The Next Elon Musk, Alexandr Wang Is The Youngest Self-made Billionaire Without Even A College Degree

When Alexandr Wang, who was 19 at the time, co-founded Scale AI, people took it as a small joke. Since Scale AI had only three employees on its scale people did not take it seriously. Now, Alexandr Wang has become the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.

Wang is one of the most successful CEOs of his age, and his company, Scale AI, is worth $7.3 billion. Scale AI is the most recent Silicon Valley unicorn (a company worth a billion dollars before going public).

Wang’s impressive clientele includes well-known businesses like Uber, Airbnb, Toyota, PayPal, and General Motors. The US Army also uses Scale AI’s software, to calculate the harm caused by the Russian bombing of Ukraine.

Military contracts worth $350 million have been signed by the company. Former Amazon executives and Michael Kratsios, who served as the US chief technology officer under former president Trump, are on the board of directors for the company.

Some people refer to him as the next Elon Musk, while others say he’s the next Bill Gates, which might not be saying much given how quickly his company has grown, which he started before he was old enough to drink.

Let’s look at how Alexandr Wang, one of Silicon Valley’s most successful entrepreneurs, founded a company at the young age of 19 and turned it into a Unicorn.

ALEXANDR WANG: INTRODUCTION

Alexandr Wang was born in 1997 in New Mexico and was raised in the Los Alamos area. His parents were weapon physicists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is best known for the Manhattan Project.

The project entailed the construction and design of the first atomic bomb used in World War II. Wang grew up in a scientific environment. Wang attended Los Alamos High School in the United States.

He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and science after finishing high school. However, he dropped out before completing his degree. He launched Scale after attending the Y Combinator accelerator.

A CHILDHOOD DESIRE TO TRAVEL LED TO WANG’S SUCCESS

Believe it when they say nature will lead you to your destination. See Wang’s story. Alexandr Wang wanted to go to Disneyland when he was a kid. Wang’s family did not travel frequently, and he wished to travel far and wide.

When he was in sixth grade, he learned about a math competition called MATHCOUNTS, in which if you score well enough, you can win a free trip to Disneyland. Wang, who was talented in mathematics, seized the opportunity and won the competition.

He was already interested in technology, and these competitions helped him hone his skillset. He learned to code by watching videos on YouTube. These competitions were integral in motivating him to pursue a career in the technology industry.

After high school, his coding skills led him to a job in Silicon Valley. What began as a passing interest led him to participate in more competitions, including coding competitions such as the USA Computing Olympiad (USACO).

ALEXANDR WANG GOT HIS FIRST JOB AS A SOFTWARE ENGINEER WHILE HE WAS STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL

He only had a high school diploma and no college education, but Addepar, one of the hottest Silicon Valley companies, hired him as a Software Engineer because they were impressed by his skills.

The recruiting team had no idea he was a high school student, but his technical skills were enough to secure him a job as a Software Engineer. Then, in 2014, he relocated from New Mexico to the Bay Area to work, and soon after, he advanced to the position of Tech Lead at Quora.

Wang felt as though his engineering skills had advanced from those of a code monkey to those of a legitimate system architect after a few months of putting in 12-hour days at Quora. In 2016, he left Quora and began working for Hudson River Trading as an algorithm developer.

He had first-hand knowledge of how these rapidly expanding businesses were run thanks to his experience working at early and mid-stage startups. He put what he had picked up over the years together and sought to resolve real-world computational issues.

ALEXANDR WANG FOUNDED SCALE AI, AT JUST 19

During his time at Hudson River Trading, Wang realized that he needed to learn more about machine learning. He, therefore, decided to enroll at MIT for a bachelor’s degree. He kept going to interviews for summer internships and ended up with several offers. He also joined the spring 2016 class of the startup incubator Y Combinator.

Wang dropped out of MIT after a year to launch his own startup, Scale AI, with fellow young tech whiz Lucy Guo. The two co-founders met while working at Quora. The two received funding for their startup from Y Combinator.

Alexandr Wang, then 19, co-founded Scale AI with Lucy Guo in June 2016, with the goal of labeling and delivering high-quality training data to assist other companies, particularly those whose core business relies on machine learning, in labeling their datasets.

ALEXANDR WANG’S INSPIRATION FOR SCALE AI IS QUITE INTERESTING

When Wang was at MIT, many students were studying engineering and computer science, and the majority of them were interested in developing apps and robots. Nobody was developing anything with AI, but Wang wanted to do something AI-focused.

And he became interested in AI because he was annoyed by his empty fridge. He thought there should be a camera in the fridge that monitors your groceries and can notify you when it’s time to refill your groceries and what you need to buy.

Even for that, he lacked the information necessary to make it work. At that time, he realized there was a really big gap or issue that needed to be resolved for AI to actually realize its full potential.

That was the impetus for establishing the company. Obviously, AI has only grown in importance and impact since then.

The concept of monitoring and managing fridge items eventually led Wang to develop a service that could solve the most difficult problem of data management for businesses. Forbes reports that Wang’s six-year-old company, Scale AI, has already been awarded three contracts for a total of $110 million to help the US Army and Air Force implement artificial intelligence (AI).

According to reports, Scale’s technology analyses satellite photographs faster than human analysts to determine how much damage Russian bombs are causing in Ukraine. As a result, it is advantageous to the military.

It is, however, not only useful for the military. Forbes claims that over 300 companies, including Flexport and General Motors, use Scale to help extract information from unstructured data like self-driving car footage of millions of documents.

The platform also offers ready-made solutions in the areas of robotics, government, retail and e-commerce, content and language, document processing,` autonomous vehicles, and drones.

SCALE GROWTH AND EXPANSION

Bloomberg reports in August 2019 that “Silicon Valley’s Latest Unicorn Is Run by a 22-Year-Old.” In its third year, Scale AI secures customers like Waymo, the former Google self-driving car project, and raises its valuation to over $1 billion.

Without accounting for the dozens of thousands of contractors used to label data, the company had 200 employees in December 2020 when its valuation reached $3.5 billion. Enterprise automation, robotics, e-commerce, and the government are now included in its clientele.

Among the companies that have used the Scale platform are General Motors, Toyota, Nvidia, Airbnb, Pinterest, OpenAI, and DoorDash.

Additionally, Scale AI has created a platform called Nucleus that assists businesses in managing their data and offers suggestions for enhancing data quality before sending it to Scale for labeling.

Scale AI, which generates an estimated $100 million in revenue, was valued at $7.3 billion following a $325 million funding round last year.

TAKEAWAY FROM ALEXANDR WANG’S STORY

Alexandr Wang is one of the world’s youngest millionaires and has a lot to teach others. With his story, he motivates young people and demonstrates to them that anything is possible if they set their minds to it.

He believes that success can be created, and he has demonstrated this by creating one of the most successful tech companies. Here are some tips Alexandr Wang has for aspiring entrepreneurs:

—- According to Alexandr Wang, people ought to concentrate on the advantages of their current employment. He believes that if you put your heart into what you do, success will come naturally.

The CEO advises people to always be on the lookout for opportunities and seize them when they present themselves. This has served him well because he can establish a successful business without being concerned about the future.

— Wang also advises young people to surround themselves with the best people they know. Not just intelligent and ambitious individuals, but also those who highlight your strengths and criticize your flaws.

It’s essential to always act in a way that is true to your values and the way you want to go about creating a successful business when you’re doing it.

— Wang believes that it happens frequently when you speak with investors or other individuals who offer advice that may go against your gut feelings, but I believe it’s crucial to always be sincere.

Additionally, you must decide what you will focus on because you can’t possibly please everyone. What are you capable of doing better than anyone else? What unique service can you provide, afterward?

Finally, remember we are creating the first project that unites man and AI. To empower man, we are also designing an advanced watch that can preserve your health. If you want to know more, check out the news