Surge AL founder Edwin Chen opted against venture capital funding. His firm is now valued at approximately $24 billion, with his personal wealth reaching $18 billion. Photograph by Гурін Бласк for Forbes USA
Edwin Chen, formerly a senior specialist at Google, Facebook, and Twitter, launched his data annotation company Surge AL during the artificial intelligence boom. The youngest member of Forbes 400’s wealthiest Americans list is now poised to emerge from obscurity and claim his spotlight.
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After dedicating his morning to dataset analysis, reviewing academic papers, and experimenting with cutting-edge AI models in his Manhattan apartment, 37-year-old Chen strolls to the upscale three-story Starbucks Reserve Roastery on Ninth Avenue.
Clad in a navy Vuori t-shirt with a canvas tiger-emblazoned bag slung over his shoulder, Chen settles into a corner booth. Sipping green tea (“ordering coffee here takes too long”), the Surge AI founder and CEO launches into an uninterrupted two-hour discourse spanning Silicon Valley culture (which he despises), competitors (“they’re all auto-shops”), and potential communication methods with extraterrestrial visitors. “They don’t speak English. How would we interact? How to decode their language? We’d need some mathematical approach,” Chen muses.
This philosophical challenge mirrors themes in his favorite 1998 sci-fi novella by Ted Chiang. “Story of Your Life” inspired Denis Villeneuve’s film “Arrival,” featuring a linguist deciphering alien speech patterns through written symbols.
