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Austin Russell is a Stanford University dropout who became the world's youngest self-made billionaire in 2020 at the age of 25 when his startup Luminar went public. Luminar develops sensor technology that helps cars navigate their environment; Volvo, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz use the sensors.
Russell, now 29, spoke to Will.i.am on the Masters of Scale podcast on Wednesday about how he became rich at a young age. Russell, whose father was in real estate and whose mother worked as a model and speaker, says he was 100% self-taught, setting up a lab in his parents' garage when he was 10 or 11 years old.
“[My parents] always joked, “Oh, just let Austin work his black magic in the garage and shove food under the door,” Russell said.
He said he always wanted to know how and why things work, and he pursued this curiosity from a young age.
Russell began focusing on optics and lasers in his home lab at age 13, and then went to work at UC Irvine's Beckman Laser Institute at age 17. He decided to focus on entrepreneurship rather than pursuing a professorship because he wanted to create innovations with immediate impact in the real world.
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Russell founded Luminar, of which he is now CEO, at the age of 17 to develop sensors that would make driving safer. He graduated from high school, went to Stanford for a few months, but dropped out after receiving a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship to pursue his idea for two years.
His goal with Luminar has become even more ambitious: He wants to save 100 million lives and 100 trillion hours over the next 100 years. An April report from reinsurance company Swiss Re shows progress is being made toward that goal—Luminar's software reduced the severity of car accidents by as much as 40%.
“I think that ultimately the only way to contribute and develop is through some kind of business and some kind of effort,” he said.
Luminar founder Austin Russell. Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images
Russell said he has benefited from the wealth of information available online, including lectures previously available only to graduate students. He claims he once watched four years' worth of lectures on the technical topics he needed to know “in less than a month.”
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“You can do it,” he said. “Nothing can stop you.”
Russell's estimated net worth is $1.6 billion, although Luminar's share price has fallen by about 40% since the beginning of the year. Possible reasons could be a highly competitive market and a small number of customers, which make up a large part of the company's revenue.
He is also no longer the world's youngest self-made billionaire; the title is now held by 27-year-old MIT dropout and Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang.
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