22-Year-Olds Become Youngest Self-Made Billionaires After $10B AI Raise

Three 22-year-old high-school friends — Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha — became the world’s youngest self-made billionaires after their San Francisco AI recruiting startup Mercor raised $350 million at a $10 billion valuation. The funding and the founders’ roughly 22% stakes value each co-founder at more than $2 billion, eclipsing Mark Zuckerberg’s record as the youngest self-made billionaire. Launched in 2023, Mercor pivoted from a freelance marketplace connecting Indian engineers to U.S. startups into AI-powered recruiting, data-labeling and human-in-the-loop services — including avatar interview tools — that now serve major AI labs. Two co-founders, Hiremath and Midha, are Indian-American alumni of Bellarmine College Preparatory and former debate champions; Hiremath left Harvard to work full time on the company, and the trio are Thiel Fellows and Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees. Their rapid rise highlights how young technical founders can capture value quickly amid the enterprise AI boom.