THE PRINCE OF PREDICTION

Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan knows better than anyone that the best way to predict the future is to create it. That's how the Forbes 30 Under 30 alum became one of the youngest billionaires on Earth.

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In July, Jeffrey Sprecher, the 70-year-old billionaire CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, sat at Manhatta, a restaurant in New York's Financial District with sprawling views of the city. As a sommelier weaved through tables pouring wine, in walked Shayne Coplan—in a T-shirt and jeans, clutching a plastic water bottle and a paper bag with a bagel he’d picked up en route.

Sprecher chuckles as he recalls the meeting: “An old bald guy who works at the New York Stock Exchange, where we require that you wear a suit and tie, next to a mop-headed guy in a T-shirt who's 27.” But Sprecher was fascinated by Polymarket, Coplan’s blockchain-based prediction market, and after dinner, he made his move: “I asked Shayne if he would consider selling us his company?”

Prediction markets like Polymarket let thousands of ordinary people bet on future events—the unemployment rate, say, or when bitcoin will hit an all-time high. In aggregate, prediction market bets have proven to be something of a crystal ball, with the wisdom of the crowd proving itself more prescient than expert opinion. For instance, Polymarket punters predicted that Donald Trump would prevail in the 2024 presidential election when many pundits were certain Kamala Harris would win.

Brendan Foody*

NET WORTH: $2.2 bil YEAR APPEARED ON 30 UNDER 30: 2025 Foody cofounded Mercor, which hires experts to train AI systems, in 2023 with Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha, fellow members of his high school debate team.