Mercor Founders Become World’s Youngest Self-Made Tech Billionaires
Three 22-year-old Bay Area high school friends—Brendan Foody (CEO), Adarsh Hiremath (CTO), and Surya Midha (board chairman)—have become the youngest self-made tech billionaires ever, surpassing Mark Zuckerberg, who was 23 when he first reached billionaire status. Their AI recruiting startup, Mercor, was recently valued at $10 billion following a $350 million funding round led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst, and Robinhood. Each founder holds roughly a 22% stake in the company.
Founded in 2023, Mercor initially focused on connecting engineers in India with freelance opportunities at U.S. companies. The startup quickly pivoted to the booming data-labeling industry, matching expert contractors—including Ph.Ds and lawyers—with top AI labs like OpenAI. The company now generates an estimated $500 million in annualized revenue, up from $100 million in March.
All three founders are Thiel Fellows, having received $100,000 grants from Peter Thiel in exchange for leaving college. Hiremath dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year, while the others bypassed traditional education paths to focus on Mercor. Their upbringing in tech-savvy families influenced their early ventures; Foody started a small business at 16 helping friends get promotions on Amazon Web Services.
Mercor has quickly drawn attention in the competitive AI recruiting space. The startup faces rivals like Scale AI, which Meta acquired 49% of for $14 billion, and smaller companies such as Surge, Turing AI, and Invisible. Mercor is also defending itself against a September lawsuit from Scale, alleging trade secret theft. Foody downplayed the legal challenge, saying it’s “not something we spend a lot of time thinking about.”
Despite their newfound wealth, the founders remain focused on work, often staying at the office until 10:30 p.m. six days a week. “There’s not a whole lot of time outside of that to be distracted by things outside of the business,” Foody said.
