Move over, Mark Zuckerberg — Silicon Valley has a young new name to show off among its precocious founders. 22-year-old billionaire Brendan Foody is challenging the stereotype that Gen Z doesn’t like to work hard.
Foody is one of a trio of 22-year-olds from the San Francisco area who have gone from debate teammates to self-made billionaires thanks to a massive investment round for their AI recruiting startup, Mercor.
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When the company’s model was created at a hackathon (technological innovation marathon) in São Paulo, Foody knew that he, Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha had built something impossible to learn in the classroom.
Its AI-based hiring platform automates selection process steps such as resume screening, candidate matching and interviews with AI.
In nine months, he and his co-founders turned the idea into a company with a $1 million annual revenue projection — which they say is one of the fastest-growing startups of the AI era.
Their fortune was consolidated with a recent $350 million investment round led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst and new investor Robinhood Ventures — elevating the startup to “decacorn” status. (a unicorn multiplied by 10) with a valuation of US$10 billion.
After dropping out of college at Georgetown to dedicate himself fully to Mercor, Foody’s days are not filled with coffee shops, social events, and luxurious free time.
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Even with his busy schedule of meetings (which, according to him, in a long week can reach a total of 40 hours), Foody says that his passion for the business keeps the entrepreneur and former Thiel Foundation fellow firm.
“I prefer it when I don’t have too many meetings,” Foody told Fortune. With so much investment in the business and so little free time, a good day for Foody now means writing documents or polishing ideas.
Long hours are often associated with San Francisco Bay Area startups that adopt the “996” work model imported from China — in which employees work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.
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Foody claims that one of the habits that led him to billionaire status was never taking a day off.
“We worked hard — I worked every day for the last three years,” he said.
“People often get burnout not just from working too hard, but from working too hard at something that doesn’t generate satisfaction or cumulative progress.”
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This philosophy only took hold after Foody left university. Before dropping out of school, he thought work was something he had just gotten used to.
“They were often things I didn’t like doing,” he said. “But when I started Mercor, it became this feeling of obsession — something I can’t stop thinking about, even when I’m having dinner with my parents or doing something else. It keeps bouncing around in the back of my head.”
Seeing the impact of the work is important
“I think making sure I see the impact of what I do — the return on investment of putting in a huge amount of time — is the most important thing,” he added.
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“I can’t really take a day off because I have this impulsive desire to go back to work. So I think finding that thing that you’re really obsessed with and that you can pour your entire life into is one of the most important things.”
At 22, the three co-founders are younger than Mark Zuckerberg was when he became a billionaire at 23. Before Foody took the title of the youngest billionaire in the world to build his own fortune, reports claimed that Shayne Coplan, CEO of Polymarket, held the position — at 27.
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