The 22-Year-Old Billionaires: Three Friends Who Conquered AI
Meet the three young men who have just shattered a world record in business!
At just 22 years old, Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha have become the world’s youngest self-made billionaires.
They didn’t inherit their wealth; they built it from the ground up by launching an Artificial Intelligence (AI) company that is now worth a massive $10 billion.
This achievement breaks the record previously held by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, who became a billionaire at age 23.
This is their story, told.
From Debate Team to Billion-Dollar Team
The remarkable journey of these three co-founders begins not in a university lab, but on the debate team at a high school in Silicon Valley.
Brendan Foody (CEO), Adarsh Hiremath (CTO), and Surya Midha (Board Chairman) were childhood friends who spent countless nights arguing about complex topics.
This constant practice taught them the crucial skills of analyzing problems deeply.
And persuasively convincing others of their ideas—a perfect foundation for entrepreneurship.
After high school, the trio enrolled in top universities but soon realized the pace of the working world was outpacing traditional education.
They saw a critical challenge: companies desperately needed specialized workers for rapidly growing fields like AI.
Yet the traditional hiring process was slow and outdated.
Seizing this opportunity, they launched their company, Mercor, in 2023 while still technically in college.
Their dedication was recognized when they received the prestigious Thiel Fellowship.
A $100,000 grant given to young innovators who choose to leave or skip university to focus entirely on their groundbreaking companies.
The AI Brain That Finds the Best Workers
However, Mercor didn’t become an AI giant overnight.
It initially served as a straightforward online marketplace, connecting software engineers in India with companies in the U.S.
However, as the demand for powerful AI systems like ChatGPT exploded, the founders smartly shifted their entire focus.
Therefore, transforming Mercor into a powerhouse specialized in making AI smarter.
Mercor is now an advanced AI-powered recruiting platform that solves one of the biggest challenges in developing AI: ensuring accuracy and reliability.
The platform uses its own AI to automatically find and check (vet) highly specialized human experts from all over the world.
Including doctors, lawyers, finance experts, and engineers.
These human experts are then paid to work on “human-in-the-loop” tasks.
This vital process involves hiring humans to test, correct, and refine the raw, unfiltered information that AI models use.
For example, a specialized lawyer will check if an AI’s legal answer is correct, or a doctor will verify a diagnosis provided by an AI.
This essential human oversight makes the final AI product much more reliable and trustworthy.
Consequently, major technology companies and leading AI labs including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind.
And many of the world’s largest tech firms now rely heavily on Mercor to get the specialized talent needed to build their next-generation systems.
The Fastest Startup in Silicon Valley
Mercor’s journey from a simple concept to a multi-billion-dollar company has been incredibly swift.
Also, earning it the reputation as one of Silicon Valley’s fastest-growing startups.
The company’s value skyrocketed quickly following several huge investments, or “funding rounds.”
The final, massive investment came with a $350 million round, which officially valued the entire company at an astounding $10 billion.
Given that the three founders collectively own a significant portion of the company (approximately 22% each).
Additionally, this massive valuation instantly made each of them worth over $2 billion, granting them membership in the exclusive billionaire club.
The remarkable success of Brendan, Adarsh, and Surya proves that in the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence.
Indeed, a timely, great idea combined with smart strategy and bold entrepreneurship can create unimaginable wealth faster than any previous technological boom.
They stand as a powerful example that when a huge technological shift occurs, young innovators are often best positioned to seize the opportunity.
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