![]() Russell, who’s also a Forbes 30 Under 30 alum from the class of 2018, isn’t looking to take on self-driving tech giants like Alphabet’s Waymo or GM-backed Cruise, but instead is perfecting sensors that help autonomous cars “see” their surroundings by bouncing a laser beam off objects in their path. ![]() “It’s remarkable from a financing perspective to retain a financial stake of that size.” “You can build a billion-dollar business but that does not mean you can become a billionaire,” says Thiel. And I was fortunate enough to be able to retain a good enough stake.” “I’m still relatively young, but … a lot of blood, sweat and tears have gone into it. And of course it’s incredibly rewarding to have an opportunity to be able to get out there now and get into the public markets and scale through this IPO SPAC,” 25-year-old Russell tells Forbes in a video interview from his office in Palo Alto, California. “It’s been insanely intense, grueling … everything through every day that we’ve had to go through scaling this up. With today’s Nasdaq listing of the laser sensor company he founded at age 17, the optics prodigy is one of the first billionaires to emerge from the autonomous vehicle world–and the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell is among the rare exceptions. The race to commercialize self-driving car technology has attracted billions of dollars of investment but not created many billionaires. ![]() By Alan Ohnsman and Alexandra Sternlicht, Forbes
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