Early Life
Alexandr Wang was born in January 1997, in Los Alamos, New Mexico. His parents were Chinese immigrants and physicists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Wang's upbringing in a scientific environment fostered his early interest in math and computer programming. He competed in math and coding competitions and qualified for the Math Olympiad Program in 2013 and the US Physics Team in 2014. He graduated early from Los Alamos High School.
Rise to Success
At 17, Wang moved to Silicon Valley and worked as a software engineer at Addepar and Quora. He briefly attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) before dropping out to co-found Scale AI in 2016 with Lucy Guo. Scale AI, a data annotation platform, quickly gained traction, securing significant funding and partnerships with major companies. In 2021, at age 24, Wang became the world's youngest self-made billionaire.
Key Business Strategies
Scale AI's success stems from its focus on high-quality data labeling and annotation services, crucial for training AI models. The company secured contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and partnered with OpenAI. His ability to make high-powered connections cemented his position in Silicon Valley and led to a substantial investment from Meta in June 2025, which valued Scale AI at $29 billion.
Philanthropy
While specific philanthropic amounts are unavailable, Wang's focus on AI's role in national security and government services suggests potential initiatives in those areas.
