/startuppedia/media/member_avatars/2025/10/08/2025-10-08t101732640z-whatsapp-image-2024-01-05-at-154243_53e78ff5-2025-10-08-15-47-33.jpg )
/startuppedia/media/media_files/2025/11/04/ai-2025-11-04-10-32-56.png)
AI startup Mercor
Three 22-year-old friends who once shared a love for school debates have made global headlines by becoming the world’s youngest self-made billionaires.
Adarsh Hiremath, Surya Midha, and Brendan Foody co-founded Mercor, an AI-based hiring platform that connects skilled workers with tech companies.
After raising $350 million in its latest funding round, the San Francisco-based startup reached a $10 billion valuation, putting each founder into the billionaire club.
The two Indian-American co-founders, Hiremath and Midha, have drawn wide attention for their rapid rise from classmates to global tech figures.
From school debate partners to billionaires at 22
The Mercor story began years ago at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, California, where Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha became close friends on the school’s debate team.
The pair made history by winning all three national debate championships in a single year, a first for their school. Later, they teamed up with Brendan Foody, whom they met through college circles.
After finishing high school, the three attended different universities. Hiremath went to Harvard, while Midha and Foody studied at Georgetown. They stayed in touch with a shared dream of building something big in technology.
In 2023, they received the Thiel Fellowship, a 100,000 dollar grant that encourages young people to leave college and start businesses. That was the turning point that led to Mercor’s creation.
How Mercor became a 10 billion dollar AI company
Mercor started as a simple idea to connect engineers from countries like India with American firms. But the founders soon noticed a bigger opportunity in artificial intelligence.
They shifted Mercor into a platform that helps AI companies find workers who label data and improve models. This kind of “human-in-the-loop” work has become a major need for businesses developing advanced AI systems.
The change paid off quickly. According to reports, Mercor’s revenue grew from 100 million dollars to 500 million dollars within months. The company’s latest 350 million dollar funding round pushed its valuation to 10 billion dollars, making its founders billionaires at just 22.
In an interview, Hiremath said:
“The thing that’s crazy for me is, if I weren’t working on Mercor, I would have just graduated college a couple of months ago.”
Their success breaks the record once held by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who became a billionaire at 23.
What lies ahead for the young founders and Mercor
With Mercor now valued at 10 billion dollars, the challenge is to keep the growth going. The startup plans to expand its services worldwide and partner with more AI companies that need skilled workers to improve their systems.
Experts say Mercor’s rise shows how fast the AI job market is changing. More tech firms now depend on human input to make artificial intelligence more accurate and reliable. Mercor has turned that demand into a large business opportunity.
Still, success at this scale comes with new responsibilities. The founders must focus on quality control, data ethics, and smart hiring as they continue to grow.
Yet their story has already inspired many young people, especially those from Indian-American backgrounds, who see in them proof that big goals can start in small classrooms.
From a debate club in San Jose to leading a 10 billion dollar company, the three friends have shown that age does not limit ambition, and that sometimes, the best ideas can start as a simple after-school conversation.