How A Google Alum Became A Low-Key AI Billionaire And The Youngest Member Of The Forbes 400

Forbes

An alum of Google, Facebook and Twitter, Edwin Chen built his data labeling company, Surge, in the background of the AI revolution. Now the youngest member of the Forbes 400 is ready to step out of the shadows and make his voice heard.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/09/17/the-ai-billionaire-youve-never-heard-of/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, the AI billionaire you've never heard of.

00:05After a morning spent reviewing a data set, reading research papers,

00:09and playing with cutting-edge AI models in his Manhattan apartment,

00:13Edwin Chen takes a short walk to the swank three-story Starbucks Reserve Roastery on 9th Avenue.

00:19Dressed in a Vori navy t-shirt with a tiger-adorned canvas tote slung over one shoulder,

00:25Chen heads downstairs and settles in at a dark corner table.

00:29Sipping a small green tea, he says, quote,

00:31because ordering coffee here takes too long,

00:34the founder and CEO of Surge AI, a data labeling and AI training firm,

00:39then launches into a non-stop two-hour discussion about everything from Silicon Valley culture,

00:45he hates it, to his rivals, quote,

00:47they're all body shops, to how humans might interface with aliens if they came to Earth.

00:53He says, quote,

00:54They don't speak English, so how would you communicate with them?

00:57How would you decipher their language?

00:59Hopefully, there'll be some mathematical way to do it.

01:02This dilemma is also explored in his favorite short story,

01:05a 1998 piece by science fiction author Ted Chiang.

01:09The short story, called Story of Your Life,

01:12became the basis for the movie Arrival,

01:15in which a linguist tries to talk to aliens by identifying patterns in their speech and writing.

01:19It was also part of Chen's inspiration for starting Surge in 2020, he says,

01:25adding that he wants his data labeling company to encode the, quote,

01:28richness of humanity.

01:31For him, that means getting the smartest humans,

01:33including professors from Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard,

01:36to train AI,

01:38translating their specialized knowledge to the ones and zeros underpinning large language models.

01:43In addition to the Ivy League brainiacs, Chen employs an army of a million-plus gig workers

01:49from more than 50 countries around the world

01:51who help come up with questions that might stump AI,

01:55evaluating the model's responses and writing criteria that help AI generate a perfect response.

02:01Using the term AGI, short for Artificial General Intelligence,

02:05which is tech lingo for when AI will match or surpass human capabilities,

02:10Chen says, quote,

02:12I really do think that what we're doing is so critical to all the AI models

02:15that without us, AGI just won't happen, and I want it to happen.

02:21Long-winded, brilliant, and eccentric,

02:24Chen is perhaps the most successful tech entrepreneur you've never heard of.

02:28That's because until very recently, he wanted it that way,

02:32despite being well-known in the AI community.

02:34The data scientist who did stints at Twitter, Google, and Facebook

02:38eschewed traditional venture capital

02:40and left the Bay Area fishbowl seven years ago,

02:43electing to fund Surge himself,

02:46starting with, quote,

02:47a couple million from savings from his decade in big tech.

02:51Chen, who describes the typical VC-backed Valley startup as a, quote,

02:55get-rich-quick scheme, says, quote,

02:58one of the reasons why we bootstrapped

03:00is that I've always hated the Silicon Valley status game.

03:02He also hates the idea of raising so much money and then needing to spend it.

03:08In his opinion, that leads to massive overhiring.

03:11He points out that Surge has just 250 employees,

03:15including full-time, part-time, and consultants.

03:18By contrast, Scale AI, its big rival,

03:21has four times as many staffers with less revenue.

03:24Surge, which helps tech companies get the high-quality data

03:28they need to improve their AI models,

03:31brought in $1.2 billion in revenue in 2024,

03:35less than five years after its founding,

03:37from customers including Google,

03:39Meta, Microsoft,

03:41and AI Labs Anthropic and Mistral.

03:43It helped train Google's Gemini and Anthropic's clod.

03:47It's been profitable from nearly day one, according to Chen.

03:51Based on those numbers,

03:53the company is worth an estimated $24 billion.

03:56Surge is in talks to raise $1 billion at a $30 billion valuation,

04:01though the round hasn't closed yet.

04:03Chen's decision to fund Surge himself has paid off handsomely.

04:07His approximately 75% stake in it

04:10is worth an estimated $18 billion,

04:13enough to make him the wealthiest newcomer

04:15on this year's Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans.

04:19At age 37, he is also the youngest member.

04:24For full coverage,

04:25check out Phoebe Lew's piece on Forbes.com.

04:29This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

04:32Thanks for tuning in.

04:37Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

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