Alexandr Wang- Scale AI

Alexandr Wang was born in January 1997 in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to Chinese immigrant parents who both worked as physicists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. From an early age, he developed a keen interest in mathematics and computer programming. By the time he reached middle school, he was teaching himself how to code. His talents shone through as he excelled in national competitions, qualifying for the Math Olympiad Program in 2013, the U.S. Physics Team in 2014, and earning finalist status in the United States Computing Olympiad in both 2012 and 2013.

During his teenage years, he acquired valuable practical experience through internships and early employment opportunities. He began his career as a software engineer at Addepar, followed by a position at Quora. In 2015, he enrolled at MIT to pursue studies in computer science and machine learning, but departed after just one year to launch his own venture.

In 2016, at the age of 19, he co-founded Scale AI to address a significant bottleneck in machine learning by producing high-quality labeled training data on a large scale. He joined the startup through Y Combinator and swiftly obtained contracts with major tech firms and government entities. By 2021, the company’s valuation exceeded $7 billion, earning him the title of the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at just 24 years old.

His remarkable success gained even more recognition in 2025 when Meta invested $14.3 billion for a 49 percent stake in Scale AI, subsequently appointing him to head its new Meta Superintelligence Labs. At that point, his net worth had climbed to around $3.6 billion. His journey illustrates how an early passion for coding, practical experience, and daring entrepreneurial choices can result in extraordinary achievements at a young age.