Adarsh Hiremath: Mercor's 22-Year-Old Billionaire CTO

Biography

What Mercor sells

Mercor recruits skilled professionals, many of them holders of doctorates, law degrees or Wall Street backgrounds, and pays them to train artificial intelligence models for companies including OpenAI and Meta. The San Francisco Standard reported in November 2025 that contractors on the platform earn up to $200 an hour teaching chatbots to behave like people.

The economics behind the valuation are unusual for a company this young. The Standard put Mercor at a $500 million annualised revenue run rate as of September 2025, paying contractors roughly $1.5 million a day, and profitable. Felicis Ventures led a $350 million Series C that set the $10 billion price.

Three founders, one debate team

Hiremath met his co-founders, Brendan Foody and Surya Midha, through their high-school debate team in San Jose. All three are children of software engineers. Hiremath went to Harvard; Foody and Midha went to Georgetown. In 2023 all three dropped out.

The company they built did not start where it ended up. Mercor began by connecting engineers in India with American firms looking for freelance coding talent, then pivoted to supplying human expertise for AI training when that market appeared. The pivot is the commercial decision that produced the valuation.

What being a paper billionaire means

Forbes made the ranking explicit on 30 October 2025: at 22, the three founders were the youngest self-made billionaires in the world. Hiremath's stake is reported at about 22% of the company, which at a $10 billion valuation is the arithmetic behind the headline.

It is worth being precise about what that is. The wealth is a stake in a private company valued by its most recent funding round, not cash. Private valuations move both ways, and the figure describes a moment in October 2025 rather than a bank balance.

Where Adarsh Hiremath is now

He is Mercor's chief technology officer, the technical half of a founding team whose chief executive is Foody and whose board chairman is Midha. Forbes also records him as a Thiel Fellow, the programme that funds young people to leave university for their own projects, which fits the 2023 drop-out.

No later change of role, funding round or valuation appears in the sources used here. Anyone checking this page in a year should assume the valuation figure has moved.

What is documented and what is not

Documented: Mercor's $10 billion valuation after a $350 million Series C led by Felicis; Hiremath's role as chief technology officer and his roughly 22% stake; the Forbes ranking of the three founders as the world's youngest self-made billionaires at 22; the San Jose debate-team origin; Harvard; and the 2023 drop-out.

Not documented here: his date of birth, his parents' names, his personal holdings outside Mercor, and any statement from him in his own words. The birth year on this page is derived from his reported age of 22 in late 2025.

Achievement Timeline

Adarsh Hiremath — every milestone on this page, placed by age.

2023

Drops out of Harvard; he and his co-foDrops out of Harvard; he and his co-founders start the business that becomes Mercor

2025

Mercor reaches a $500m annualised reveMercor reaches a $500m annualised revenue run rate by September, per the San Francisco Standard

2025

Forbes names the three 22-year-old fouForbes names the three 22-year-old founders the world's youngest self-made billionaires (30 October)

2025

The San Francisco Standard details theThe San Francisco Standard details the AI training marketplace behind the valuation (7 November)

Historical Comparison

Person	Country	Milestone	Age / Stat
Elisabeth Anisimow	United States	Living paintings sold at 11 for $2,500-$5,000 each	Age 11
Carmel Bechler	Israel	Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023	Age 16
Andrea Dominizi	Italy	A beetle in the corner of the frame, logging machinery behind it, and a wo	Age 17
Adarsh Hiremath	United States	Co-founding Mercor; one of the world's youngest self-made billionaires	Age 20
Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas	Germany	Winning Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2024	—

What is documented — and what is not

✓ Documented

Named by Forbes among the world's three youngest self-made billionaires at 22 (30 October 2025)
Chief technology officer of Mercor, holding about 22% of the company
Mercor valued at $10 billion after a $350m Series C led by Felicis Ventures
Met his co-founders on a San Jose high-school debate team; dropped out of Harvard in 2023

? Unverified, disputed or wrong

Date of birth is not published; the birth year here is an estimate
The billionaire status rests on a private valuation that can move in either direction
No direct quotations from Hiremath appear in the sources used here

Questions people ask about Adarsh Hiremath

How old is Adarsh Hiremath?

Forbes reported him as 22 in October 2025, which puts his birth year at about 2003. No date of birth appears in these sources.

What does Mercor do?

It recruits skilled professionals to train AI models for companies including OpenAI and Meta, paying contractors up to $200 an hour.

What is Adarsh Hiremath's net worth?

Forbes ranked him among the world's youngest self-made billionaires at 22, based on a roughly 22% stake in a company valued at $10 billion. That is a private stake, not cash.