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Step aside, Mark Zuckerberg, Silicon Valley has a new muscle to flex in its rolodex of young founders. Billionaire Brendan Foody, 22, is defying the stereotype that Gen Z doesn’t like hard work.
Foody is one of the trio of 22-year-olds from the Bay area who went from debate teammates to self-made billionaires on the back of a huge funding round for their AI recruiting startup, Mercor.
When the model for the company was curated at a hackathon in São Paulo, Foody knew that he, Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha had built something that couldn’t be replicated in classrooms. Its AI-powered hiring platform automates aspects of the hiring process, such as resume screening, candidate matching and AI-powered interviews. Within nine months, he and his co-founders had turned the idea into a company with a $1 million revenue run rate, which they claim is one of the fastest-scaling startups of the AI era.
Their fortune was minted from a recent $350 million funding round led by Felicis Ventures, and backed with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst, and new investor Robinhood Ventures, bringing them to decacorn status with a $10 billion valuation.
After dropping out of college at Georgetown to go all in on Mercor—Foody’s days aren’t packed with coffee chats and luxury downtime. Even with a packed calendar full of meetings (which he says on a long week could feel like 40 hours), Foody said his love for his business keeps the entrepreneur and former Thiel Fellow afloat.
“I like when I don’t have too many meetings,” Foody told Fortune. With all the investment into his business, and little free time—a good day for Foody now consists of writing documents or curating ideas.
Long hours are typically associated with some Bay Area start-ups embracing the “996” working model imported over from China, where employees are expected to work from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., six days a week. Foody said one of the habits that brought him to billionaire status was never taking a day off.
“We work a lot, I’ve worked every day for the last three years,” he said.
“People generally burn out, not just from working hard, but from working hard on something that they don’t feel as fulfilling and compounding.”
That philosophy only came to fruition after Foody left school. Before dropping out, he thought work was something he had been disciplined to do.
“It was oftentimes things I didn’t enjoy doing,” he said. “Versus when I started Mercor, it really became this feeling of obsession that I can’t stop thinking about, even if I’m getting dinner with my parents or whatever, it’s going through the back of my head.”
Seeing the impact of his business
“I think always making sure that I see the impact of what I do, the ROI of putting in a huge amount of time is most important,” he added.
“I can’t really take a day off, because I just have this impulsive drive to go back to it. So I think that people finding the thing that they’re obsessed with and can really pour their lives into, is one of the most important things.”
At age 22, all three co-founders are younger than Mark Zuckerberg was when he first became a billionaire at 23. Before taking the reign as the world’s youngest self made billionaire, reports claim Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan was the youngest at 27.
