MONEY'S NO OBJECT!

At 25, Austin Russell is the world’s youngest self-made billionaire

- DENNIS CAVERNELIS

YOU’RE too young to have a cellphone, his parents told him when he asked for one. So he did what any 10-year-old genius would do – he built his own from a handheld gaming device.

Few who know Austin Russell would’ve been surprised to hear he’s officially the world’s newest – and youngest – self-made billionaire under 30.

At age 25 he’s worth an estimated $3,3 billion (R50bn) after his start-up company, Luminar Technologies – which he founded when he was 17 – was listed on the Nasdaq exchange early in December.

Luminar is in the self-driving car business. They design sensors known as lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, that help cars to “see” their surroundings.

Lidar systems work by bouncing laser beams off nearby objects to build a detailed 3-D picture of the environment so the cars can know where to go and what to avoid. The technology is similar to radar, which uses radio waves instead of laser beams.

Austin’s version claims to provide 50 times the resolution and 10 times the range of rival lidar systems, which he says will enable self-driving cars to be sold on the mass market more quickly.

“My biggest fear is that people will prematurely deploy autonomous cars that are unsafe,” he says.

Luminar tried 2 000 different ways to construct a lidar system before deciding on one that was functional and manufacturable.

He says the fact that he stared work on his brainchild back in 2012 meant “a huge head start and advantage.”

“No matter how much money you throw at this problem, you don’t need hundreds of millions or billions to develop this. It’s about the time it takes.”