A podcast by students of Stanford University's Business and Design Schools


FEATURED INTERVIEW

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Sam Altman - Founder of Loopt

Sam Altman is the 22-year old co-founder of Loopt, a location-based social networking mobile application that allows users to see where their friends are. Sam gives us a peek into the fascinating and incubative world of a Silicon Valley startup that's gaining a lot of momentum.


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"Oh yea, it's enlightening" said Sam when reflecting on the process of creating Loopt. Loopt arose from a need to find where your friends are over the cellphone. The most common question asked in a conversation is, "Where are you?" Loopt addresses this and seeks to develop a cool mobile and online service that helps you connect with your friends.

In this interview, we talked to Sam in the Loopt Palo Alto office about how he and the Loopt co-founders developed the service, what's ticking in the mobile industry, how to not get a case of vitamin deficiency, and why working for a startup might be one of the most exciting propositions out there. He was recently named one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs in Technology by Businessweek.

Check out this video of Sam giving us a brief demo of Loopt (you can tag and comment right on the video, so play around and write some comments!)



And in this next video, Sam talks about what he wish he knew before getting started as well as gives some book recommendations (a question we threw in there by popular request from those of you writing in!)



- Min and JULIO.