Something Else AI Is Creating: Young Billionaires

Artificial intelligence didn't just dominate headlines in 2025—it quietly turned more than 50 people into billionaires, reports Forbes. An unprecedented surge of investment into AI models, infrastructure, and workplace tools reshaped the global wealth rankings, with founders of data-labeling firms, chip suppliers, cloud providers, and coding assistants joining the ultra-rich. The New York Times also takes a look at new members of the nine-figure club, noting that most (though not all) are young men who got rich quickly. They include:

• Edwin Chen, CEO of Surge AI, who has by far the biggest net worth of the new group at $18 billion.
• Lucy Guo, a co-founder of Scale AI. (Fellow co-founder Alexandr Wang was already a billionaire.)
• Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, co-founders of Sierra.
• Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midh, co-founders of Mercor.
• Anton Osika and Fabian Hedin, co-founders of Lovable.

The Times collects this quote from Winston Weinberg, a 30-year-old co-founder of legal software startup Harvey, on his new wealth: "Yeah, sure it's in the billions, but it's on paper."