David Karp (born July 6, 1986) is an American web developer and entrepreneur living in New York City. He is the founder and CEO of the short-form blogging platform, Tumblr. In 2010, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.According to Forbes, Karp's net worth exceeds $200 million, and Tumblr has been valued at $800 million.On May 19, 2013, the Yahoo board approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr.
Early life
Karp grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. His parents are film and television composer Michael D. Karp and teacher Barbara Ackerman. He has a younger brother named Kevin. His parents separated when he was 17.Karp attended The Calhoun School from age 3 through 8th grade, where his mother teaches science. At 11, he began learning HTML and was soon designing websites for local businesses. Karp went on to attend Bronx Science for one year before dropping out at the age of 15 and started homeschooling.[4] At the time, Karp had aspirations of getting into a college in New York or MIT and saw homeschooling and doing other projects on the side as a way to impress the colleges.[8] Karp never returned to high school or earned his high school diploma
Career
Karp began interning at age 14 for animation producer Fred Seibert, founder of Frederator Studios.[4] Karp's mother had taught Seibert's children at the Calhoun School and was friends with his wife.Karp was fascinated with the work of Frederator's computer engineers and his visits became regular. After he started homeschooling, Karp also began taking Japanese classes at the Japan Society and saw a math tutor, with whom he worked on writing software for winning at blackjack and poker.[9] When entrepreneur John Maloney sought technical help with UrbanBaby, an online parenting forum, a Frederator employee recommended Karp for the job. Karp completed the project, which had to be done in a couple of days, within four hours. Maloney made him UrbanBaby's head of product and gave him a small amount of equityAt age 17, while still working for UrbanBaby, Karp moved alone to Tokyo for five months. It was only three months after Karp had moved to Tokyo that UrbanBaby found out he wasn't in New York
Karp left UrbanBaby after it was sold to CNET in 2006.Using money from the sale of his shares, Karp started his own software consultancy company, Davidville, envisioning a mix of client work and his own products.[9] Marco Arment joined the company as an engineer after replying to Karp's Craigslist ad. Karp had been interested in tumblelogs (short-form blogs) for some time and was waiting for one of the established blogging platforms to introduce their own tumblelogging platform. As no one had done so after a year of waiting, Karp and Arment began working on their own tumblelogging platform during a two week gap between contracts in 2006. Tumblr was launched in February 2007and within two weeks, the service had gained 75,000 users.
In October 2007, Karp shut down his consultancy business as his work with Tumblr was interfering with his client work.[12] Davidville was renamed Tumblr, Inc. and 25 percent of the company was sold to a small group of investors.As of May 19, 2013, Tumblr hosts over 108 million blogs
Personal life
As of September 2011, Karp is dating Rachel Eakley, a trained chef and psychology graduate. They live together in Williamsburg with their pet dog, Clark
David Karp is only 26, but on paper he's worth more than $200 million. He has a stake in Tumblr, the $800 million blogging platform he founded, that exceeds 25%.
Karp is known for living modestly. So it's a surprising that he's finally decided to splurge a little. He's dropping $1.6 million on a 1,700-square-foot loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
But Karp doesn't plan to fill his new home with much. Forbes' Jeff Bercovici writes that it currently contains "virtually nothing." He describes a near-empty bedroom with a closet that's only half full. The living room only contains the essentials: a television and a sofa.
"I don’t have any books. I don’t have many clothes,” Karp tells Forbes. “I’m always so surprised when people fill their homes up with stuff.” Karp says he's a minimalist because he wants to be as mobile as possible.
Rachel Eakley
Rachel Eakley’s a busy girl. As a trained chef, psychology grad student, blogger, dog owner, and girlfriend to David Karp, the founder & CEO of Tumblr, she’s got a lot to juggle.
NO ALARM On the weekends
SCOOTING AROUND We usually scoot over there, even though it’s right across town, because we like to have the Vespa out.
SEE CLARK RUN We’ve been doing dog runs a lot on the weekends.
OPEN-AIR READING
COMEDY MARATHON
Yahoo’s board has agreed to buy Tumblr, the popular blogging service, for about $1.1 billion in cash, people with knowledge of the agreement said on Sunday.
Who knew that simplifying the blogging interface could be so profitable? Users wonder, though, how Yahoo is going to make money off of Tumblr page views without ruining the service.