Austin Russell (entrepreneur)

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Austin Russell
Austin Russell (cropped).jpg
Russell in 2018
Born (1995-03-14) March 14, 1995 (age 29) [1]
Newport Beach, California [2]
Education Stanford University (dropped out)

Austin Russell (born March 14, 1995) is an American entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Luminar Technologies. [3] Luminar specializes in lidar and machine perception technologies, mainly used in autonomous cars. Luminar went public in December 2020, making him a billionaire at the age of 25. [4] Between May and November 2023, Russell was negotiating a contract to become the majority owner of Forbes .

Contents

Early life and education

Russell grew up in Newport Beach, California. [2] At age 15, Russell applied for his first patent for a groundwater recycling system to reuse water from sprinklers. [5] When he was 15, Russell's parents introduced him to laser entrepreneur Jason Eichenholz, who became Russell's mentor and later joined Luminar as co-founder [6] and chief technology officer. [7]

He graduated from St. Margaret's Episcopal School in 2013. [8] He also studied at the Beckman Laser Institute at the University of California, Irvine [9] while in high school. [9] Russell has said that he often teaches himself new skills from Wikipedia articles and YouTube videos. [10]

Luminar

Russell founded Luminar in 2012 [11] while he was still in high school, [12] shortly before turning 17. [2] After graduating from high school, he attended Stanford University for three months, [13] taking courses in applied physics. [14] Russell won $100,000 from the Thiel Fellowship in 2013, leading him to drop out [15] [11] and focus on Luminar full-time. [16]

The company spent its first five years in stealth mode. [17] Rather than purchasing components, Russell engineered and manufactured Luminar's lidar components himself. [18] [19]

On December 3, 2020, Luminar went public, [20] trading on the Nasdaq as LAZR. [12] Russell's 104.7 million shares, roughly one-third of Luminar's equity, were worth $2.4 billion at the close of trading on December 3, [21] making Russell the world's youngest billionaire. [22] [23] He also became chairman of the company at this time. [20]

Forbes

In May 2023, Russell entered into negotiations to acquire an 82 percent stake in Forbes , valuing the company at $800 million. [24] If the transaction had proceeded, his majority stake would have included the remaining portion of the company owned by the Forbes family, which was not previously sold to Hong Kong-based investor group Integrated Whale Media. [25] According to The Washington Post, a Kremlin-connected tycoon has claimed to be behind the purchase [26] and has suggested a variety of motives, including the intent to conceal his involvement. In November 2023, it was revealed the deal had collapsed due to Russell’s failure to secure the necessary funds. [4]

Philanthropy

On January 1, 2022, Russell donated $4 million to Team Seas, allowing the fundraiser to reach its goal of $30 million raised. [27] In 2021, he donated $70 million to the Central Florida Foundation, ranking him among the top 50 philanthropists globally, that year. [28]

Recognition

Related Research Articles

<i>Forbes</i> American business magazine

Forbes is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917 and owned by Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes, and its CEO is Mike Federle. It is based in Jersey City, New Jersey. Competitors in the national business magazine category include Fortune and Bloomberg Businessweek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Velodyne Lidar</span> American technology company

Velodyne Lidar is a Silicon Valley–based lidar technology company, headquartered in San Jose, California. It was spun off from Velodyne Acoustics in 2016. As of July 2020, the company has had about 300 customers. Velodyne Lidar ships sensors to mobility industry customers for testing and commercial use in autonomous vehicles, advanced driver assistance systems, mapping, robotics, infrastructure and smart city applications. In February 2023, the company merged with Ouster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waymo</span> Autonomous car technology company

Waymo LLC, formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, is an American autonomous driving technology company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.

<i>The Worlds Billionaires</i> Annual ranking of the worlds billionaires by Forbes magazine

The World's Billionaires is an annual ranking of people who are billionaires, i.e., they are considered to have a net worth of US$1 billion or more, by the American business magazine Forbes. The list was first published in March 1987. The total net worth of each individual on the list is estimated and is cited in United States dollars, based on their documented assets and accounting for debt and other factors. Royalty and dictators whose wealth comes from their positions are excluded from these lists. This ranking is an index of the wealthiest documented individuals, excluding any ranking of those with wealth that is not able to be completely ascertained.

The Thiel Fellowship is a fellowship created by billionaire Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation. The fellowship is intended for students aged 22 or younger and offers them a total of $100,000 over two years, as well as guidance and other resources, to drop out of school and pursue other work, which could involve scientific research, creating a startup, or working on a social movement. Selection for the fellowship is through a competitive annual process, with about 20–25 fellows selected annually.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobileye</span> Israeli information technology company

Mobileye Global Inc. is an Israeli autonomous driving company. It is developing self-driving technologies and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) including cameras, computer chips, and software. Mobileye was acquired by Intel in 2017 and went public again in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitney Wolfe Herd</span> Founder and former CEO of Bumble (born 1989)

Whitney Wolfe Herd is an American entrepreneur. She is the founder, executive chair, and former CEO of publicly traded Bumble, an online dating platform, launched in 2014. She is a co-founder of Tinder and was previously its Vice President of Marketing.

A robotaxi, also known as robot taxi, robo-taxi, self-driving taxi or driverless taxi, is an autonomous car operated for a ridesharing company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bolt (company)</span> Peer-to-peer ridesharing, food delivery

Bolt is an Estonian mobility company that offers ride-hailing, micromobility rental, food and grocery delivery, and carsharing services. The company is headquartered in Tallinn and operates in over 500 cities in more than 45 countries in Europe, Africa, Western Asia and Latin America. The company has more than 150 million customers and more than 3 million driver and courier partners. The company has plans for an initial public offering in 2025.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yandex Taxi</span> Russian taxi service

Yandex Taxi, a division of Yandex, operates a ridesharing company in Russia, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, and Kazakhstan. The Yandex Taxi division also operates Yandex Eda, a food delivery service; Yandex.Lavka, a grocery delivery service; and Yandex.Chef, previously known as Partiya Edy, a meal kit service. All services are accessible via the Yandex Go mobile app.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Argo AI</span> Autonomous driving technology company

Argo AI LLC was an autonomous driving technology company headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was co-founded in 2016 by Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, veterans of the Google and Uber automated driving programs. Argo AI was an independent company that built software, hardware, maps, and cloud-support infrastructure to power self-driving vehicles. Argo was mostly backed by Ford Motor Co. (2017) and the Volkswagen Group (2020). At its peak, the company was valued at $7 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Urmson</span> CEO of self-driving technology company Aurora

Chris Urmson is a Canadian engineer, academic, and entrepreneur known for his work on self-driving car technology. He cofounded Aurora Innovation, a company developing self-driving technology, in 2017 and serves as its CEO. Urmson was instrumental in pioneering and advancing the development of self-driving vehicles since the early 2000s.

Cruise LLC is an American self-driving car company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2013 by Kyle Vogt and Dan Kan, Cruise tests and develops autonomous car technology. The company is a largely autonomous subsidiary of General Motors. Following a series of incidents, it suspended operations in October 2023, and Kyle Vogt resigned as CEO in November 2023. The company began returning its vehicles to public roads in May 2024.

Luminar Technologies Inc. is an American technology company that develops vision-based lidar and machine perception technologies, primarily for self-driving cars. The company's headquarters and main research and development facilities are in Orlando, Florida; a second major office is located in Palo Alto, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zoox (company)</span> American company developing self-driving taxis

Zoox, Inc. is a subsidiary of Amazon developing autonomous vehicles that provide mobility as a service. It is headquartered in Foster City, California and has offices of operations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, Washington. Zoox sits in the Amazon Devices & Services organization alongside other Amazon units like Amazon Lab126, Amazon Alexa, and Kuiper Systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XPeng</span> Chinese car company

Guangzhou Xiaopeng Motors Technology Co., Ltd., trading as XPeng Motors, commonly known as XPeng, is a Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer. The company is headquartered in Guangzhou, Guangdong, with offices in Mountain View, California, United States and Munich, Germany. XPeng stock is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avride</span> Robotaxi project

Avride Inc. is a developer of self-driving cars and delivery robots. It is organized in Delaware and headquartered in Austin, Texas, with offices in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Tel Aviv, and Seoul. It is a subsidiary of Nebius Group and was formerly an affiliate of Yandex called Yandex SDG.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ouster (company)</span> American technology company

Ouster, Inc. is an American lidar technology company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It builds high-resolution, digital 3D lidar sensors for use in autonomous vehicles, industrial, robotics, drones, mapping, defense, and security systems.

Aurora Innovation, Inc., doing business as Aurora, is a self-driving vehicle technology company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Aurora has developed the Aurora Driver, a computer system that can be integrated into cars for autonomous driving. Aurora was co-founded by Chris Urmson, the former chief technology officer of Google/Alphabet Inc.'s self-driving team, which became known as Waymo, as well as by Sterling Anderson, former head of Tesla Autopilot, and Drew Bagnell, former head of Uber's autonomy and perception team.

Aeva Technologies, Inc. is a publicly traded American corporation specializing in sensing hardware and perception software, including LiDAR, headquartered in Mountain View, California. Aeva makes sensing and perception tools for vehicular automation, metrology, and industrial automation.

References

  1. ↑ "This 22-Year-Old CEO Wants To Help Make Self-Driving Cars Affordable". Forbes. Archived from the original on April 16, 2022. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 Lublin, Joann S. (March 20, 2021). "Where a Young Billionaire Learned Some Old Lessons". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on April 16, 2022. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  3. ↑ "How The World's Youngest Self-Made Billionaire Built His Fortune". Forbes. Archived from the original on January 2, 2022. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
  4. 1 2 "Austin Russell". Fortune. Archived from the original on January 2, 2022. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
  5. ↑ "World's Youngest Billionaire, 26-Year-Old Owes It All To Wikipedia & YouTube". Indiatimes. April 8, 2021. Archived from the original on April 8, 2021. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  6. ↑ McFarland, Matt (June 14, 2018). "Volvo is the latest automaker to bet on this 23-year-old's startup". CNNMoney. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
  7. ↑ Soderstrom, Alex (August 25, 2020). "Luminar to go public following multibillion-dollar merger". Orlando Business Journal. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
  8. ↑ James, Elysse (June 16, 2013). "2013 top graduate: Austin Russell". Orange County Register. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
  9. 1 2 Ohnsman, Alan (April 13, 2017). "A 22-Year-Old CEO Has A Vision For Making Self-Driving Cars A Reality". Forbes. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  10. ↑ Khanna, Monit (April 8, 2021). "World's Youngest Billionaire, 26-Year-Old Owes It All To Wikipedia & YouTube". IndiaTimes. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  11. 1 2 Vogel, Mike (August 26, 2019). "Orlando's self-driving startup, Luminar Technologies". Florida Trend. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  12. 1 2 Rosenbaum, Eric (December 3, 2020). "Luminar going public makes 25-year-old Austin Russell one of world's first, and youngest, self-driving billionaires". CNBC. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  13. ↑ "Luminar thinks its lidar for driverless cars can leave Waymo's and Uber's in the dust". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. April 13, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  14. ↑ Said, Carolyn (April 13, 2017). "Luminar makes lidar sensors to help self-driving cars see farther". SFGate. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  15. ↑ Megan Rose Dickey (May 9, 2013). "Peter Thiel Is Giving These 20 Teenagers $100,000 To Drop Out Of School And Start A Company". Business Insider. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
  16. ↑ Blasi, Weston (December 4, 2020). "This 25-year-old is now a billionaire, after his self-driving car company Luminar went public". MarketWatch. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  17. ↑ Gilder, George (2018). Life after Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy. Simon & Schuster. ISBN   9781621575764 . Retrieved July 17, 2020.
  18. ↑ Phillip E. Ross (May 19, 2017). "22-Year-Old Lidar Whiz Claims Breakthrough". IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved July 17, 2020.
  19. ↑ Captain, Sean (April 14, 2017). "This 22-Year-Old CEO Wants To Help Make Self-Driving Cars Affordable". Fast Company. Retrieved July 17, 2020.
  20. 1 2 Grossman, Matt (December 3, 2020). "Luminar Rises in Market Debut, Making 25-Year-Old Founder a Billionaire". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
  21. ↑ Ohnsman, Alan; Sternlichtsher, Alexandra (December 3, 2020). "Meet The World's Newest—And Youngest— Billionaire: Luminar's Austin Russell". Forbes. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  22. ↑ Patel, Nilay (March 2, 2021). "The 25-year-old billionaire building the future of self-driving cars". The Verge. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  23. ↑ Ohnsman, Alan (April 9, 2021). "How Austin Russell Became The Youngest Billionaire". Forbes. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  24. ↑ Fischer, Sara (May 12, 2023). "Forbes acquired by Luminar Technologies' Austin Russell". Axios .
  25. ↑ Bruell, Alexandra (May 12, 2023). "Automotive Tech Billionaire Austin Russell to Acquire Majority Stake in Forbes". The Wall Street Journal .
  26. ↑ Belton, Catherine; Frankel, Todd C.; Dwoskin, Elizabeth (October 20, 2023). "Russian tycoon claims he is behind Forbes purchase, audiotapes show". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved October 24, 2023.
  27. ↑ Singh, Vitasta (January 2, 2022). "MrBeast's TeamSeas Reaches Its 30 Million Target Thanks to a Surprise Benefactor". EssentiallySports. Full Spectrum Services LLP. Retrieved January 6, 2022.
  28. ↑ "26-Year-Old's $70 Million Donation Puts Him on the List of Top Donors of 2021". The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
  29. ↑ Jamie Condliffe (2017). "Pioneers". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
  30. ↑ Forbes Staff (2018). "30 Under 30 Youngest". Forbes. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
  31. ↑ "Austin Russell – 2021 40 Under 40". Fortune. 2021. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
  32. ↑ Priddle, Alisa (December 13, 2021). "The 2022 MotorTrend Power List Is Here!". MotorTrend. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
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