Alex Wang, co-founder of Scale AI, has once again made it to Forbes’ billionaire list, this time as the youngest self-made billionaire in the world at 27 years old. Wang’s fortune is estimated to be around $2 billion, thanks to his 14% stake in the artificial intelligence unicorn, which recently raised $1 billion at a valuation of $13.8 billion. This is twice as much as he was worth in May 2022, when Scale had last raised funding at a $7.3 billion valuation during a Series E round.
Wang and his co-founder Lucy Guo started Scale AI in 2016 after Wang dropped out of MIT following his freshman year. Guo left the company in 2018 to start a venture capital firm and a Patreon competitor. Scale AI provides human labor and software services for tasks like labeling data for training AI in areas such as self-driving cars and large language models like ChatGPT. The company became a unicorn in 2019, with a valuation of $1 billion, and has since seen significant growth, leading to Wang’s initial inclusion on the billionaire list.
The latest funding round for Scale AI included investments from notable venture capitalists, including Accel and Thrive Capital, as well as tech giants like Nvidia, Intel, and AMD. These investments are seen as a validation of Scale AI’s mission to unlock the potential of data for AI advancements. Dan Levine, a partner at Accel, praised Scale’s contributions to the industry, stating that many of the advancements in AI would not have been possible without Scale’s data engine at the center.
Wang expressed his optimism for the future of Scale AI, tweeting that the company is well-positioned to accelerate the use of frontier data and pave the way for Artificial General Intelligence. Despite facing challenges in the past year, such as falling from the billionaire ranks due to a decline in valuations of private tech companies, Wang’s resilience and the continued success of Scale AI have once again solidified his position as the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. With the latest funding round, Scale AI is poised for further growth and innovation in the field of artificial intelligence.
