{"id":"46dddf30-d208-42fe-890b-2cfe40d06064","slug":"austin-russell","name":"Austin Russell","bioBrief":"Founder and CEO of Luminar Technologies (founded 2012), which he started at age 17 while a physics student at Stanford. Received a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship in 2013 and left Stanford to build Luminar full-time. Luminar went public via SPAC (Gores Metropoulos) in December 2020; Russell was recognized as the youngest self-made billionaire at the time. Luminar builds 1550nm InGaAs lidar sensors (the Iris platform) for automotive ADAS and autonomy.","nationality":"American","verificationPosture":"reported","aliases":[],"sources":[{"url":"https://investors.luminartech.com/corporate-governance/board-of-directors","title":"Austin Russell - leadership / biography","sourceName":"Luminar Technologies Investor Relations"}],"reviewStatus":"reviewed","createdAt":"2026-06-06T15:22:33.230Z","updatedAt":"2026-06-06T15:22:33.230Z","educations":[],"companyRoles":[{"id":"58754d66-8a45-4df9-b160-2ed5de3af188","personId":"46dddf30-d208-42fe-890b-2cfe40d06064","companyId":"fdc8609e-6e0d-468c-9b45-b82fe9b8d846","role":"ceo","roleTitle":"Founder & CEO","startDate":null,"endDate":null,"currentRole":true,"roleBasis":"verified_secondary","createdAt":"2026-06-06T15:22:34.615Z","company":{"slug":"luminar","name":"Luminar Technologies"}}],"boardRoles":[],"investorRoles":[],"foundings":[{"id":"8fc1fc03-d097-47df-b8ca-fc071ed5ad9f","personId":"46dddf30-d208-42fe-890b-2cfe40d06064","companyId":"fdc8609e-6e0d-468c-9b45-b82fe9b8d846","foundingDate":"2012-01-01T00:00:00.000Z","cofounderStatus":"sole","stillAtCompany":true,"createdAt":"2026-06-06T15:22:36.057Z","company":{"slug":"luminar","name":"Luminar Technologies"}}]}