Edwin Chen, founder and CEO of Serge AI, has quietly built a billion-dollar AI training company by leveraging a global network of gig workers and expert collaborators to advance artificial general intelligence, all while avoiding traditional venture capital and Silicon Valley hype. His strategic bootstrapping and focus on long-term AI development have made him the youngest member of the Forbes 400 with a net worth of around $18 billion.
Edwin Chen, a relatively unknown AI billionaire, spends his days immersed in data sets, research papers, and cutting-edge AI models from his Manhattan apartment. As the founder and CEO of Serge AI, a data labeling and AI training company, Chen is deeply involved in advancing artificial intelligence. His inspiration partly comes from the 1998 science fiction short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, which explores communication with aliens through deciphering their language mathematically. Chen aims for Serge AI to capture the richness of human knowledge by involving top experts from prestigious universities like Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard to help train AI models.
Serge AI employs over a million gig workers from more than 50 countries who contribute by creating challenging questions for AI, evaluating responses, and developing criteria to improve AI-generated answers. Chen emphasizes the importance of this work in achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), where AI matches or surpasses human capabilities. He believes Serge AI’s role is critical to the development of AGI and is committed to making it happen. Despite his brilliance and success, Chen has remained low-profile, preferring to avoid the Silicon Valley spotlight and its culture.
Chen’s career includes stints at major tech companies like Twitter, Google, and Facebook, but he left the Bay Area seven years ago to self-fund Serge AI. He invested a couple of million dollars from his savings rather than seeking traditional venture capital, which he criticizes as a “get rich quick scheme.” Chen dislikes the Silicon Valley status game and the tendency for VC-backed startups to overhire and overspend. Serge AI operates with a lean team of about 250 employees, including full-time, part-time, and consultants, in contrast to larger rivals like Scale AI, which has four times as many staff but less revenue.
Since its founding in 2020, Serge AI has grown rapidly, generating $1.2 billion in revenue in 2024 by serving major clients such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, and AI labs like Anthropic and Mistral. The company has contributed to training prominent AI models, including Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, and has been profitable almost from the start. Serge AI is currently negotiating a $1 billion funding round at a $30 billion valuation, which would further solidify its position in the AI industry.
Chen’s decision to bootstrap Serge AI has paid off significantly. Holding approximately 75% ownership, his stake is valued at around $18 billion, making him the wealthiest newcomer on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans and the youngest member at age 37. Despite his immense success, Chen remains focused on the long-term mission of advancing AI rather than seeking fame or rapid financial gain. For more detailed coverage, Forbes.com features a full article by Phoebe Lou.