The number of billionaires aged 39 or younger who built their own fortunes has soared amid the AI boom, tying the all-time record set in 2021. These are the 40 wealthiest.
In 2008, Mark Zuckerberg became the youngest self-made billionaire ever at age 23. Six years later, he overtook Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin as the world’s richest self-made billionaire under 40 on Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires List. The Meta chief held onto that title for a record 11 straight years before aging out in May 2024 when he turned 40. That made room for brothers Patrick Collison, 37 and John Collison, 35, of Stripe to claim that crown on Forbes’ latest annual ranking in March, though their reign didn’t last long.
As of this Fall, there’s a new richest self-made billionaire under 40: Surge AI’s 38-year-old founder Edwin Chen, who is worth an estimated $18 billion. He is one of 27 new self-made billionaires under the age of 40 to have minted three-comma fortunes just since March when Forbes locked in our 2025 World’s Billionaires List; nearly half of these newcomers made their money in AI.
Altogether, Forbes found 71 billionaires aged 39 or younger who built their own fortunes (rather than inheriting them) as of December 2025. The only other time the number of Under 40 self-made billionaires was this high was amid the Covid-fueled stock market craze that led to a record 71 on the 2021 list–it later bottomed out at 34 in 2023 after the bubble burst and a number of billionaires aged out.
All but 11 of today’s young billionaire entrepreneurs made their money in tech (48) or finance and investments (12). Just under half (or 32) of them are American; citizens of China (8), India (6), Australia (3), Sweden (3) and Canada (3) round out the top 6. Eight are women.
There is still one area where this group falls short of the 71 self-made billionaires under age 40 in 2021: total net worth. Today’s 71 self-starters control $218 billion of wealth combined, a staggering sum but only about half the 2021 group’s $444 billion total fortune, led by Zuckerberg who himself was worth $97 billion at the time.
The wealthiest self-made billionaire under 40 today, Surge AI’s Chen, is worth about a fifth as much as Zuckerberg was back in 2021. Tied for the last two spots in this year’s top 40 are DoorDash’s Andy Fang and crypto exchange Bullish’s Brendan Blumer, who are each worth $1.8 billion. That’s a high enough bar to keep out a bunch of big names like 36-year-old Taylor Swift (estimated fortune: $1.6 billion) and 37-year-old Rihanna ($1 billion), who both missed the cut. Also falling outside the top 40 are some of the youngest billionaires: prediction markets startup Kalshi’s 29-year-old cofounder Luana Lopes Lara ($1.3 billion), a former ballerina from Brazil who became the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire in December, and AI recruiting startup Mercor’s three 22-year-old cofounders, who became the youngest self-made billionaires ever in October.
Time will tell who among this young crop has staying power like Sergey Brin, Michael Dell and Mark Zuckerberg did before them, and who will flame out like Luminar Technologies’ founder and former CEO Austin Russell, who was reportedly ousted in May after an internal ethics inquiry, and FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried, who is serving out a 25-year prison sentence for orchestrating multiple fraudulent schemes. One sure bet: there will be winners and losers.
Here are the 40 richest self-made billionaires under the age of 40
(ages and estimated net worths are as of December 12, 2025)
1. Edwin Chen, 38
Net Worth: $18 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Artificial intelligence
Chen founded artificial intelligence startup Surge AI in 2020 to help companies label data for AI training. He serves as CEO of the company, which generated $1.2 billion of revenue in 2024 from customers like Google and Anthropic. A graduate of MIT, where he studied math, computer science and linguistics, Chen claims to have grown Surge without raising any outside funding. Forbes estimates that Chen owns three-quarters of the firm.
2. Wang Ning & family, 38
Net Worth: $15.7 billion
Location: China 🇨🇳
Source: Toys
Wang founded China-based toy company Pop Mart International Group in 2010 and took it public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2020. Wang serves as chairman and CEO of the $33 billion (market cap) company, which is known for small figurines and plush toys in “blind box” packaging that doesn’t reveal what’s inside. A global craze for Pop Mart’s Labubu line of dolls featuring rabbit-ish creatures with jagged teeth and mischievous grins has helped send the company’s stock soaring by more than 100% over the past year.
3. Patrick Collison, 37
Net Worth: $10.1 billion
Location: Ireland 🇮🇪
Source: Payment software
3. John Collison, 35
Net Worth: $10.1 billion
Location: Ireland 🇮🇪
Source: Payment software
Born and raised in the countryside near Limerick, Ireland, where their parents ran a lakeside hotel, the brothers cofounded San Francisco-based fintech firm Stripe in 2010. They hatched the idea for the company while in college together at MIT, and Patrick and John serve as CEO and president, respectively. Private investors valued Stripe at $91.5 billion in February.
5. Justin Sun, 35
Net Worth: $8.5 billion
Location: St. Kitts and Nevis 🇰🇳
Source: Cryptocurrency
Born in China, Sun became an early Bitcoin adopter after reading an article about the cryptocurrency while studying at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012. He has since built a vast crypto empire anchored by the Tron blockchain, which he founded in 2017. Sun invested $75 million into President Trump’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, in 2024. In February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission paused a market manipulation investigation into Sun and his companies.
6. Cliff Obrecht, 39
Net Worth: $7.6 billion
Location: Australia 🇦🇺
Source: Software
6. Melanie Perkins, 38
Net Worth: $7.6 billion
Location: Australia 🇦🇺
Source: Software
Husband and wife cofounders Obrecht and Perkins launched Australia-based design software platform Canva in 2013 with fellow billionaire Cameron Adams, 45. Obrecht and Perkins, who serve as chief operating officer and CEO, respectively, have pledged to transfer more than 80% of their combined stake in the company to the nonprofit Canva Foundation at some point in the future. Private investors valued Canva at $42 billion in August.
8. Vlad Tenev, 38
Net Worth: $6.6 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Stock trading app
The son of two World Bank staffers, Tenev was born in Bulgaria and grew up in Washington D.C. He cofounded no-commission stock trading app Robinhood Markets in 2013 with Stanford classmate and fellow billionaire Baiju Bhatt, 40, and took the company public on the Nasdaq in 2021. Tenev serves as chairman and CEO of $108 billion (market cap) Robinhood, which has recently embraced tokenization and AI-powered investing and was admitted to the S&P 500 in September.
9. Cai Haoyu, 38
Net Worth: $6 billion
Location: China 🇨🇳
Source: Mobile games
Cai served as chairman and CEO of Shanghai-based online games developer miHoYo from the time of the company’s founding in 2012 until 2023, when he handed both roles to his cofounder Liu Wei (No. 16). Players worldwide spent more than $5 billion on the company’s blockbuster game Genshin Impact between its 2020 release and 2024, according to research firm Sensor Tower.
10. Timur Turlov, 38
Net Worth: $5.9 billion
Location: Kazakhstan 🇰🇿
Source: Stock brokerage
As a student at Moscow State Technical University, Turlov founded Kazakhstan-based retail brokerage and investment bank Freedom Holding in 2008. He took it public in 2019 and still runs the $8 billion (market cap) company, which gives post-Soviet citizens access to American and European stock exchanges and specializes in IPOs.
11. Liu Jingkang, 34
Net Worth: $3.8 billion
Location: China 🇨🇳
Source: Cameras
A computer science graduate from Nanjing University, Liu, who goes by his initials “JK,” founded China-based camera maker Arashi Vision, also known as Insta360, in 2015. He took the company public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in June and still serves as CEO of the $14 billion (market cap) firm.
12. Daniela Amodei, 38
Net Worth: $3.7 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Artificial intelligence
12. Tom Brown, 38
Net Worth: $3.7 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Artificial intelligence
12. Sam McCandlish, 35
Net Worth: $3.7 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Artificial intelligence
12. Christopher Olah, 33
Net Worth: $3.7 billion
Location: Canada 🇨🇦
Source: Artificial intelligence
Amodei, Brown, McCandlish, and Olah are four of seven former OpenAI employees who launched artificial intelligence giant Anthropic in 2021. All seven are billionaires including Amodei’s brother Dario Amodei, 42, who is CEO of Anthropic, which private investors valued at $183 billion in September. The company is reportedly exploring an IPO as early as 2026, as well as another private funding round that could value Anthropic at more than $300 billion.
12. Liu Wei, 38
Net Worth: $3.7 billion
Location: China 🇨🇳
Source: Mobile gaming
Liu has served as chairman and CEO of the Shanghai-based online games developer miHoYo since taking over those roles from his cofounder Cai Haoyu (No. 9) in 2023. The cofounders met while studying computer science at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and bonded over their love of gaming. The same year Liu took over, Apple’s billionaire CEO Tim Cook, 65, described meeting a “phenomenal team” at miHoYo after visiting the company’s headquarters.
17. Palmer Luckey, 33
Net Worth: $3.5 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Virtual reality, defense technology
Luckey founded virtual reality company Oculus VR in 2012 and sold it to Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion of cash and stock. He went to work at Facebook as part of the deal but left in 2016 and cofounded defense tech startup Anduril a year later with fellow billionaire Trae Stephens, 42. Private investors valued Anduril at $30.5 billion in June. Meanwhile, Luckey is also reportedly working on a new banking startup called Erebor (which is the name of a Dwarven kingdom in The Lord of the Rings) with the backing of billionaire Palantir cofounders Joe Lonsdale, 43, and Peter Thiel, 58.
17. Luo Yuhao, 36
Net Worth: $3.5 billion
Location: China 🇨🇳
Source: Mobile gaming
Luo is vice president of Shanghai-based online games developer miHoYo, which he cofounded with college friends and fellow billionaires Cai Haoyu (No. 9) and Liu Wei (No. 16) in 2012. Forbes estimates that the private company, which is best known for anime-style adventure games like Genshin Impact, is worth nearly $16 billion.
19. Ankur Jain, 35
Net Worth: $3.4 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Rewards firm
The son of a former dot com billionaire, Jain founded New York-based home rental rewards startup Bilt Rewards in 2019, after selling Humin, a contact management app he cofounded, to Tinder in 2016. He serves as CEO of Bilt, which private investors valued at $10.8 billion in July.
20. Nikhil Kamath, 39
Net Worth: $3.3 billion
Location: India 🇮🇳
Source: Financial services
Kamath cofounded Bangalore-based discount brokerage Zerodha in 2010 with his older brother and fellow billionaire Nithin Kamath, 46. The company has grown to become one of India’s largest brokerages, and the brothers own 100% of the privately-held firm. Nikhil is the chief financial officer of Zerodha, which Forbes estimates is worth nearly $8 billion, while Nithin is CEO.
21. Alexandr Wang, 38
Net Worth: $3.2 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Artificial intelligence
Wang cofounded data labeling startup Scale AI with fellow billionaire Lucy Guo, 31, in 2016. The pair had a falling out and Guo left the company in 2018, while Wang remained CEO until June, when Facebook’s parent company Meta bought 49% of Scale for about $14 billion. Wang, who left Scale to become Meta’s chief AI officer as part of the deal, briefly became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire in 2022 and reclaimed the title from May 2024 to October 2025, when he was overtaken by Polymarket’s founder Shayne Coplan, 27.
22. Fred Ehrsam, 37
Net Worth: $3.1 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Cryptocurrency exchange
After graduating from Duke University and working for two years as a foreign exchange trader at Goldman Sachs, Ehrsam cofounded cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in 2012 with fellow billionaire Brian Armstrong, 42. Ehrsam left the company in 2017 but remains on the board of $72 billion (market cap) Coinbase, which went public on the Nasdaq in 2021. Ehrsam cofounded a crypto-focused investment firm called Paradigm in 2018 and announced in July that Nudge, a brain interface tech company he cofounded and runs as CEO, raised $100 million in its series A funding round.
23. Wang Yun’an, 39
Net Worth: $3 billion
Location: China 🇨🇳
Source: Milk tea
Wang founded Chinese bubble tea maker Guming Holdings in 2010 and took it public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in February. He serves as chairman and CEO of the $8 billion (market cap) company, which operates nearly 10,000 stores across China under its Good Me brand.
24. Bijan Tehrani, 31
Net Worth: $2.8 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Online casino
24. Ed Craven, 29
Net Worth: $2.8 billion
Location: Australia 🇦🇺
Source: Online casino
Tehrani and Craven cofounded crypto-backed online casino Stake.com in 2017, but the business really took off during the pandemic, when it started paying content creators to livestream themselves gambling. Forbes estimates that Stake.com, which they run, generated $4.7 billion of gross revenue in 2024 and is worth nearly $6 billion.
26. Evan Spiegel, 35
Net Worth: $2.5 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Snapchat
The Snapchat cofounder became the world’s youngest billionaire at age 24 in 2015, after private investors valued Spiegel’s startup at $10 billion. A decade later, Spiegel still serves as CEO of the nearly $13 billion (market cap) public company now known as Snap Inc. He is married to Australian model Miranda Kerr.
27. Roy Reznik, 37
Net Worth: $2.2 billion
Location: Israel 🇮🇱
Source: Security startup
Reznik cofounded Israeli cloud security startup Wiz in 2020 with fellow billionaires Yinon Costica, 43, Ami Luttwak, 42, and Assaf Rappaport, 42. Google’s parent company Alphabet acquired Wiz for $32 billion in cash in March. Before launching Wiz, Reznik and his three cofounders all served in the Israeli Defense Forces and sold another cloud security company they cofounded called Adallom to Microsoft for more than $250 million in 2015.
27. Adarsh Hiremath, 22
Net Worth: $2.2 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: AI Software
27. Brendan Foody, 22
Net Worth: $2.2 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: AI Software
27. Surya Midha, 22
Net Worth: $2.2 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: AI Software
The high school friends and 2024 Thiel fellows cofounded AI recruiting startup Mercor in 2023 to help Silicon Valley’s biggest AI labs train their models. Private investors valued the San Francisco-based startup at $10 billion in October, making the trio the world’s youngest self-made billionaires ever at age 22. Midha, who serves as chairman, is the youngest of the trio by roughly two months. Foody and Hiremath are Mercor’s CEO and chief technology officer, respectively.
31. Byunghoon Kim, 37
Net Worth: $2 billion
Location: South Korea 🇰🇷
Source: Beauty devices
His $6 billion (market cap) beauty tech company, APR Corp, is best known for its skin care devices and brands. Its flagship brand Medicube’s Age-R Pro, a device that uses electrical stimulation to help the skin better absorb products, got a big boost in 2023 when American model Hailey Bieber talked it up on TikTok. Other celebrities like Kylie Jenner are now also fans. Kim, who is CEO, cofounded the business in 2014.
31. Alex Bouaziz, 32
Net Worth: $2 billion
Location: Israel 🇮🇱
Source: HR software
31. Shuo Wang, 36
Net Worth: $2 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: HR software
MIT classmates Bouaziz and Wang cofounded San Francisco-based HR software startup Deel in 2019. Bouaziz, who was born in France and lived in both Paris and Israel growing up, serves as the company’s CEO, while Wang, who moved to the U.S. from China at age 16, serves as chief revenue officer. Private investors valued Deel at $17.3 billion in October. The company and its bitter rival Rippling–cofounded by billionaires Parker Conrad, 45, and Prasanna Sankar, 37–accused each other of corporate espionage in lawsuits filed earlier this year.
34. Bobby Murphy, 37
Net Worth: $1.9 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Snapchat
Murphy cofounded Snapchat with his Stanford fraternity brother and fellow billionaire Evan Spiegel (No. 25) in 2011. The pair became billionaires four years later, and took the company public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2017. Murphy, who serves as $13 billion (market cap) Snap Inc.’s chief technology officer, oversaw the development of the company’s signature disappearing-photo products.
34. Dylan Field, 33
Net Worth: $1.9 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Software
Field cofounded San Francisco-based design software company Figma with Brown University classmate Evan Wallace, 36, in 2012. Field left Brown early to accept a Thiel Fellowship and begin working on the startup full-time. Regulators blocked its sale to Adobe for $20 billion in 2023. It went public in July and now boasts an $18 billion market cap. Field is still CEO.
34. Karim Atiyeh, 36
Net Worth: $1.9 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Fintech
34. Eric Glyman, 35
Net Worth: $1.9 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Fintech
34. Gene Lee, 34
Net Worth: $1.9 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source: Fintech
Harvard classmates Glyman and Atiyeh cofounded Paribus, a price tracking app, in 2014 and sold it to Capital One in 2016. Both of them as well as Lee, who was a software engineer at Paribus, worked at Capital One before leaving to launch their own company, fintech platform Ramp, in 2019. The financial management platform has worked with over 50,000 companies, including customers like Anduril, Shopify and Notion. Glyman serves as CEO of Ramp, while Atiyeh serves as chief technology officer. Private investors valued Ramp at $32 billion in November.
39. Brendan Blumer, 39
Net Worth: $1.8 billion
Location: Hong Kong 🇭🇰
Source: Crypto exchange
The Iowa native moved to Hong Kong in 2005 at age 19 and gave up his U.S. citizenship in 2020, the same year he cofounded crypto exchange Bullish. Blumer serves as chairman of the $7 billion (market cap) company, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange in August.
39. Andy Fang, 33
Net Worth: $1.8 billion
Location: United States 🇺🇸
Source of wealth: Delivery app
Fang cofounded food delivery app DoorDash in 2013 with his Stanford classmates and fellow billionaires Tony Xu, 41, and Stanley Tang, 33 (estimated fortune: $1.2 billion). The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2020 and transferred its listing to the Nasdaq in 2023. Fang served as DoorDash’s chief technology officer until 2019 and head of consumer engineering until 2022. He’s now head of LaunchPad, the company’s new software products team.
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