CEO of the Week: Luminar Technologies Founder Austin Russell

Luminar Technologies Inc., an automotive technology company, provides sensor technologies and software for passenger and commercial vehicles in North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.

The Company operates through two segments: Autonomy Solutions and Advanced Technologies and Services. The Autonomy Solutions segment develops, manufactures and sells laser imaging, detection and ranging sensors, or lidars, and related perception and autonomy software solutions, primarily to OEMs in the automotive, commercial vehicle, Robotaxi and related industries.

The Advanced Technologies and Services segment develops application-specific integrated circuits, pixel-based sensors and advanced lasers.

This segment also designs, tests and provides consulting services for non-standard integrated circuits for use in the automotive and aerospace sectors, as well as for military and defense government spending.

The company was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Orlando, Florida.

Luminar Technologies was founded by Austin Russell. Soon afterwards, Jason Eichenholz, a serial entrepreneur, joined the company in Orlando as Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder. The company spent its first five years in stealth mode.

Who is Austin Russell?

1. Austin Russell was born and brought up in Newport Beach, California, United States

2. At the age 17, while he was in high school, Russell founded Luminar Technologies

3. After graduating from St. Margaret Episcopal School, he attended Stanford University for three months, taking courses in applied physics, but soon dropped out as he won USD 100,000 fellowship from the Thiel Fellowship in 2013

4. Russell also studied at the Beckman Laser Institute at the University of California, Irvine

5. He engineered and manufactured Luminar’s lidar components himself, rather than purchasing components from outside

6. In December 2020, he took the decision to make Luminar Technologies ‘public’, trading on the Nasdaq as LAZR

7. In 2021, at the age 25, Russell became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, as he owned 104.7 million shares, roughly one third of Luminar’s equity, which was worth USD 2.4 billion dollars

8. In 2017, MIT Technology Review named Russell an “Innovator Under 35” and in 2018,  Forbes named him to its “30 Under 30” list for founding and leading Luminar

9. In 2021, Russell appeared on the Fortune magazine 40 Under 40 list and in 2022, Motor Trend ranked him at number 41 on its 2022 Power List

10. According to the Fortune Report,  Austin Russell net worth is around $1.6 billion, as of 2024