Several new billionaires emerged in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry as a result of the skyrocketing valuations of both private and public companies involved in the field. The AI gold rush has reached its peak, fifteen months after ChatGPT made OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and artificial intelligence (AI) household names. New and established tech businesses’ share values have soared over the past year, adding billions to the wealth of tech tycoons around the world and adding a few new AI billionaires to Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires.
The CEO and co-founder of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, is one of such examples. With a 300% increase in Nvidia’s stock price in the last year, Huang is now one of the world’s 20 wealthiest persons, ranking 20th. Along with them, a number of other businesses surfed the wave. Super Micro Computer’s co-founders, Charles Liang as well as Sara Liu, became billionaires after the company’s shares soared by more than ten times in the past year, outperforming Nvidia and every other company on the S&P 500. Super Micro Computer creates servers that handle AI apps that require a lot of computing power. This year, Lisa Su, CEO of semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices, also joined the ranks of the billionaires, thanks to a 120% increase in AMD’s share price. Cloudflare, an AI-driven cybersecurity firm, witnessed an 86% increase in its share price, taking COO Michelle Zatlyn’s net worth to $1 billion and CEO Matthew Prince’s fortune to $3.4 billion, up from $2 billion in 2023.
Also, AI startups with private equity have been very successful. According to a reports, despite a slowdown in venture investments overall in 2018, AI-centric firms managed to receive about $50 billion in funding. After a rumoured $10 billion investment by Microsoft in January, OpenAI became the largest of them, with a valuation of more than $80 billion. Forbes believes that CEO Altman is worth a billion dollars thanks to a network of venture investments, even though he does not own any shares in the company. Joining the list are two new billionaires from artificial intelligence startups: Ivan Zhao, co-founder and CEO of Notion, who has a share in the AI-focused productivity app Notion, which is valued at $5 billion, and Brett Adcock, founder and CEO of Figure, an AI robot firm valued at $2.6 billion.
In 2024, the New Billionaires Will Be Rich Due To AI
The private sector has been heavily funded by long-standing tech companies such as Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon in an effort to gain an advantage in the ongoing artificial intelligence arms race. Although it is early to say when the artificial intelligence bubble will pop, and finance will dry up, signs of its approaching demise are becoming apparent: Reid Hoffman, a wealthy investor and co-founder of Inflection AI, pulled the plug on the company’s chatbot in March, and two other co-founders and researchers departed for artificial intelligence positions at Microsoft.
The nine new billionaires listed below all have some connection to artificial intelligence.
Charles Liang:
Charles Liang is a computer hardware billionaire who co-founded the IT infrastructure company Super Micro Computer in 1993 and has a net worth of $6.1 billion. He was born in the United States. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing companies are vying for its storage and servers. For the fiscal year ending in 30 June 2023, revenues reached $7 billion. Even its chip-making partners, like Nvidia, Intel, and AMD, have been unable to match the stock’s 1,100% gain over the last 12 months. Sara Liu, who is married to Liang, is a newly-minted billionaire and a senior vice president of Super Micro.
Kwak Don Shin:
Kwak Don Shin, a South Korean business leader, has a net worth of $2.9 billion and gets his money from semiconductors. In 1980, Shin’s father established Hanmi Semiconductor, which Shin now runs. The semiconductor packaging process is a last step in making a chip, and Hanmi makes the machinery needed for it. Notable clients include SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics. Shares have increased by more than 560% in the last year as a result of the AI frenzy, which is driving business.
Shunsaku Sagami:
His net worth is $1.9 billion, and his wealth comes from an M&A firm in Japan. The M&A Research Institute, run by the 33-year-old, acts as a matchmaker for those looking to sell small to medium-sized enterprises. These firms are typically held by elderly people who are struggling with succession and are looking to cash out. It employs AI to discover potential buyers for them. In 2022, the Tokyo Stock Exchange listed Sagami’s company.
Ivan Zhao:
Ivan Zhao has a net worth of $1.5 billion and is from the United States. The co-founder and current CEO of the productivity firm Notion has come a long way since 2015, when he and Simon Last moved their company from San Francisco to Kyoto, Japan, laid off all of their workers, and sublet their office space. The now-profitable Notion is putting its money where its mouth is: on artificial intelligence. With $250 million in revenue and an estimated $5 billion in valuation from secondary market transactions, it’s a big bet.
Brett Adcock:
With a net worth of $1.4 billion, this American man is wealthy due to his robotic side hustle. The goal of Adcock’s 2022 startup, Figure, is to create an artificial intelligence-powered “general purpose humanoid” and integrate it into the workforce. Jeff Bezos, Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI were among the major backers that put $675 million into the $2.6 billion startup in February. An estimated 50% is owned by Adcock, who is 37 years old.
Lisa Su:
She is an American-based semiconductor company owner with a net worth of $1.3 billion. Ever since Su took over as CEO of Advanced Micro Devices in 2014, the stock price of the once-struggling semiconductor company has skyrocketed, becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) champion. Born in Taiwan, Su moved to New York City with her family when she was three years old. Her father was an entrepreneur and mathematician. She went to MIT to study electrical engineering since it was the most challenging degree.
Michelle Zatlyn:
She is a Canadian cybersecurity tycoon with a net worth of $1.2 billion. Cloudflare, developed by Zatlyn, uses AI to protect its users from cybercriminals. Additionally, developers can use the San Francisco-based firm’s cloud space to build their own AI models. After working for Google and Toshiba, Zatlyn, a Canadian native, co-founded Cloudflare in 2009 along with fellow Harvard Business School alumnus Matthew Prince, who is both the CEO and a billionaire. Prince studied chemistry at McGill University in Montreal. Company shares have increased by 65% in the past year, and COO Zatlyn now holds approximately 2% of them.
Sam Altman:
With a net worth of $1 billion, he is an American with investment as his main source of income. Although he launched ChatGPT in 2022, the CEO of OpenAI, who is said to have a net worth of $80 billion or more, does not own any stock in the company. Rather, the 38-year-old’s fortune is attributable to investments made during his tenure as president of startup accelerator Y Combinator (2014–2019), an early investment in Stripe, investments in Reddit, and a stake in nuclear fusion firm Helion. Last November, OpenAI unexpectedly rehired him.
Harvey Jones:
His net worth is $1 billion, and his source is Nvidia. he is from the United States. Jones, an entrepreneur and tech investor with a lengthy history, is one of the largest benefactors of Nvidia’s 300% stock explosion since last year, which has been driven by artificial intelligence. With 0.03% of Nvidia’s shares, he is also an early board member of the company.
