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Keith Schacht
Milestone (age 22)
Co-founded Lever Works in college and sold it to Leo Media in December 2001 at age 22; co-founded Inventables in 2002 at age 22–23 (materials/innovation platform featured in Forbes/Wired); named among BusinessWeek top 20 entrepreneurs under 25; TED speaker by 2005 (age 25).
American entrepreneur (born 9 Dec 1979); University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. Built and sold custom software firm Lever Works while still in college, then co-founded Inventables with Zach Kaplan, spoke at TED, founded Facebook-platform company Crafted Fun, later product-managed Facebook News Feed, and co-founded Mystery Science (YC, sold to Discovery Education for $140M in 2020).
Think your path resembles Keith Schacht's?Compare the visible ingredients, then see exactly where the comparison stops working.
Am I the next Keith Schacht? →Starting point
Not documented in reviewed sources beyond U.S. origin and University of Illinois education.
Current position (2025)
Serial entrepreneur and angel investor; co-founder of Mystery Science (acquired by Discovery Education for $140M in 2020); investor in companies including Credit Karma, Canva, and others.
How this path compounded
01 Starting advantages
6/24 starting-position score
Strongest documented signals: Exceptional peer / cofounder, Elite institution pipeline, Frontier geography.
Describes the starting position, not what the person later made of it.
Cohort percentile: 40
02 Built or converted leverage
14/25 multiplying-capacity score
Strongest observed levers:Complementary team, Started serious reps before 20, Prior reps.
Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.
Cohort percentile: 72
03 Compounding trajectory
6 documented steps
The timeline below shows the sequence of work and transitions around the selected early milestone. It is evidence of a path, not proof that every step was necessary.
Milestone at age 22
04 Observed career standing
T3 · Domain-recognized
Notable and widely recognized within the domain. The tier summarizes documented career recognition through the data cutoff—not Keith Schacht's worth or future potential.
Question four · where did the leverage come from?
Keith Schacht's leverage provenance
Each non-zero lever gets a best-supported origin, evidence signals, and confidence. Unresolved is the honest default when the biography cannot distinguish self-built, advantage-enabled, earned, external, or mixed.
Started serious reps before 201/1
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Elite institution pipeline (1/2)Early online platform (1/2)
Complementary team2/2
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Exceptional peer / cofounder (2/2)Elite institution pipeline (1/2)Early online platform (1/2)
Prior reps2/3
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Elite institution pipeline (1/2)Early online platform (1/2)
Elite ecosystem network2/3
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Elite institution pipeline (1/2)Frontier geography (1/2)Exceptional peer / cofounder (2/2)
Structural wave / timing2/3
Externalmedium confidence
A structural wave is external to the person, even when their position improved access to it.
Frontier geography (1/2)Early online platform (1/2)
Concentration intensity2/3
Unresolvedlow confidence
No current annotation distinguishes self-built, enabled, or earned origins for this lever.
No decisive linked signal
Domain proximity1/2
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Direct domain exposure (1/2)Frontier geography (1/2)Elite institution pipeline (1/2)
Scarce skill depth1/3
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Elite institution pipeline (1/2)Early online platform (1/2)
Native distribution1/3
Advantage-enabledmedium confidence
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
Early online platform (1/2)Elite institution pipeline (1/2)
This is a bounded inference from the current annotations—not a claim about private effort, merit, or the percentage of Keith Schacht's outcome attributable to any origin.
Luck is not a leftover score.Structural luck, Encounter luck, Event luck, Outcome variance can change every arrow in the path. This successful-only dataset cannot observe the near-identical paths that did not break through, so luck stays visible and unscored.
Within Founders / operators, Keith Schacht's starting-advantage total is at the 40th percentile. Separately, their built or converted leverage total is at the 72th percentile. Other T3 profiles average 7.0 / 24 starting advantage and 11.7 / 25 leverage. Similar scores appear in other tiers, so these figures describe positioning—not a cause.
Trajectory
- 2001 · age 22
Sold college-founded custom software firm Lever Works to
Leo Media (cofounded with Brian Witlin and Zach Kaplan).
- 2002 · age 22
Co-founded Inventables, a materials/innovation company later featured
Forbes and Wired.
- 2005 · age 25
Spoke at TED on materials/toys from the future
Named among BusinessWeek top young entrepreneurs.
- 2010 · age 30
Joined Facebook as product manager
Helped launch an updated News Feed in 2011; named inventor on multiple patents.
- 2013 · age 33
Co-founded Mystery Science with Doug Peltz to
Deliver elementary science lessons.
- 2020 · age 40
Mystery Science acquired by Discovery Education for $140 million
Schacht majority shareholder at sale.
Primary leverage engine
Execution / operations
Execution / operations
Secondary engine
Product / domain insight
Built/converted leverage
14 / 25
evidence: High
Built or converted leverage
Multiplying capacity documented later in the path. Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.
Started serious reps before 20
1/1
Elite ecosystem network
2/3
Structural wave / timing
2/3
Concentration intensity
2/3
Starting-advantage scores (0–2 each)
Access or conditions documented near the beginning of the path. Zero means "no clear evidence in reviewed sources," not "advantage was absent."
Family financial platform
0/2
Parent / family domain
0/2
Inherited audience / network
0/2
Elite institution pipeline
1/2
Dedicated mentor / coach
0/2
Exceptional peer / cofounder
2/2
Direct domain exposure
1/2
Prodigy / innate ability
0/2
Adversity / constraint catalyst
0/2
Family context
Not documented in reviewed sources.
Parent / family domain
Not documented in reviewed sources.
Archetype & tags
High-trust peer teamcollege cofoundersUIUCInventablesTEDserial entrepreneurship
Evidence summary
Schacht repeatedly founded and exited companies starting in college: Lever Works sale at 22, Inventables at 22–23, TED by 25, then Facebook PM and Mystery Science ($140M acquisition). Early advantage looks like high-trust cofounder teams and execution reps rather than inherited capital; family background undocumented.
advantage confidence: Medium · source count: 4 · audit: not_independently_audited · status: subagent_researched_beta
Sources
Related — same primary engine