Meet the World’s Youngest Self-Made Billionaires: A Trio of 22-Year-Old AI Founders! By: Stock Market Charlie

Exciting news: with their AI recruiting startup Mercor now valued at an incredible $10 billion, the founders have become the youngest self-made tech billionaires in history! They've surpassed Mark Zuckerberg, who made his debut at age 23 two decades ago. What an amazing achievement!

Three 22-Year-Olds Founding an AI Startup

Mercor, a dynamic recruiting startup that empowers Silicon Valley’s leading AI labs to train their models, has just celebrated a thrilling milestone: the emergence of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires! The company's three 22-year-old founders, a remarkable trio of high school friends from the Bay Area, who once competed together on their debate team, have achieved this incredible feat.

This week, the San Francisco startup made waves by announcing a spectacular $350 million funding round led by Felicis Ventures, with heavyweights like Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood also joining in. This exciting development values the company at a staggering $10 billion. Thanks to this fresh influx of capital, CEO Brendan Foody, CTO Adarsh Hiremath, and board chairman Surya Midha are now the latest billionaires of the AI revolution, each holding an impressive 22% stake in the company, according to Forbes.

“It’s absolutely mind-blowing,” Foody shared with BIC. “It feels incredibly surreal. This is beyond anything we could have ever dreamed of, especially considering where we were just two years ago.”

Even in the youth-driven world of Silicon Valley, where young founders have been celebrated for years, Mercor stands out for the youthful energy of its leaders. All three founders are Thiel Fellows, part of conservative billionaire investor Peter Thiel’s initiative that awards $100,000 grants to young talents in exchange for skipping college. They’ve become the icons of the AI era’s vibrant twenty-something entrepreneurs.

"It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that if I weren't diving headfirst into Mercor, I'd just be donning my cap and gown, having graduated college a couple of months ago," exclaimed Hiremath, who took the bold leap of leaving Harvard after just two years. "My life has done a complete 180 in such a short span!"

The Mercor founders have rocketed to the pinnacle of young tech entrepreneurs, joining the elite club of those whose personal fortunes have soared past the billion-dollar milestone. They've outpaced Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan as the world's youngest self-made billionaires. Coplan, at 27, briefly held the title for only 20 days following a massive $2 billion investment from NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange. Before him, Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang, 28, enjoyed the spotlight as the youngest self-made billionaire for about 18 months. His Scale AI cofounder Lucy Guo, meanwhile, dazzled the world by becoming the youngest self-made woman billionaire at 30, snatching that title from none other than Taylor Swift.

"It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that if I weren't diving headfirst into Mercor, I'd just be donning my cap and gown, having graduated college a couple of months ago."

Adarsh Hiremath, CTO, Mercor

What makes this even more exhilarating is their youth: At just 22, they're younger than Mark Zuckerberg was when he first hit billionaire status at 23. Midha, with a June birthday, is the youngest of the trio by about two months. The only self-made entrepreneur who has made an even earlier splash is Kylie Jenner at 21, although Forbes later adjusted her fortune after uncovering that the makeup mogul had exaggerated her Kylie Cosmetics revenue.

Foody, Hiremath, and Midha launched Mercor in 2023 with the exciting mission of connecting engineers in India with U.S. companies seeking freelance coders. They crafted a groundbreaking recruiting platform where applicants could interview with AI avatars, matching them with companies in need of talent. In an unexpected twist, they ventured into the booming field of data labeling, linking expert-level contractors, like Ph.D.s and lawyers, with cutting-edge labs like OpenAI. All three made a splash on the Forbes 2025 Under 30 list. In a thrilling announcement in September, shortly after Mercor debuted on the Forbes Cloud 100 list of top private cloud computing companies, Foody revealed the company had skyrocketed to a $500 million annualized revenue run rate, up from $100 million in March.

Exciting news in the data labeling industry! The sector has experienced incredible shake-ups recently. In June, Meta made waves by acquiring 49% of the industry titan Scale AI for a jaw-dropping $14 billion, bringing on board the brilliant CEO Alexandr Wang. This bold move has invigorated smaller companies, encouraging them to ramp up their efforts as they believe frontier labs will shy away from a vendor so closely linked with Meta's ambitious AI goals. Meanwhile, other competitors are proving to be powerhouses: Surge, a seasoned player since 2016, is in discussions to raise funds at a staggering $30 billion valuation, propelling its founder Edwin Chen to become the youngest billionaire on the Forbes 400 list. Turing AI, with a valuation of $2.2 billion, secured $110 million in July. And Invisible, a nimble firm last valued at $500 million in 2023, has emerged as a go-to partner for OpenAI and Microsoft.

However, the fierce competition has sparked some drama. In September, Scale filed a lawsuit against Mercor, accusing the startup of stealing trade secrets. The lawsuit also targets a former Scale executive who joined Mercor and allegedly shared over 100 confidential documents with his new team. “It's not something we spend a lot of time thinking about,” remarked Foody when questioned about the complaint.

Growing up in the vibrant tech hub of the Bay Area, Foody and Co. were immersed in innovation from an early age! All three founders are the offspring of software engineers, with Foody’s mom making waves on Meta’s real estate team and his dad pioneering a graphics interface company in the 90s before diving into startup advising. Foody’s entrepreneurial spirit shone early when, at just 16, he launched a company helping friends score promotions on Amazon Web Services, the colossal cloud platform, charging $500 each! Hiremath and Midha, who bonded over childhood debates at the tender age of 10, met Foody during high school debate competitions. Hiremath’s fascination with labor markets blossomed at Harvard, where he conducted research for Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary and current OpenAI board member. Summers was so impressed, he invested in Mercor!

Now as fresh billionaires, the founders reveal they haven't splurged on any extravagant purchases — simply because they just don’t have the time! “I leave the office around like 10:30 [p.m.], on an average day, six days a week,” Foody shared. “And so, there's not a whole lot of time outside of that to be distracted by things outside of the business.”

Best Regards,

Stock Market Charlie