SF's AI Boom Attracts Young CEOs & Dropouts

San Francisco’s artificial intelligence boom is attracting a new wave of entrepreneurs, with a notable surge in chief executives in their early twenties. These young founders are rapidly establishing and scaling AI startups, often after dropping out of prestigious universities to seize what they perceive as a transformative technological moment.

Among this burgeoning cohort are Brendan Foody, 22, CEO of Mercor; Karun Kaushik, 21, CEO of Delve; and Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, 23, CEO of Artisan. Each operates their AI venture within a short distance of one another in San Francisco, having collectively raised millions of dollars and now overseeing dozens of employees. Their ambition is universally to build companies that achieve significant scale.

Brendan Foody, for instance, left Georgetown University in 2023 after his sophomore year to immerse himself in the AI space. His company, Mercor, provides AI-powered resume screening and job interviews. Co-founded with high school friends Surya Midha (COO) and Adarsh Hiremath (CTO), both 22, Mercor recently secured $100 million in funding, pushing its total raised to over $132 million and valuing the startup at $2 billion. The company employs 150 people across San Francisco and India, already outgrowing its current office.

Karun Kaushik, 21, dropped out of MIT in 2023, moving to California after developing an AI tool in his dorm. He co-founded Delve with fellow MIT student Selin Kocalar, 21. Delve automates compliance tasks for businesses handling sensitive data, and the company has raised $35.3 million with a team of approximately 20 employees.

Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, 23, conceived the idea for Artisan in 2022 while traveling after high school. His company develops an AI sales assistant and has raised more than $35 million. Artisan gained attention for a provocative marketing campaign featuring bus stop ads in San Francisco that urged businesses to “stop hiring humans” and instead “hire” its AI agent, Ava. Carmichael-Jack noted the campaign aimed to intrigue potential clients by tapping into public anxieties about AI’s impact on jobs.

This influx of youthful talent injects a dynamic energy into an AI landscape long dominated by established tech giants like Google and Nvidia, and more mature startups such as OpenAI. Other prominent young founders include Scott Wu, 28, of Cognition AI; Michael Truell, 24, of Cursor; and Roy Lee, 21, of Cluely. Alexandr Wang, 28, who led Scale AI before Meta appointed him to run its new superintelligence lab in June, is another notable figure from this generation.

Many of these entrepreneurs share connections from college or startup incubators like Y Combinator. While their lives revolve around the intense demands of building a company, they also foster a community, engaging in activities like Ping-Pong nights, poker games, and networking events. Venture capital firms are actively nurturing this trend, with programs specifically designed for high school and college students. Pete Koomen, a general partner at Y Combinator, noted that the median age of participants in their most recent cohort dropped to 24 this year, down from 30 in 2022.

This pattern echoes historical tech booms, reminiscent of Mark Zuckerberg’s arrival in Silicon Valley at 19 with Facebook in the mid-2000s, famously after dropping out of Harvard. Saam Motamedi, an investor at Greylock Partners, likens these periods to a “chessboard changes” where “everything is up for grabs.”

A profound sense of urgency drives many of these young founders. Jaspar Carmichael-Jack described ChatGPT’s emergence as a clear “paradigm shift” that compelled him to get involved. Surya Midha, Mercor’s COO, spoke of “extreme urgency” and “existential dread” among his peers, feeling it would be “crazy not to go all in” on an AI venture now.

This environment is also fostering a new generation of founders. Rithika Kacham, 22, dropped out of Stanford in 2024 during her senior year to join Mercor as an executive assistant before launching her own company, Verita AI, in May. Verita AI connects professionals with AI models to help train them for greater accuracy, such as an intellectual property expert ensuring an AI can correctly identify a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Kacham observed that “almost everyone I knew at Stanford was dropping out to co-found a company.”

The drive to innovate quickly is pervasive. Mizan Rupan-Tompkins, 18, a rising sophomore at San Jose State University, plans to pause his studies next year to build Stratus AI, a device designed to assist unmanned air traffic control towers in safely landing airplanes. Having already secured investment from venture capital firm Founders Inc., Rupan-Tompkins stated he couldn’t wait until his 2028 graduation to start his company, emphasizing, “It’s better to be earlier than later, just in case I missed some type of wave.”

This collective energy, fueled by rapid technological advancements and a low barrier to entry in AI, creates a unique ecosystem where young entrepreneurs are both fiercely competitive and mutually supportive, all striving to make their mark on the future.