Who is Alexandr Wang? MIT dropout, world’s youngest self-made billionaire, has THIS Mark Zuckerberg connection

Alexandr Wang,  a 28-year-old American billionaire entrepreneur, is the founder of Scale AI, a data-labelling startup that provides training data for AI models. The New Mexico native born to Chinese immigrant physicists dropped out of MIT to start Scale and became the youngest self-made billionaire. So, how is he related to Mark Zuckerberg?

Alexandr Wang to head Meta's Superintelligence Labs

Impressed by Wang’s startup, Scale AI, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, appointed him as the head of its Superintelligence Labs, overseeing AI research and development. Zuckerberg even made a whopping $14.3 billion investment in his start-up Scale AI, developing a strong professional relationship. 

According to Reuters, Zuckerberg acquired a 49 per cent stake in the company, strategically strengthening Meta's artificial intelligence capabilities, with Alexandr Wang, Scale AI's founder and CEO. "We will deepen the work we do together, producing data for AI models, and Alexandr Wang will join Meta to work on our superintelligence efforts," Meta said in a statement reported by Reuters.

Who is Alexandr Wang?

Born in born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Wang dropped out of the prestigious MIT to co-found Scale. In no time, he was recognised as one of Silicon Valley's most promising entrepreneurs. He raised capital from blue-chip venture capital firms and achieved billionaire status in his 20s, building strong relationships in Silicon Valley and Washington D.C., including with OpenAI’s Sam Altman and U.S. lawmakers. Founded in 2016, Scale AI  was valued at nearly $14 billion in 2024, with backers including Nvidia, Amazon, and Meta.

Most recently, Wang advised young people to master "vibe-coding" with AI tools, predicting that AI will write all code within five years and fundamentally change the role of engineers. Speaking on an episode of the TBPN podcast earlier this month, Wang said young people should immerse themselves fully in what he calls “vibe-coding.” “If you are, like, 13 years old, you should spend all of your time vibe-coding. That’s how you should live your life. If teenagers dedicate 10,000 hours to practising with AI tools, it would give them a huge advantage," he said.