Three 22-year-old friends — Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha — have become billionaires after their AI startup Mercor hit a $10 billion valuation with $350 million funding, making them younger billionaires than Mark Zuckerberg.
Bengaluru: A trio of childhood friends has achieved billionaire status at just 22 years old, becoming younger than Mark Zuckerberg was when he first reached that milestone at age 23 in 2008. Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha co-founded Mercor, an artificial intelligence-powered recruiting platform that recently secured $350 million in funding, pushing the company’s valuation to $10 billion. Each founder owns approximately 22% of the company. The three founders share deep roots in California’s Bay Area, where they were all raised by parents working in the technology sector. Hiremath and Midha, both of Indian-American heritage, first crossed paths at age 10 through elementary school debate competitions and later became teammates at Bellarmine College Preparatory, a Jesuit all-boys school in San Jose. During their high school years, they also connected with Foody through the competitive debate circuit.
Midha’s family had immigrated from New Delhi to the United States, and he was born in Mountain View before growing up in San Jose. Hiremath similarly comes from an Indian immigrant family background. After high school, their paths diverged academically but remained intertwined. Foody headed to Georgetown University to study economics and business administration, while Hiremath enrolled at Harvard to pursue computer science and machine learning, where he worked alongside former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers as a research assistant. Midha also chose Georgetown, focusing on foreign service studies. Within the company today, Foody leads as CEO, Hiremath serves as Chief Technology Officer, and Midha chairs the board of directors.
The Birth of Mercor
During his sophomore year at Harvard, Hiremath launched Mercor from his dorm room, envisioning workforce aggregation as one of the century’s most significant business opportunities. He soon made the bold decision to leave Harvard, relocate to San Francisco, and pursue his vision full-time. As Mercor began gaining momentum, both Midha and Foody left Georgetown to join him in Silicon Valley. All three founders became Thiel Fellows, recipients of venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s prestigious program that awards $100,000 to young entrepreneurs who forgo traditional college education to build transformative companies. The fellowship provided not just funding but also validation for their decision to prioritize their startup over their Ivy League degrees.
Mercor launched in 2023 with a focused mission: connecting Indian software engineers with American companies seeking freelance programming talent. However, the platform quickly evolved into a comprehensive AI-driven talent marketplace that revolutionises how companies find and hire skilled workers across various fields. The company’s artificial intelligence system analyzes candidates’ skills, experience, and potential fit, then matches them with employers looking for specific expertise. This approach has resonated strongly with businesses struggling to navigate tight labor markets and the complexities of global hiring.
The Rise of Mercor
The numbers tell a remarkable story of rapid expansion. By March of this year, Mercor had reached $100 million in annualized revenue. Just six months later, in September, Foody announced that figure had quintupled to $500 million. The company also earned recognition on Forbes’ Cloud 100 ranking, which highlights the most promising private cloud technology companies. This meteoric rise caught the attention of major investors, culminating in the recent $350 million funding round that valued the company at $10 billion. With each founder holding roughly 22% equity, their individual stakes are now worth approximately $2.2 billion each, officially placing them in the billionaire club.
Just weeks before their milestone, Shayne Coplan, the 27-year-old founder of cryptocurrency prediction platform Polymarket, joined the billionaire ranks following a $2 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange. Before Coplan, Alexandr Wang of Scale AI held the title of youngest self-made billionaire at 28, while his co-founder Lucy Guo became the youngest self-made female billionaire at 30, even surpassing pop superstar Taylor Swift in that distinction. Now, at just 22, Foody, Hiremath, and Midha have leapfrogged them all, with Midha being the youngest of the three by approximately two months, with a birthday in June.