Why are self-made billionaires under the age of 30 emerging in large numbers?
From left to right: Alexandr Wang, Brendan Foody, Luana Lopes Lara. Photo credits: Ethan Pines for Forbes; Cody Pickens for Forbes; Alexander Karnyukhin for Forbes
Boosted by the artificial intelligence, prediction market, and online gambling industries, the number of self-made billionaires under 30 globally has reached a record high of 13, far exceeding the previous record of 7.
On October 7, Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, invested $2 billion in the prediction market platform Polymarket, pushing the platform's valuation to soar to $9 billion. As a result, 27-year-old founder Shayne Coplan became the world's youngest self-made billionaire. However, he held this title for only 20 days before being overtaken by the three co-founders of the artificial intelligence startup Mercor. All three young men are 22 years old, making them the youngest self-made billionaires in history, one year earlier than Mark Zuckerberg, who joined the billionaire ranks at 23 years old 17 years ago.
"This is all so crazy," Foody of Mercor said in an interview with Forbes in October. "It feels so unreal. Two years ago, we never thought we'd achieve what we have today."
Then, in just a short period from November to December, seven more entrepreneurs under 30 joined the billionaire ranks. Among them is Luana Lopes Lara, a former ballet dancer from Brazil and co-founder of the prediction market platform Kalshi. At 29, she is not only the world's youngest self-made female billionaire but also the only self-made female billionaire under 30 at present (she will turn 30 in May next year). Thus, the total number of self-made billionaires under 30 globally has reached 13, setting a historical record.
Although the outside world has always been worried that artificial intelligence will take away a large number of entry-level jobs, this technology is also giving rise to a new group at an astonishing speed - billionaires who are young and just old enough to legally rent a car. Industries and innovation fields that were not yet established a decade ago, such as prediction markets and artificial intelligence, are now catapulting a group of entrepreneurs to billionaire status at an astonishing pace. The last time Forbes counted so many young self-made billionaires was in 2022, when the number of this group was only 7.
When Forbes released its annual global billionaire list in April this year, there were only two entrepreneurs under 30 on the list: 28-year-old Alexandr Wang and 29-year-old online gambling magnate Ed Craven. This summer, Alexandr Wang sold 49% of the shares of his artificial intelligence company Scale AI to Meta for approximately $14 billion and then joined the latter as the chief artificial intelligence officer. Craven is from Australia. Including him, six out of the 13 self-made billionaires under 30 grew up outside the United States. Tariq Mansour, the 29-year-old co-founder of Kalshi, is also one of them - he is a U.S. citizen, born in California but grew up in Lebanon. Among this young group of billionaires, only Craven and Fabian Hedin, the 26-year-old co-founder of the Swedish artificial intelligence programming company Lovable, founded and operate their businesses outside the United States. Alexandr Wang and Ed Craven rank first and second in terms of wealth among entrepreneurs under 30, with fortunes of $3.2 billion and $2.8 billion respectively.
In addition to these 13 self-made young billionaires, there is a larger and continuously expanding group - billionaires under 30 who have inherited family wealth, with a total of 17. The youngest among them is 20-year-old German pharmaceutical heir Johannes von Baumbach, whose fortune is estimated to be $5.8 billion. Adding the numbers of the two groups together, the total number of billionaires in their twenties globally reaches 30.
Although the group of young billionaires is booming, they are still an absolute minority in the billionaire class. The main force in this class remains the older group: there are at least 500 billionaires aged 80 and above globally, and the average age of more than 3,100 global billionaires is as high as 67. Moreover, although this year has witnessed the rise of young forces, the pace of time will not stop. Currently, three of the 13 self-made billionaires are already 29 years old, and their seats on the "list of billionaires under 30" will not last long either.
The following are the 13 self-made billionaires under 30. (Fortune valuations as of December 12, 2025)
1. Surya Midha, 22 years old
Fortune: $2.2 billion
Location: United States
Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence software
Photo credit: ULY Inc. for Mercor
The three founders became friends in high school and are all recipients of the Thiel Fellowship in 2024. They co-founded the artificial intelligence recruitment company Mercor in 2023, helping top artificial intelligence labs in Silicon Valley train models. In October this year, private equity investors valued this San Francisco-based startup at $10 billion, and the three 22-year-old co-founders instantly became the youngest self-made billionaires in history. Midha serves as the company's chairman, Foody as the chief executive officer, and Hiremath as the chief technology officer. Midha is the youngest of the three, about two months younger than the other two.
2. Brendan Foody, 22 years old
Fortune: $2.2 billion
Location: United States
Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence software
Photo credit: Cody Pickens for Forbes
3. Adarsh Hiremath, 22 years old
Fortune: $2.2 billion
Location: United States
Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence software
4. Michael Truell, 25 years old
Fortune: $1.3 billion
Location: United States
Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence software
These four friends met at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-founded the artificial intelligence programming company Cursor in San Francisco, California, in 2022. The artificial intelligence code editing software developed by the company has been adopted by millions of software developers from companies such as Nvidia, Adobe, and Uber, and its annualized revenue has exceeded $1 billion. In November this year, private equity investors valued Cursor at $29.3 billion. Truell currently serves as the company's chief executive officer, and he and Sanger were classmates at the Horace Mann School in New York.
5. Aman Sanger, 25 years old
Fortune: $1.3 billion
Location: United States
Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence software
6. Sualeh Asif, 25 years old
Fortune: $1.3 billion
Location: Pakistan
Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence software
7. Arvid Lunnemark, 26 years old
Fortune: $1.3 billion
Location: Sweden
Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence software
8. Fabian Hedin, 26 years old
Fortune: $1.6 billion
Location: Sweden
Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence programming
Photo credit: Sebastian Nevols for Forbes
In November 2024, Hedin and 35-year-old Anton Osika co-founded the Swedish ambient programming company Lovable. The company uses artificial intelligence technology to help millions of non-programming users quickly turn their ideas into websites, applications, and online side businesses. Just eight months after its establishment, Lovable's annualized subscription revenue reached $100 million, making it the fastest-growing software startup in history. Hedin currently serves as the company's chief technology officer, and Anton Osika serves as the chief executive officer. In December this year, private equity investors valued Lovable at $6.6 billion.
9. Shayne Coplan, 27 years old
Fortune: $1 billion
Location: United States
Source of wealth: Polymarket
Photo credit: Guerin Blask for Forbes
At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, this New York University dropout founded the prediction market platform Polymarket in New York, where users can bet on various events such as election results and entertainment award winners. In July this year, Polymarket acquired QCEX, a derivatives exchange and clearinghouse licensed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This move helped Polymarket obtain federal-level operating approval in November. In October, Intercontinental Exchange, a global stock exchange operator owned by billionaire Jeff Sprecher, invested $2 billion in Polymarket, valuing it at $9 billion. As a result, Coplan briefly became the world's youngest self-made billionaire.
10. Alexandr Wang, 28 years old
Fortune: $3.2 billion
Location: United States
Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence
Photo credit: Ethan Pines for Forbes
In 2016, Alexandr Wang and fellow billionaire Lucy Guo co-founded the data annotation company Scale AI. The two later had a disagreement, and Lucy Guo left the company in 2018, while Alexandr Wang remained as the chief executive officer until Meta acquired 49% of Scale AI's shares for approximately $14 billion in June this year. As part of the deal, Alexandr Wang joined Meta as the chief artificial intelligence officer. He briefly became the world's youngest self-made billionaire in 2022 and regained this title in May 2024, but relinquished it again in October this year to 27-year-old Shayne Coplan, the founder of the prediction market platform Polymarket.
11. Luana Lopes Lara, 29 years old
Fortune: $1.3 billion
Location: Brazil
Source of wealth: Prediction market
Photo credit: Alexander Karnyukhin for Forbes
Mansour is from Lebanon, and Lopes Lara is from Brazil. They were both international students majoring in computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2018, they got acquainted during an internship at the New York quantitative trading firm Five Rings Capital and co-founded the prediction market startup Kalshi in the same year, with its headquarters in