The age of the average billionaire is around 67 but data compiled by the firm Techreport.com presents the youngest tech entrepreneurs, some of which have reached this milestone nearly 40 years earlier than average. Digital Journal reviews the leading lights.
Ranging from artificial intelligence and virtual reality to food delivery apps and mobile games, these tech billionaires have made their money in a variety of ways.
The people in this category, listed by age, are:
- Alexandr Wang
- Palmer Luckey
- Andy Fang
- Stanley Tang
- John Collison
- Evan Spiegel
- Luo Yuhao
- Joe Lau
- Alexander Rinke
- Patrick Collison
- Bobby Murphy
- Roy Reznik
- Cai Haoyu
- Melanie Perkins
- Nikil Viswanathan
- Liu Wei
- Ivan Zhao
- Brett Adcock
- Martin Klenk
From the lost, the top five in terms of earnings have been profiled.
John Collison
Age: 32
Net Worth: $10.1bn
John Collison, an Irish entrepreneur, co-founded Stripe with his brother Patrick. Their success stems from building Stripe, a technology company that provides online payment processing infrastructure for businesses. Before Stripe, the brothers demonstrated early entrepreneurial talent, notably with the sale of their company, Auctomatic. Stripe’s growth has propelled John Collison to become a billionaire, with the company becoming a major player in the fintech industry.
Luo Yuhao
Age: 35
Net Worth: $4.2bn
Luo Yuhao is a co-founder and vice president of miHoYo, a Shanghai-based online game developer. MiHoYo is renowned for its globally successful anime-style games, notably “Genshin Impact” and “Honkai: Star Rail.” Luo Yuhao, along with Cai Haoyu and Liu Wei, established miHoYo in 2012. Their company’s focus on developing popular and high-quality mobile games has been the primary source of their wealth. The widespread popularity and financial success of games like “Genshin Impact” have significantly contributed to Luo Yuhao’s wealth. miHoYo’s focus on the ACG (anime, comics, and games) culture has allowed them to create very popular games.
Evan Spiegel
Age: 34
Net Worth: $2.7bn
Evan Spiegel, born in 1990, is the co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc., the company behind Snapchat. His path to wealth began during his time at Stanford University, where he, along with Bobby Murphy, developed the concept for the ephemeral messaging app. The app’s core idea, allowing users to send photos and videos that disappear, resonated with a young audience, driving its rapid growth. This popularity translated into significant financial success, particularly when Snap Inc. went public. Therefore, Evan Spiegel’s wealth is primarily derived from his role in creating and leading Snap Inc. and the subsequent success of the Snapchat application.
Palmer Luckey
Age: 32
Net Worth: $2.5bn
Palmer Luckey is an American entrepreneur best known for founding Oculus VR. 1 His early passion for electronics led him to develop the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset that significantly revitalised the VR industry. In 2012, he founded Oculus VR, and the company’s groundbreaking technology quickly gained attention. In 2014, Facebook (now Meta) acquired Oculus VR for $2 billion in cash and stock, which is how Palmer Luckey made a large portion of his wealth. Following his departure from Meta, Luckey founded Anduril Industries, a defence technology company focused on advanced surveillance and defence systems, which has also proven to be a very successful venture.
Alexandr Wang
Age: 28
Net Worth: $2bn
Alexandr Wang is the founder and CEO of Scale AI, a company that provides data annotation platforms for machine learning models. Born in 1997 in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to parents who were physicists, Wang showed an early aptitude for math and computer programming. He attended MIT but dropped out to found Scale AI in 2016.
Scale AI’s business revolves around providing the high-quality data that AI models need to function. The company works with various clients, including major corporations and the U.S. government. Scale AI’s success in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence has led to significant financial success for Wang. The growth of his company and its evaluation has resulted in him becoming a self-made billionaire.
Marnie Swindells, the winner of the 2023 season of the BBC television show The Apprentice, in relation to the survey, says in a statement provided to Digital Journal: “To succeed in anything in life but especially business, people need to be given the confidence to try and even to fail. This comes from childhood and upbringing, but having role models both as a child and later in life are also vitally important. I’ve been fortunate enough to be mentored by Lord Sugar, one of the UK’s most successful technology entrepreneurs, and he’s given me the confidence to really push for growth in my business.”
