One Gen Z high school dropout with two tech businesses to his name has just become Europe’s youngest self-made billionaire following a breakout investing round—before even turning 30. James Dacombe, the 25-year-old serial entrepreneur behind AI chip-making firm Olix and brain monitoring startup CoMind, just hit a personal net worth of over $1 billion. Dacombe
A small investment made at the right moment has the power to launch ordinary people to millionaire status. All it took was $1,000 and an out-there idea for Jeffrey Sprecher, the founder and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, to set his business on a path to becoming a $85 billion behemoth. “I had this idea that
The image of hoodie-wearing college students launching billion-dollar businesses from their dorm rooms has become an entrepreneurship cliché. And while leaders say there are advantages to being a young founder—having more energy and fewer responsibilities—there are also perks to starting a business later in life. Actress Jennifer Garner became a cofounder of $732 million business
“I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity’s relevance would rush to build that future,” Zuckerberg wrote in an essay posted to Meta’s website Monday. “The notion that AI is so dangerous that the only safe path is an extreme concentration of power seems inherently
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is built around one question: How do you build an enduring company in the AI era? Our programming and speaker lineup reflect that, based on the feedback we’ve gotten from the community and the reality on the ground. Last year at Disrupt, we spoke with founders about their experiences and discovered the
Publicly traded e-commerce marketing automation platform Klaviyo has agreed to acquire Agency, a three-year-old AI-powered customer success startup founded by serial entrepreneur Elias Torres. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2023, Agency had raised $32 million from investors including Sequoia, Menlo Ventures, and Felicis prior to the acquisition. As part of