Three 22-year-old entrepreneurs from California — Brendan Foody, Adresh Hiramath and Surya Midha — have become the world’s youngest billionaires thanks to their own startup, Mercor. Founded in 2023, the company recruits and trains specialists for artificial intelligence projects, including work with OpenAI. All three are graduates of the Thiel Fellowship program, which gives young entrepreneurs $100,000 on the condition that they drop out of college and focus on their project.
The platform offers innovations in hiring: for example, candidate interviews are conducted through virtual avatars, which speeds up evaluation and lowers costs. In a year and a half, Mercor raised $350 million in investment and reached a valuation of $10 billion, while revenue grew to $500 million. One of the investors is Larry Summers, a member of OpenAI’s board.
Unlike the usual image of young billionaires, the trio works almost without days off. “I leave the office around 10:30 p.m. six days a week,” Foody says. This is not performative modesty, but the lifestyle of a new generation of tech leaders.
Mercor’s story shows that rapid success is possible outside the traditional path of long career ladders.
