Portrait of the world’s youngest self-made billionaire: Success from the idea that Elon Musk considered ‘crazy’, a lavish life at the age of 26 makes many people admire

From college dropout

At the age of 17, while studying physics at Stanford University, Russell developed an idea for automotive sensor technology that would later become a key breakthrough for Luminar Technologies. However, the young man dropped out in 2012 after receiving a $100,000 scholarship from billionaire tech investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.

Discussing why he dropped out, Russell said: “When you have a fundamental motivation to be able to grow, to innovate, it is very difficult to do that in an academic environment.” Russell himself was born into a well-to-do family in Newport Beach. His father, Michael Russell, works in the business district, and his mother, Shannon Cleye, a former model and actress on The Young and The Restless.

At the age of 26, Russell became the youngest self-made billionaire in the world (Image: Twitter)

To the youngest self-made billionaire in the world

The Luminar Company is a start-up that develops lidar sensor and hardware technology “that uses lasers to detect, measure distances, and ultimately create a 3D map of real-world space that can be used in self-driving cars”.

Luminar’s lidar sensor is currently used by major car brands such as Volvo, Toyota and Intel’s Mobileye. Recently, Luminar was selected for use in Nvidia’s Drive Hyperion Self-Driving Vehicle Reference Platform, which aims to produce complete software by 2024.

Although Russell founded Luminar in 2012, it took the young man several years to achieve billionaire status. Russell’s vision when he founded the company was to be a ” long-term sustainable business and create a future of self-driving cars for all automakers “, adding that success His recent is “totally utopian”.

In 2019, Tesla CEO Elon Musk called lidar technology ” stupid … expensive and unnecessary “. However, Russell has a different view, ” I think the 50 trading partners and most of the major auto manufacturers we work with would disagree. Cameras and other systems. great for driver assistance, but with self-driving capabilities, the car achieves the ultimate in performance .”

After Luminar listed on the Nasdaq exchange last December, Russell became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at the age of 25 – a title once awarded to Kylie Jenner but has since been removed.

According to The Wall Street Journal, shares of Luminar were up nearly 28% at launch and gave the company a market value of about $7.8 billion.

As a highly capable executive, Russell appears to have “learned” how to use his newly acquired assets. According to Dirt, the young billionaire recently bought a $83 million mansion in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, more than 6000m2, has 6 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms. Not only that, the Los Angeles mansion also has retina scanners into bedrooms, 20-seat outdoor cinema and car showroom…with famous neighbors like Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson.

Russell also owns another property: a nearly 4,000-square-foot mansion in Winter Park, Florida, located 17 kilometers from Luminar’s Orlando headquarters. The Florida mansion has 10 bedrooms and bathrooms, plus an 18-car garage, two kitchens and AstroTurf lawns in the front and back yards.

According to SCMP