22 Year Old Founders Rewrite Business Education Blueprint

Three friends Adarsh Hiremath, Surya Midha and Brendan Foody all just 22 years old, have become the youngest self-made billionaires in the world, thanks to their Silicon Valley startup Mercor, an AI-focused recruiting platform now valued at around US 10 dollars billion following a US dollars 350 million funding round. 

Their story begins at high school: at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, the trio bonded over national-level debate competitions, refining analytical, persuasive and rapid-thinking skills. From there they went their separate ways Hiremath to Harvard for computer science, Foody to Georgetown for economics, Midha to Georgetown for foreign service but remained in touch and launched their company in early 2023. 

Originally conceived as a marketplace to match software engineers in India with U.S. startups, the idea quickly evolved. The team recognised that the surge in AI development required not just coders but large human-in-the-loop workforces to train and refine models. Mercor pivoted into an AI-recruiting platform that provides vetted specialists across fields law, medicine, finance and engineering to assist major AI labs like OpenAI, Google DeepMind and others. 

With each founder holding roughly 22 % stake, their net worths now exceed US 2 billion dollars individually. Their company grew at breakneck speed: revenues jumped from US100 dollars million to US 500 dollars million in a short span, and their team remains lean some thirty employees, median age 22. 

From an educational perspective there’s much to learn: the value of debate and critical-thinking skills; the power of networking early; being open to pivoting business models quickly; and harnessing emergent themes (AI in this case) to build global-scale solutions. Their journey shows that formal credentials alone aren’t the only path curiosity, agility and strategic thinking matter hugely.