Austin Russell A young self-made billionaire buys the remaining 82% of Forbes. An American magazine publication founded in 1917 by B.C. Forbes. The magazine has had its ups and downs over the last few years. It was not until August 2021 that they considered a sale through a SPAC (A special purpose acquisition company). A SPAC is not a commercial enterprise but a company formed to quickly raise capital for an initial public offering (IPO – stock market jargon) of a company going public.
Austin Russell dropped out of Standford University after a few months when he acquired a Thiel Scholarship for $100,000. While in high school at 17 he had already founded Luminar Technologies. The monies from the Thiel Scholarship helped him to further research his ideas and technical savvy. He was to develop lidar technology (light detecting and ranging ) in use on a variety of platforms. A 3D scanning technology that major US manufacturers (i.e. Tesla, Toyota, …) and several European giants like Mercedes Benz and Volvo are now using to support automated self-driving vehicles and sensing systems for the same.
Austin is now 28 and a self-made billionaire with a media company on his hands. The deal does not allow what it seems to be. It is being reported that the deal was backed by an Indian conglomerate, Sun Group, and a venture capital group, GSV.