and wearing sneakers and jeans. But I knew he was one of these rare entrepreneurs that grew up on the Web and who could come up with an idea, build it himself and then ship it that night."
Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital

"When I feel the most productive and engaged is when I'm buried in code, buried in some project, tweaking some designs. I'm certainly introverted."
David Karp, founder, CEO, Tumblr

When my granddaughter started a blog it was originally at my having recommended it as a way that she could write things; book reviews, film reviews, relieve herself of her opinion on so many things that occupy the mind of a teen. She is opinionated, she is a bibliophile, and she is an excellent writer, capable of expressing her ideas and perceptions very well indeed.

Then she graduated from the original Blogger site to one I'd never before heard of, one she told me was really "cool". She kept at it for awhile, and I would be amused no end and entertained as well, visiting the site, one that expressed her priorities, values and perceptions on a whole host of subjects, though some of the pictorial entries gave me second thought on occasion.

Now she never blogs; she gave up her Tumblr site years ago and before that the Blogger one as well. She hasn't signed on to Twitter, nor has she a presence on Facebook. She does have a Blackberry and she textmessages, but not nearly to the extent that she used to, at first when five thousand text messages a month were the norm for her; now she's pared that down to 300 monthly at most.

She's different, all right. She is both an introvert and an extrovert. And she aspires to become the solicitor general of the country at some future date. Law, that's what she's interested in. She wants to practise criminal law. And she is busy trying to acquire a school record of excellent academic performance, hoping to be accepted into the university of her choice.

Quite unlike David Karp, who at fourteen attending classes at Bronx High School of Science was bored out of his mind. Oh well, my granddaughter isn't all that fond of school, nor of most of her teachers, but she is convinced she is grooming herself to occupy her destiny; her future, in any event, as a lawyer. David Karp clearly was enamoured of computers and he was capable of schooling himself on them.

His mother, Barbara Ackerman, recognizing that, invited him to leave school and be 'home-tutored'. He never did complete his high school courses, never went on to attend college. But he did school himself in the great, wide world of computer science and technology. He had that entrepreneurial spark that Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital recognized through his own experience, that convinced him to invest in a new start-up called Tumblr.

That was six years ago. And the blogging website and its founder have never looked back. Before then, he had been around, working for a while in Tokyo for a startup there. Back in the United States again, he worked for a number of other startups, and became chief technology officer at UrbanBaby. When CNET Networks bought out UrbanBaby, David Karp was left with several hundred thousand from the sale.

And Tumblr was born. Social networking sites were his baby, after all. Like most really serious techies, David Karp was a loner, absorbed in the generating sphere of his mind, locked into solving riddles of computer code. It was his preference to arrive at the office early enough so that he would have lone working hours uninterrupted by the distracting presence of others.

In this Oct. 1, 2012 file photo, Tumblr founder David Karp participates in the "Bloomberg Leadership Summit" seminar in New York.   (AP Photo/Charles Sykes/Invision for Advertising Week) 

 

With the $1.1-billion sale of Tumblr to Yahoo, 26-year-old David Karp has earned $250-million of his very own, after taxes. He has a girlfriend, he has a dog. What more does any young fellow need? Oh, he has plenty of money, and because of his tender age, plenty of time to think about what's next in his future. He will "figure out something" with philanthropy, following a fine tradition in that respect.

He might even entertain the prospect of finally attending college: "At least I should be able to afford it", he recklessly declared.