Palmer Luckey- Oculus VR

In 2009, at the mere age of 16, Palmer Luckey kickstarted what would be a daunting task for many: creating a VR headset in his parents garage. For Lucky though, this was just another project of his. From his early teenage years and on, his parents recall him experimenting with tesla coils, railguns, high-powered lasers and even stated that he created his own PC system.

At the age of 14, he began taking courses at Long Beach City College and Golden West College which was made possible because of his homeschooling background. It was through these courses that he was able to develop his break through. A Virtual Reality Headset. In 2012, Luckey launched Oculus VR with his first product The Oculus Rift. As the business grew, it caught the view of Facebook which bought the rights to it two years later in March of 2014 for roughly 2 billion dollars.

Just a year later, Luckey was recognized in Forbes Magazine as the 22nd richest American man under the age of 40 due to his sale of Oculus (now meta) to Facebook. Then in 2017, Luckey faced some legal trouble surrounding the exploitation of insider information on technology, and although he was not found guilt he decided to leave Facebook and therefore leave Meta as well. Not surprisingly though, this did not slow him down.

In June of 2017, he founded Andruril Industries; an “autonomy-focused military technology company” which creates drones and surveillance sentry towers used to detect human-trafficking and drug smuggling activity in difficult areas to patrol (Wikipedia page). In 2020, Andruril received a 967 million dollar contract from the US Air Force and then won another contract for 1 billion dollars from SOCOM two years later.

Obviously, Luckey is a unique mind and a very decorated person, which can seem very impersonable, but there is much that can be learned from him. For starters, he started at a very young age and built up to excellence. It was not an overnight revelation that many think entrepreneurship is. Moreover, when he experienced hardship, as seen in the legal trouble he faced and leaving behind his company in a manner that seems rather forced, Luckey did not settle, even though he certainly had the capital to do so. No, rather he directed his attention to an issue he identified and used the talents given to him by God to take his own approach which clearly has paid off, causing much good.