Entrepreneurs

These 5 CEOs headed billion-dollar companies by age 30

Share
5 CEOs reach billion dollar success by age 30
VIDEO1:0001:00
5 CEOs reach billion dollar success by age 30

Many entrepreneurs start businesses in their 20s, but only a tiny fraction of them can say the companies they founded became billion-dollar companies by the time they reached 30 — that's right, a billion.

In some of their first appearances on CNBC, five CEOs from this elite club talk about the products they created that led to their companies' growth and their personal success.

Evan Spiegel: Snapchat co-founder and CEO, 21 years old when it launched

Spiegel presented the idea for what would become Snapchat in a product design class at Stanford, reported Forbes. What his classmates initially thought was a terrible idea has turned in a business valued at $16 billion.

Rewired, not retired: A second act trades burritos for brews

Sean Rad: 26 years old when he co-founded Tinder

Rad was looking to create a platform that would allow users to meet new people. His idea of creating a matchmaking platform based on users' mutual attraction to each other has lead to multibillion-dollar valuation.

Mark Zuckerberg: Age 19 when he co-founded Facebook

Zuckerberg created Facebook out of his college dorm room, and at the time no one could've expected him to turn it into the social media giant it now is. Today, the company has more than 1.09 billion daily active users and a market cap of $341 billion as of midday Monday.

Tyler Haney is the 27-year-old founder and CEO of Outdoor Voices.
This 27-year-old CEO is taking on Lululemon and Nike

Kevin Systrom: Age 26 when he co-founded Instagram

CEO Systrom had an ambitious goal for Instagram when it launched: to grow as quickly and as fast as possible. Within two years of starting Instagram it had 30 million users and sold to Facebook for $1 billion. Today Instagram has more than 400 million users.

Brian Chesky: Age 26 when he co-founded Airbnb

Airbnb's CEO started the site to help pay for his apartment in San Francisco. Today Airbnb operates in more than 34,000 cities with more than 2 million listings, and its valuation is now $25.5 billion.