You shouldn't be so quick to knock the idea. People probably said the same thing about a stupid website that was pretty much a yearbook online. It has 3milliom monthly users, he can definitely turn it into a revenue generator and is in a great position to be strategically acquired by Washington Post (which owns Kaplan), or Princeton Review. Dropping out of MIT is a risk- but, he can always return.

I speak for myself here, but I don't think something needs to be the "Future of the World" for it to be an immensely fulfilling way to lead one's life, degree or not.

Arash Ferdowsi left MIT as a junior to cofound Dropbox w/Drew Houston. Turned our pretty well it seems :)

Success stories are cheap to rattle off. We don't hear about the countless failures though, precisely because they were failures.

But Quizlet already has tons of traction. It's not some shot in the dark.

Having a website that 20% of teachers nationwide use is a pretty powerful place to build a business from. Quia started from the same place, and now does something like $40M/year in revenue with their IXL product.