The 'AI gold mine' of the world's youngest self-made billionaire

Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI, is behind the development of today's most powerful chatbots. Photo: Yourstory .

Training today’s most advanced AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini requires large, well-classified datasets. That’s why data annotation services like Scale AI are so important.

With more than 100,000 contract employees worldwide , taking on tasks from news summarization, writing stories, poems, to image labeling, Scale AI's value has increased to 14 billion USD . The company owns 3 contracts worth 350 million USD with technology giants such as OpenAI, Meta, Google.

Holding nearly 20% of Scale AI's shares, founder Alexandr Wang became the youngest self-made billionaire on the Forbes 2025 list. Despite his young age, he is an indispensable name for the remarkable development of artificial intelligence today.

Highly regarded since kindergarten

Born in New Mexico to a family of Chinese immigrant scientists working at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Wang attended good schools from a young age, giving him a solid foundation in science and technology.

He once shared that his parents started teaching him advanced physics when he was in kindergarten. When he was in ninth grade, Wang and a friend created a Google document containing startup ideas, intending to start a company.

As a teenager, Wang participated in debate, played the violin, and traveled around the country to compete in math and physics competitions. At 17, he left high school a year early to become an engineer at the question-and-answer site Quora in Silicon Valley.

He also shares his valuable experiences and lessons. In a blog post titled “What I Learned in 2016,” when he started Scale, Wang described how 12-hour workdays at Quora taught him the importance of hard work.

While at Quora, he was fortunate to meet his partner and Scale co-founder, Lucy Guo. Wang then went to MIT, where he took five machine learning courses and simultaneously developed an iPhone app called Ava, which helped users book doctor appointments. However, he decided to drop out a year later.

The young billionaire with an admirable mindset and adventurous spirit. Photo: Alexandr Wang/Facebook.

Wang made the decision after a conversation with Eric Wu, CEO of real estate startup Opendoor. Wu encouraged Wang to take a risk at a young age by taking a job at an early-stage startup instead of working at a large tech corporation.

This advice convinced Wang to take the plunge and start his own business. “I knew I would regret it if I never took the risk of becoming a founder at this ideal time,” he writes.

In the summer of 2016, Wang enrolled Ava in a startup accelerator program run by the prestigious venture capital firm Y Combinator. Soon, he and co-founder Lucy Guo expanded the idea and turned it into Scale AI.

Seize the opportunity with AI

According to The Information , Wang proved to be adept at seizing the opportunity when he launched Scale. Unlike its clients who build generative AI models, Scale provides vast amounts of accurate data to train them. In doing so, the company has carved out a “central position in a booming industry,” according to the FT .

A few months after its founding, Scale signed its first clients, Cruise and Tesla. In 2017, Wang founded Remotasks, a subsidiary that specializes in recruiting cheap overseas labor, and had Guo search for workers in Facebook chat groups.

Meanwhile, at headquarters, Wang ran Scale like a typical Silicon Valley startup, creating operating mottos like “Why not faster” and “Break through barriers,” which helped attract venture capitalists including Accel (an early Facebook investor) and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

In 2019, Scale reached a $1 billion valuation. Around the same time, Wang signed his first generative AI contract with OpenAI, helping label data for the language model behind ChatGPT. In 2020, he signed a deal with the US Army to help build datasets for their AI development efforts.

From a small startup, Scale AI is now worth up to 14 billion USD . Photo: WSJ.

During the pandemic, Scale had a $40 million contract canceled by Meta. By January 2023, the company had to cut 20% of its staff due to the impact of the recession in the technology sector.

However, the company has rebounded strongly as tech giants pour billions into generative AI after ChatGPT created a global craze. Scale also negotiated a contract worth about $ 120 million with Google to support the development of the Gemini language model.

The company is now seeking a valuation of up to $25 billion in a potential stock offering, looking to capitalize on strong investor demand for AI startups, according to Business Insider .

According to The Week , his deep connections in Washington have set him apart in the California-centric tech industry. One lawmaker paid a rare compliment in Washington, DC politics, calling Wang a “true friend.”

Wang is also actively involved in policy discussions. In February, he traveled to Washington, DC, to discuss the competitive landscape in AI, focusing specifically on the challenges posed by China’s growth.

Source: https://znews.vn/mo-vang-ai-cua-ty-phu-tu-than-tre-nhat-the-gioi-post1542693.html