全球最年轻白手起家亿万富翁：三年工作无休仍乐此不疲

Mercor创始人阿达什·希雷马思（Adarsh Hiremath）与布伦丹·富迪（Brendan Foody）高中时曾是辩论队队友。图片来源：Photos courtesy of Mercor 马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg），请让一让，硅谷的年轻创始人名册上又添了一位新秀。22岁的亿万富翁布伦丹·富迪正在打破关于Z世代不爱辛苦工作的刻板印象。 富迪是来自旧金山湾区的三位22岁青年之一，他们曾是辩论队队友，如今凭借其人工智能招聘初创公司 Mercor 完成一轮巨额融资，摇身一变成为白手起家的亿万富翁。 当公司的模式在圣保罗的一场黑客马拉松上被精心打磨出来时，富迪便意识到，他和阿达什·希雷马思、苏里亚·米达（Surya Midha）共同创造的东西是课堂无法复制的。其人工智能驱动的招聘平台实现了招聘流程部分环节的自动化，例如简历筛选、候选人匹配和人工智能面试。在九个月内，他和联合创始人便将这个想法变成了一家年化营收达100万美元的公司，他们声称这是人工智能时代增长最快的初创公司之一。 他们的财富源自最近一轮由 Felicis Ventures 领投的3.5亿美元融资，Benchmark、General Catalyst 和新投资者 Robinhood Ventures 参与跟投，这使公司估值达到100亿美元，跻身“十角兽”（指估值超过100亿美元的初创公司）行列。 从乔治敦大学（Georgetown）辍学以全身心投入 Mercor 后，富迪的日子并不充斥着咖啡闲聊和奢侈的闲暇时光。即使日程表排满了会议（他说在漫长的一周里，会议时间感觉可能长达40小时），富迪表示，对自己事业的热爱让这位企业家和前“蒂尔奖学金”（Thiel Fellow）获得者保持前进的动力。 “我喜欢没有太多会议的时候，”富迪告诉《财富》杂志。由于将全部精力投入到事业中，自由时间很少——对如今的富迪来说，美好的一天就是写写文件或梳理想法。 富迪说，助他登上亿万富翁地位的习惯之一就是从不休息一天。 “我们工作很努力，过去三年我每天都在工作，”他说。 “人们通常感到精疲力尽，不仅是因为工作辛苦，更是因为辛苦从事他们认为不够有成就感和无法持续增值的事情。” 这种哲思在富迪离开学校后才得以形成。在辍学之前，他认为工作是靠纪律约束才去做的事情。 “那常常是我不喜欢做的事情，”他说。“而当我创立 Mercor 时，它真的变成了一种痴迷的感觉，让我无法停止思考，即使我在和父母共进晚餐或做其他事情，它也会在我脑海深处萦绕。” 见证其事业的影响力 “我认为，始终确保我能看到自己所做之事的影响力，确保投入大量时间能获得回报，是最重要的，”他补充道。 “我真的无法休息一天，因为我就是有一股冲动要回到工作中。所以我认为，人们找到自己痴迷并能真正全身心投入的事情，是最重要的事情之一。” 22岁时，这三位联合创始人都比马克·扎克伯格首次成为亿万富翁时的23岁要年轻。在成为全球最年轻的白手起家亿万富翁之前，据报道，Polymarket的首席执行官谢恩·科普兰（Shayne Coplan）以27岁位居最年轻。（财富中文网） 译者：中慧言-王芳 Step aside, Mark Zuckerberg, Silicon Valley has a new muscle to flex in its rolodex of young founders. Billionaire Brendan Foody, 22, is defying the stereotype that Gen Z doesn't like hard work. Foody is one of the trio of 22-year-olds from the Bay area who went from debate teammates to self-made billionaires on the back of a huge funding round for their AI recruiting startup, Mercor. When the model for the company was curated at a hackathon in São Paulo, Foody knew that he, Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha had built something that couldn't be replicated in classrooms. Its AI-powered hiring platform automates aspects of the hiring process, such as resume screening, candidate matching and AI-powered interviews. Within nine months, he and his co-founders had turned the idea into a company with a $1 million revenue run rate, which they claim is one of the fastest-scaling startups of the AI era. Their fortune was minted from a recent $350 million funding round led by Felicis Ventures, and backed with participation from Benchmark, General Catalyst, and new investor Robinhood Ventures, bringing them to decacorn status with a $10 billion valuation. After dropping out of college at Georgetown to go all in on Mercor---Foody's days aren't packed with coffee chats and luxury downtime. Even with a packed calendar full of meetings (which he says on a long week could feel like 40 hours), Foody said his love for his business keeps the entrepreneur and former Thiel Fellow afloat. “I like when I don't have too many meetings,” Foody told Fortune. With all the investment into his business, and little free time---a good day for Foody now consists of writing documents or curating ideas. Long hours are typically associated with some Bay Area start-ups embracing the “996” working model imported over from China, where employees are expected to work from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., six days a week. Foody said one of the habits that brought him to billionaire status was never taking a day off. “We work a lot, I've worked every day for the last three years,” he said. “People generally burn out, not just from working hard, but from working hard on something that they don't feel as fulfilling and compounding.” That philosophy only came to fruition after Foody left school. Before dropping out, he thought work was something he had been disciplined to do. “It was oftentimes things I didn't enjoy doing,” he said. “Versus when I started Mercor, it really became this feeling of obsession that I can't stop thinking about, even if I'm getting dinner with my parents or whatever, it's going through the back of my head.” Seeing the impact of his business “I think always making sure that I see the impact of what I do, the ROI of putting in a huge amount of time is most important,” he added. “I can't really take a day off, because I just have this impulsive drive to go back to it. So I think that people finding the thing that they're obsessed with and can really pour their lives into, is one of the most important things.” At age 22, all three co-founders are younger than Mark Zuckerberg was when he first became a billionaire at 23. Before taking the reign as the world's youngest self made billionaire, reports claim Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan was the youngest at 27. 财富中文网所刊载内容之知识产权为财富媒体知识产权有限公司及/或相关权利人专属所有或持有。未经许可，禁止进行转载、摘编、复制及建立镜像等任何使用。 原文链接：https://www.fortunechina.com/shangye/c/2025-12/03/content_470627.htm