10 success stories of young billionaires – business, startups, wealth | Ukrainian News

Today's billionaires are students and self-taught entrepreneurs who see gaps in the market and know how to fill them. They dropped out of universities and started companies in garages and their own rooms, turning their ideas into billions of dollars.LIGA.net has collected stories of young entrepreneurs who have changed the business world forever.Read alsoTen families with the biggest fortunes – from M&amp;M's candy to oil in the UAEEvan Spiegel: betting on young peopleSpiegel dropped out of Stanford to found Snapchat with his brothers Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown in 2011. By the age of 25, he was already pond a billionaire. Snapchat's youthful appeal has led to a multi-billion dollar valuation of the company.Spiegel rejected Facebook's $3 billion buyout offer, a decision that proved to be a good one when Snap's popularity skyrocketed. Today, Evan's net worth is evaluate у 2.7 billion, and Snap Inc. last year brought $4.6 billion income. In 2022, Evan paid off his student loan debt for his entire graduating class at Otis College of Art and Design, where he attended high school.Its features approach:Innovation in creating short-form content and interesting features (filters, AR lenses)Strict adherence to a clear product visionStrategic focus on the young audienceWhitney Wolfe Heard: turning feminism into a business modelAfter leaving Tinder, Wolfe Heard created Bumble, a dating app that allows women to make the first move. In 2021, when Wolfe Heard was 31 years old, she became the youngest female self-made company founder to take an American company public. Her fortune was estimated at billion dollarsalthough they are now reach $400 million. Wolf Heard remains one of the most influential young entrepreneurs.Its features approach:Tapping into the crowded dating app market by empowering womenStrategic marketing focused on a modern audienceSupport from well-known players (Badoo) and strong brand identityJohn Collison: rewriting the world's financial infrastructureBorn into a family of scientists, he and his 35-year-old brother Patrick sold their first startup, eBay management software Auctomatic, for $5 million in 2007 while still in high school. Later, after leaving Harvard, John created Stripe, a payment software company with investors including Fidelity and the Irish sovereign wealth fund.In 2016, Collison became the world's youngest self-made billionaire. John's personal wealth evaluate в $10.1 billion, Stripe in 2025 evaluated у 65 billion.Its features approach:Identifying a critical gap in the online payment infrastructurePrioritize developer experience and trust in financial transactionsStrategic, global expansion with the support of investorsPalmer Lucky: from VR to drones for UkraineLucky grew up in California, where his mother homeschooled and his father worked on cars. After retrofitting old game consoles to make them mobile, he began collecting bulky VR headsets and experimenting with them. A self-taught software engineer, Palmer made his first fortune when he launched the startup Oculus VR, selling the virtual reality headset he created at the age of 16, which he later sold to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014.In 2017, he founded the defense company Anduril, which, among other things, supplies drones for Ukraine. Lucky's net worth evaluate у 2.4 billion.Its features approach:Early interest in engineeringAbility to commercialize the technologyVisionary and independent: shaping a new vision of technological defense beyond the traditional military-industrial complexAustin Russell: how a young genius created the future of autopilotsRussell is a self-taught optician who founded Luminar to produce lidar sensors for self-driving cars. After the company went public in 2020, he became a billionaire at the age of 25. Today, he owns about a third of the company, and his net worth is is approximately 1.6 billion. Luminar technology is used by the world's leading automakers.Its features approach:Innovative lidar technology meets an urgent need in the self-driving sectorEarly intellectual property developed in adolescenceStrong investor support and agreements with global automakersBen Francis: from garage to global brandAt the age of 19, Ben Francis, a student and Pizza Hut deliveryman, founded Gymshark with his friend Lewis Morgan, initially selling nutritional supplements online. Later, they started producing clothing in Francis' parents' garage. He used social media marketing to build a loyal community, eventually selling a 21% stake in 2020, making him one of the youngest billionaires in British history. His wealth constitute about 1.3 billion.Read alsoMusic and millions: ten singers who own business empiresIts features approach:Smart influencer marketing targeting fitness enthusiastsA customer-centric e-commerce strategy based on community buildingWillingness to accept external investments while maintaining majority controlAndy Fung: from student idea to food in one clickFang, along with Stanley Tang and Tony Xu, founded DoorDash, a food delivery service, while still studying at Stanford. They came up with the idea when they noticed that there were few affordable food delivery services in the neighborhood: the only options were a local Chinese restaurant and Domino's. Today, Fang leads the company's LaunchPad engineering team, and his net worth is constitute 1.5 billion.Its features approach:Targeting a pain point: convenient food delivery to underserved areasOperational excellence in logistics and powerful engineeringContinued expansion beyond restaurants into grocery stores and retailRitesh Agarwal: rethinking the hotel businessAgarwal founded OYO Rooms in India at the age of 19, bringing together budget hotels under a single brand. SoftBank's support fueled the company's growth, and at the age of 24, he became a billionaire. After the pandemic hit the hospitality sector, its fortunes are reportedly now constitute about $225 million.Its features approach:Access to the huge segment of unorganized hotels in IndiaRapid expansion at the expense of powerful investorsResilience in changing business strategies in a market downturnAlexander Wang: created the key to AI trainingWang dropped out of MIT to found Scale AI, a data labeling platform critical to machine learning. In 2021, the company was valued at more than $7 billion, making Wang the youngest self-made billionaire at 25. Scale AI works with clients such as General Motors, OpenAI, and government agencies. As of 2025, its capital is estimated at approximately в 2 billion. The demand for structured AI data continues to grow, supporting the rise of Wang.Its features approach:Recognizing data labeling as a critical AI bottleneckEnsuring the security of such well-known clients as OpenAI and the US militaryLeveraging Y Combinator networks and strong technical skillsPedro Franceschi: how a Twitter dispute became the start of a businessA Brazilian prodigy, Franceschi co-founded Brex in 2017 to offer corporate credit cards tailored for startups. He met his co-founder Henrique Dubugras during a Twitter argument in 2012, when they were both high school students living in their home country of Brazil. By 2022, the value of Brexit had reached $12.3 billion, making Pedro a billionaire with his own wealth в 1.5 billion.Its features approach:Determination to disrupt an inflexible sector (corporate cards and expense management)Identified financial needs of startups that do not receive sufficient fundingFlexible approach to adapt products to broader markets

From students to billionaires – 10 richest young entrepreneurs

Comments (0)

What outfit to choose for New Year's Eve depending on the celebration format – fashion tips from Iryna Adonina

How to survive the New Year's table without a "food coma": 4 proven strategies from a nutritionist

"The holidays are coming": why financial expenses cause stress and how to avoid it

"I didn't know where to start": how job fairs help IDPs find work in a new community

Contract from a Turkish prison: How Poltava merchants circumvented Russian obstacles to trade

What is the hidden meaning behind Putin's Christmas greeting to Trump?

A future without mines: How Ukraine is building a unique humanitarian demining system