Indian-origin entrepreneur buys 'chat.com' for over $10 million, then sells, donates $250,000 to Khan Academy

HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah who had bought the domain name 'chat.com' for over $10 million has sold it at an unknown amount and donated $250,000 from the profit to Sal Khan and Khan Academy.

Shah is an Indian-origin American entrepreneur who co-founded HubSpot, a leading inbound marketing and sales software company, back in 2006. The company is listed on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with a current market cap of over $24 billion.

Shah had initially bought the domain name chat.com and redirected it to a LinkedIn post - he did not roll out any new product using the domain name.

The LinkedIn post that chat.com redirected users to read: "The reason I bought chat.com is simple: I think Chat-based UX (#ChatUX) is the next big thing in software. Communicating with comupters/software through a natural language interface is much more intuitive. This is made possible by Generative A.I."

It further explained: "chat.com is absolutely beautiful in terms of simplicity, shortness and being totally *on point* and meeting the moment. It immediately creates user trust."  

In the same post, he had mentioned that if he were to sell the domain, he'd make a large donation to Sal Khan and Khan Academy.  

"Over the decades, I've learned about the importance and value of domain names. WordPlay.com (my word-game) has hit 150 million games played and 16 million users. I know for a fact that a lot of this is because the domain is easy, memorable and fun," he further wrote.

Days after buying the domain, Shah had appeared on a podcast where he had, in a candid conversation, said: "The reason I bought it (chat.com) is I am trying to get into the AI parties. In that party nobody knows who I am!"

"I've done some things in some places, fine, but that particular group of people (AI industry) has no idea who I am," Shah said. He also wasn't particularly worried about losing the money. "Let's say I lose a few million dollars it is worth the price of admission for me just because that pays the cover charge," he added.  

But, as it turns out, Shah didn't suffer a loss. In his new LinkedIn post, Shah mentioned: " I am not launching something big on it. I am not launching anything on it. I have sold the domain name. I have sold it for more than I paid."

He further added: "As promised, I have taken $250k of the gains and donated to Sal Khan and Khan Academy to support their efforts to use A.I. to create personalized education at scale for the world. I passionately believe in Sal, Khan Academy and their mission."

Shah, however, did not disclose the total sale amount nor the name of the buyer. Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organisation that provides free online resources and courses to support learning across various subjects. It was founded in 2008 by educator Salman Khan with the goal of providing accessible and high-quality education to anyone, anywhere.