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MaryGaulke (talk·contribs) has been paid by Porter Novelli on behalf of Luminar Technologies. Disclosures made below and on userpage.
This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.
Hi! I'm a COI editor for Luminar, a client of my employer, Porter Novelli. I previously worked on some updates to Draft:Austin Russell, which was rejected by AfC shortly before this article was created. I've revised some of the content from that draft and propose that it be integrated into the article as follows:
Luminar went public in December 2020, vastly increasing his net worth.[4]
to
Luminar went public in December 2020, vastly increasing his net worth[5] and, according to Forbes, making Russell the youngest self-made billionaire in the world.[6]
Since the infobox identifies this as what Russell is "known for", I think it also makes sense to include it in the lead.
When he was 15, Russell's parents introduced him to laser entrepreneur Jason Eichenholz, who became Russell's mentor and later joined Luminar as co-founder[7] and chief technology officer.[8]
Update the beginning of the second paragraph from
He spent the latter part of his teenage years at the University of California at Irvine Beckman laser institute before enrolling in Stanford University. Despite this, he has claimed to have gained most of the knowledge through YouTube and Wikipedia.[9]
While attending the university in 2012, he was awarded $100,000 from the Thiel Fellowship, leading him to found Luminar and ultimately drop out of university.[9]
from this section in favor of starting a new "Luminar" section with additional sources and detail (below).
Add new section following "Early life and education". Proposed text:
Russell founded Luminar in 2012[13] while he was still in high school,[14] shortly before turning 17.[3] After graduating from high school, he attended Stanford University for three months,[15] taking courses in applied physics.[16] He dropped out in 2013 when he received a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship,[17][13] which allowed him to focus on Luminar full-time.[18]
The company spent its first five years in stealth mode.[19] Rather than building a system with off-the-shelf components, Russell engineered and manufactured all major components of Luminar's lidar system from the chip level up.[20][2] Luminar's prototype sensor detected objects at a range of up to 200 meters.[21]
On December 3, 2020, Luminar went public,[22] trading on the Nasdaq as LAZR.[14] Russell's 104.7 million shares, roughly one third of Luminar's outstanding equity, were worth $2.4 billion at the close of trading on December 3,[11] making Russell the world's youngest self-made billionaire.[23][6] He also became chairman of the company.[22]
In 2018, Forbes named Russell to its "30 Under 30" list for founding and leading Luminar.[25] He also appeared in the Under 30 "hall of fame" list of 30 all-time alumni in 2021.[26]
Thanks for your time and feedback! Mary Gaulke (talk) 19:15, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Just made the edit to the article. Omitted some things but most of it is the same. Thanks for the request! SuperMug (talk) 09:29, 16 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@SuperMug: Thanks so much! To confirm, do you think the items I proposed for "Recognition" are non-notable? I think the 30 Under 30 hall of fame is pretty significant. Also, wondering if you think {{US-business-bio-stub}} can now be removed from the article. Thanks again. Mary Gaulke (talk) 13:49, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Just added it along with some changes to the original text. Removed the stub marking also. Thanks. SuperMug (talk) 18:42, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
