Rejected by the Ivies, Funded by Vision

Gen Z coder rejected by the Ivy League despite founding a $30 million app says college is ‘not worth it for most people’

How an 18-Year-Old Built a $30 Million App—and Still Chose College on His Own Terms

Zach Yadegari

Zach Yadegari, 18, never planned on going to college. By the time most teens were worrying about applications, he had already co-founded Cal AI, a calorie-tracking app that exploded into a $30 million business. With that level of success, higher education seemed unnecessary, even outdated, to his way of thinking.

“After Cal AI started taking off, it confirmed it. I was like, ‘Okay, clearly, you don’t need college to be successful.’ My parents finally saw the vision,” Yadegari previously told Fortune.

A self-taught coding prodigy, Yadegari began programming at age 7, charged for coding lessons by 10, and built a gaming website in high school that earned him his first six figures. Despite a flawless 4.0 GPA, a 34 ACT score, and a deep entrepreneurial résumé, he was rejected by Ivy League schools and Stanford—an outcome that surprised many, including Yadegari himself, who noted Stanford “is known for start-ups.”

Ultimately, the schools that accepted him were Georgia Tech, the University of Miami, and the University of Texas. He chose the University of Miami not for prestige, but for lifestyle and balance.

“If I wasn’t going to optimize for the best school academically, I was going to optimize for the best school socially,” Yadegari said.

“Two weeks into school, I’ve been having a great time,” he told Fortune in late August.

Yadegari openly describes college as a “six-figure vacation,” one where he lives with other young entrepreneurs, throws parties, and makes memories while still earning money. He dropped out of the business school, now studies philosophy, and admits he’s “not gaining much from the class material” in entrepreneurship courses because he already has real-world experience.

Even so, he remains skeptical about college as a universal path to success for his generation.

“It’s not worth it for most people, for sure, even for me, like, I mean, I’m having a lot of fun, I think it’s worth it for me, the second it becomes not worth it, I’m going to stop,” he said.

“But I feel like I have all my life to make money, but like, the few $100,000 that it’s going to cost me now, it’s going to be worth it to make the memories… rather than to just, like, save it, spend it, invest it, whatever the case,” he added.

Cal AI itself was born from a personal challenge. As a skinny teenager trying to gain weight, Yadegari realized diet mattered more than workouts—and that existing calorie-tracking apps were frustrating and inaccurate.

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“I was very, very skinny my entire life growing up, and I wanted to start getting bigger and gaining weight,” Yadegari told Fortune.

With trusted partners, he helped launch Cal AI in May 2024. The app lets users track calories simply by taking photos of their food, boasting a reported 90% accuracy rate and generating millions in monthly revenue through low-cost subscriptions. His success has been widely profiled, proving that elite degrees are not the only gateway to impact or wealth.

Yadegari’s story challenges the idea that success must follow a single, traditional route. College didn’t validate his talent—his work already did. Instead, he reframed higher education as a personal experience rather than a credential, showing that for today’s young innovators, purpose, freedom, and timing matter more than prestige. His journey isn’t an argument against college—but a reminder that ambition doesn’t wait for acceptance letters.

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