They Made The List. Then Made Billions. How These Young Founders Got Rich

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Here are the 46 Under 30s who turned their startups into billion-dollar fortunes—Sam Altman, Alexandr Wang, Taylor Swift and more.

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexyork/2025/11/30/these-30-under-30-alums-are-now-billionaires-how-they-built-their-fortunes/

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00:00Today on Forbes, these 30 Under 30 alums are now billionaires. How they built their fortunes.

00:07The 2026 Forbes 30 Under 30 list was released this week, the 15th and latest installment of

00:14the iconic franchise, which has celebrated the top young talent in 20 different industries

00:19who are shaping the future of business and culture. In January 2012, Forbes launched the

00:25inaugural 30 Under 30 list to highlight the founders and leaders building the next big thing.

00:30Countless listers have since gone on to achieve stunning success in business, science, technology,

00:36and showbiz. But just 46 alumni have been so successful that they have leapt into the rarefied

00:42ranks of the world's billionaires. Over the last 15 years, the brightest of these young global stars

00:48have made their 10-figure fortunes in everything from social media and fintech to retail and

00:54in Taylor Swift's case, worldwide stardom. But nothing has created as much wealth at such an

01:00unprecedented rate as today's AI fervor, which has minted new billionaires at an unprecedented rate

01:07and is a big reason why a stunning 19 of these super-rich alums have become billionaires since

01:13the start of the year. Among the breakout stars are 8 alumni who all became billionaires in the past year

01:19and are still under 30 years old. That includes the four co-founders of Enysphere, the parent company

01:25behind AI coding tool Cursor, Suwale Asif, Amen Sanger, and Michael Truel, all age 25, and Arvid Lunamark,

01:35who is 26. Polymarket's Shane Coplin, who recently landed a big investment from the global stock exchange

01:41operator Intercontinental Exchange, and the three 22-year-old co-founders of AI recruiting unicorn

01:48Mercor, Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiramath, and Surya Mida, who raised $350 million at a $10 billion

01:57valuation this fall, making them the world's youngest billionaires ever. Mark Zuckerberg previously held

02:04that title when he debuted on the billionaire ranks at age 23. He too appeared on Under 30,

02:10but was already a billionaire by then. Another notable deal involving under 30 alums this year

02:16was when Meta invested $14.3 billion into 28-year-old AI powerhouse Alexander Wang's

02:24Scale AI in June, in exchange for a 49% stake. The acquisition boosted Wang's fortune by more than

02:3150% to a recent $3.2 billion and pushed up the fortune of his co-founder, Lucy Guo, who appeared with Wang

02:39on the 2018 Under 30 list to $1.4 billion. At 31 years old, she is now the world's youngest

02:47self-made female billionaire. 12 of the Under 30 Billionaire alums are building AI-first companies,

02:55but nearly all 46 of them are using AI in some way to evolve their businesses. Think Ankur Jane's

03:02Built, which has implemented AI agents to customer service and analyzing customer data,

03:07or Melanie Perkins' Canva, which now offers options to AI-generate images or translate text

03:13to more than 100 languages. Only three of the 46 Under 30 alum billionaires come from industries

03:20outside of tech. That includes one athlete, LeBron James, and two entertainers, Taylor Swift and Rihanna.

03:29Famous for smash hits like Diamonds and Umbrella, Rihanna became a billionaire in 2021,

03:34thanks largely to her cosmetics company, Fenty Beauty. She's worth $1 billion today.

03:41Taylor Swift, on the other hand, crossed the billion-dollar threshold solely due to her music

03:46and performances, and is now worth $1.6 billion. The richest Under 30 alum of all is ByteDance

03:54co-founder Zhang Yiming, who made the Under 30 China list in 2013, four years before the company

04:01launched TikTok. The video company's virality has resulted in a $63.9 billion fortune for Zhang,

04:09making him the 26th richest person in the world. Zhang is one of at least 14 Under 30s turned

04:15billionaires who hail from outside the US, including from China, India, Ireland, and France. That also

04:23includes Rihanna, who is from Barbados, and Spotify's Daniel Ek, who appeared on the cover of the first

04:29Under 30 issue, who hails from Sweden. For full coverage, and to see the whole list,

04:35check out Alexandra York, Zoya Hassan, and Sofia Ciarcio's piece on Forbes.com.

04:43This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.

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They Made The List. Then Made Billions. How These Young Founders Got Rich

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