According to the US business magazine Forbes, Luana Lopes Lara, at 29 years old, is the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. Her wealth is estimated at $1.3 billion. This puts the Brazilian native ahead of the two-year-older Lucy Guo, co-founder of „Scale AI,“ at the top of this ranking.
The foundation of her wealth is a start-up she co-founded, currently valued at over eleven billion US dollars. Such success at a young age is exceptional, even in Silicon Valley. By comparison, Taylor Swift, whose fortune Forbes recently estimated at $1.1 billion, reached that level later in life.
From ballerina to self-made billionaire
Originally, Lopes Lara pursued a different career path. As a child, she dreamt of life on stage and attended the Bolschoi Theatre School in Brazil, the only official branch of the Moscow institution. The training to become a top dancer there is known to be rigorous. According to a Forbes report, she recalled teachers holding burning cigarettes under their thighs while she pulled her leg up to her ear to test her endurance.
Later, she danced at a theatre in Salzburg before starting a computer science degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It was at MIT where she met Tarek Mansour. Together, they developed the idea for the digital platform „Kalshi,“ where users can bet on the outcome of various events, including politics, economics, sports, and pop culture.
Platform banned in Germany
„Kalshi“ is authorized in the United States and regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In other countries, such as Germany, these prediction markets are prohibited because they are considered a form of gambling.
Editorial Note
Gambling can be addictive. The Fachverband Glücksspielsucht e.V. provides education, professional counseling, and support for those addicted to gambling as well as their families. For more information on gambling addiction prevention, please visit this page. Counseling centers in Bavaria are listed here in alphabetical order.