The rise of AI has led to a record 35 billionaires under the age of 30. That includes Surya Midha, the youngest self-made billionaire in the Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list. The 22-year-old is cofounders of AI recruiting startup Mercor, which private investors valued at $10 billion last fall.
Midha and his cofounders are the youngest self-made billionaires ever to debut in the exclusive World’s Billionaires list, besting Mark Zuckerberg, who debuted at age 23 nearly two decades ago.
Aged 22, Midha, who has a net worth of $2.2 billion, is a couple of months younger than his two other co-founders at Mercor, Brendan Foody and Adarsh Hiremath.
What else do we know about Surya Midha?
Born to Indian immigrant parents, Midha was born in California’s San Jose and was a national debate champion in high school, according to Forbes.
Midha’s parents had immigrated from Delhi to the US. He earned a bachelor’s in Foreign Studies at Georgetown University at the same time Hiremath was at Harvard. Brendan Foody was also at Georgetown, studying economics.
What does Mercor do?
Mercor is a recruiting startup that helps Silicon Valley’s biggest AI labs train their models. According to a Forbes report, it is a platform where applicants are interviewed by an AI avatar and placed with a company looking to hire talent. The company has now emerged as a hope for those looking for the right opportunities at the right place.
Who is Forbes’ youngest female billionaire in the new list?
There is also a new youngest self-made woman billionaire in the list. Twenty-nine-year-old Luana Lopes Lara, a former ballerina and MIT graduate who cofounded prediction market firm Kalshi.
The Brazilian native unseated 31-year-old Scale AI cofounder Lucy Guo, who had taken the title from Taylor Swift in April. Lopes Lara’s cofounder Tarek Mansour also ranks among the 17 new under-30 billionaires this year, 11 (new) of whom are self-made, according to Forbes.
How many billionaires in the new list are US citizens?
Altogether 8 of the 35 billionaires who are under 30 are American nationals, and an additional 3, including Lopes Lara, now reside in the US. Another 13 live in Europe and six in Asia. All of the Americans are self-made, while nearly all of the Europeans (except for Hedin and Lunnemark) inherited their fortunes.