Palmer Luckey

Palmer Luckey's achievements are measured in industries transformed rather than trophies. At 21, he built a VR headset in his parents' garage that raised over $2 million on Kickstarter, then sold the company to Facebook for $2 billion two years later. That deal didn't just make him rich; it reignited an entire industry, with competitors like HTC and Sony scrambling to catch up. His second act, Anduril Industries, has become one of the fastest-growing defense contractors in the country, winning billions in Pentagon contracts and deploying autonomous systems along the U.S.-Mexico border and in Ukraine. By 2026, he had co-founded a third venture, Erebor, a start-up bank nearing an $8 billion valuation. Luckey's ability to spot gaps in the market and fill them with hardware he designed himself has made him a singular figure in tech, equally comfortable in a VR headset or a fighter jet cockpit.