Giving up ballerina to become the youngest female billionaire… What is the true identity of the site she created?
Date
Dec 26, 2025
Classification
- Startups
#
- Success/Failure Analysis
"Not an inheritance": 13 people in their 20s hit a 'trillion-won' jackpot with just AI
🫑 3-Line Summary
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Forbes’ list of ‘Self-Made Billionaires Under 30’ this year recorded a record high of 13 people, and their common source of wealth was by far ‘AI’ and ‘prediction markets.’
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Founders who built the 'infrastructure' of the AI ecosystem, such as AI recruitment (Mercor), data labeling (ScaleAI), and coding agents (Anisphere), dominated the list.
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In particular, the rise of founders of prediction betting platforms was notable, including the only female billionaire in her 20s, Lara, the founder of Kalshi, an engineering student and former ballerina.
🥦 Insight
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What you rode on decided the outcome.
They achieved wealth in just a few years that typically takes decades to build. The secret lies not in the 'quantity of labor,' but in the fact that they firmly leveraged the mega-trend of the times (AI). Of particular note is that the services they created are focused not only on B2C services but also on the 'AI for AI (B2B infrastructure)' sector, such as AI training data refinement and coding automation.
It is the exact same principle as how people made money selling jeans and pickaxes during the Gold Rush. The formula for self-made success has now completely shifted from "saving hard" to "solving the problems of the fastest-growing markets with technology."
🥄 A spoonful of execution
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Pick up a pen for a moment and write: "Is my business currently standing on the shoulders of the giant known as AI, or is it fighting the giant barehanded?" Simply riding the wave will change the pace.
—— View Original ——
Forbes reported on the 25th (local time) that the number of self-made billionaires in their 20s reached a record high of 13 this year. This is due to the rise in the value of AI-related companies amidst the AI boom this year.
According to Forbes, three Mercor co-founders, including Surya Mida, and ScaleAI co-founders Brendan Foody and Alexander Wong were named among this year's self-made billionaires under the age of 30. Mercor, an AI-powered recruitment platform, was valued at approximately $10 billion this year. ScaleAI, a startup focusing on 'data labeling' technology to refine data needed for AI training, received 20 trillion won in investment from Meta, the operator of Facebook.
In addition, the four co-founders of Anysphere, which provides AI-based coding services, and Fabian Hedin, the founder of Lovable, an AI service that allows users to create apps or websites without coding knowledge, have also joined the ranks of young billionaires.
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