He might have sold it to the other company that tried to buy it earlier.
Earlier this year, entrepreneur Dharmesh Shah acquired chat.com for over $10 million. He just flipped the domain name.
Shah posted on LinkedIn this morning that he sold the domain name to another (currently anonymous) party for more than he paid for the domain name.
He’s donating $250,000 of the gains to the Khan Academy to support their efforts to use A.I. to create personalized education at scale for the world. He’s throwing in another $10 for everyone who comments on his post after watching Sal Khan’s TED talk.
So how did he flip this domain so quickly? There’s a possible clue in DNW Podcast episode #435. In that episode, Andrew Miller, who worked on the chat.com sale to Shah, noted there was a second buyer in the negotiations. But that corporate buyer wanted the seller to jump through lots of legal hoops. Shah hopped in and made the deal easier for the seller, so the seller went with him.
It’s possible that Shah sold the domain to the other party that had tried to buy the domain.
john says
Wont be surprised if its hubspot
Mark Thorpe says
I Was wondering the same thing.
Andrew Allemann says
I would bet not. Would be hard for a public company to buy a domain from a key exec at much of a profit shortly after it was acquired.
Mark Thorpe says
Yeah probably not. Just sounds fishy to me.
Squarely says
The rich selling to the rich….good publicity for the domain industry
The big Question is which AI platform can be trusted with no ulterior motives .
Domo Sapiens says
What it matters the most is “who is the buyer’ and their intentions for the domain….
If end-user… AI for sure (Capn Obvious)
Geoff says
Buy .ai domains !!!
Steve says
Ha! I’ve got a guy begging me to sell him the .com of his .ai startup. Problem is he can’t afford what mine’s worth. If and until he gets some more $$$, guess I’m just going to remain “stuck” sitting back and enjoying all the free traffic I’m getting since he launched.
Dotcom or Dotdead.
Keith Hunn says
It’s the same as the big banks trading with each other. One makes the money one day then it’s the other guys turn the next day. Nice to be a big fish…
Darryl V says
Dharmesh bought it because he can foresee things you guys can’t see. Oh and he had the money to buy it. Get over it!