Sam Altman was just 19 when he left Stanford to build an app Loopt that struggled to take off; years before ChatGPT, Green Dot paid $43.4 million for it

Years before ChatGPT, Sam Altman left Stanford at 19 to build Loopt, a location-based social networking app that struggled to attract users. Green Dot later acquired the startup for $43.4 million, seeing value in its mobile technology, patents and experienced team. The acquisition made strategic sense even though Loopt had not become a dominant social media platform.