At the age of 22, three Californian college dropouts joined the billionaire club, breaking Mark Zuckerberg's record by a year.
The founders of Mercor, an AI-driven recruitment startup, Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha, are now the youngest self-made billionaires in history after their business reached a $10 billion value in a new $350 million investment round, according to Forbes.
Key Highlights
- The three founders of Mercor, aged 22, secured a $350 million funding round, valuing the startup at $10 billion.
- Two of the trio, Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha, are Indian-origin friends who began the venture after high school and the company now makes them the world’s youngest self-made billionaires.
Before meeting Foody at Georgetown University, Hiremath and Midha were debate champions at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, where their journey began. Hiremath, who is Indian, attended Harvard University to study computer science before leaving to devote all of his attention to Mercor.
Forbes quotes him as saying, "If I hadn't worked for Mercor, I would have graduated college a couple of months ago." "My life did such a 180 in such a short time."
At Georgetown, Midha was studying international relations, and he partnered with Foody, who was majoring in economics. Both dropped out of school to work at Hiremath in Silicon Valley when Mercor started to take off, making a decision that would soon alter their lives.
All three are Thiel Fellows, supported by the $100,000 fellowship offered by billionaire Peter Thiel to young entrepreneurs who are prepared to forgo education in order to pursue ideas that have the potential to change the world.
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Their firm, Mercor, employs artificial intelligence to connect job searchers and employers, pitching itself as the next major disruptor in the global recruiting industry. Their emergence coincides with a generational transition in the tech sector.
Just weeks ago, 27-year-old Shayne Coplan of Polymarket became a billionaire after receiving a significant investment from Intercontinental Exchange. Before that, Scale AI's Alexandr Wang, 28, was the youngest self-made billionaire.
The Mercor founders have now taken the crown, a trio of 22-year-olds who are redefining what it means to be successful in Silicon Valley.
