CoreWeave CEO's Meteoric Rise: From Crypto Mining to AI Billionaire

In just 3 months, CoreWeave CEO, once a crypto-mining bro, becomes a deca-billionaire | TechCrunch

CoreWeave co-founder and CEO Michael Intrator's net worth has skyrocketed to about $10 billion in the three months since the AI firm went public, Bloomberg reports. His company's debut was both the biggest tech IPO so far of 2025 - raising $1.5 billion - and also somewhat of a clunker: its founders had reportedly hoped to raise a lot more - up to $4 billion - and had to skinny their ambitions. CoreWeave still feels a bit like both a success and a house of cards. It offers AI training and inference cloud services built upon a growing stockpile of Nvidia GPUs. One of its investors is Nvidia, which helps it obtain the precious, short-in-supply chips. CoreWeave has both Microsoft and OpenAI as customers - the latter signed a deal to buy $12 billion worth of services and still has about $11 billion worth to buy. And Nvidia increased its stake after the IPO, the company disclosed. But CoreWeave borrows money against the GPUs to pay for them - and its IPO wasn't big enough to get it out of that cycle. It's got about $8.8 billion worth of debt as of March, it disclosed, with interest rates as high as 15%. Even though it brought in almost $1 billion in revenue in Q1 alone ($985 million), it recorded a net loss of about $315 million. That has not scared away investors who remain eager for ways to make money on AI. CoreWeave's stock has soared almost 300% since its March IPO, raising Intrator's net worth to above $10 billion, Bloomberg calculates. But the wildest part of Intrator's history, as well as that of his co-founders Brian Venturo and Brannin McBee, is that the whole thing started out as a make-money-quick, crypto mining enterprise when their previous company, a hedge fund, failed. The business partners went from a closet full of GPUs to thousands of them in a New Jersey warehouse, to an AI training experiment with an open source LLM group, EleutherAI, Venturo previously told TechCrunch. Today, the company is servicing the biggest LLM players on the planet, reportedly seeking to buy its competitor Core Scientific, and the founders are billionaires. And, as we previously reported, it's not all paper money. All three founders pocketed over $150 million apiece by cashing out of shares ahead of the IPO. CoreWeave remains a symbol of the AI industry in 2025: Massive, fast-growing revenue, investor enthusiasm built on an insatiable need for more resources.

CoreWeave CEO Joins World's Richest After AI Firm's 300% Surge

Three months after a tepid public offering that almost didn't happen, a surge in CoreWeave Inc.'s stock has vaulted its chief executive officer into the ranks of the world's 500 richest people -- and lifted five other longtime backers' stakes into the billions. The AI cloud-computing provider has gained almost 300% since its March IPO, pushing CEO Michael Intrator's net worth to $10.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That makes him the 311th-richest person in the world, ahead of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Blackstone Inc. President Jon Gray.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world's richest people. Details about the net worth calculations are provided for transparency in the net worth analysis on each billionaire's individual profile page. The figures are updated at the close of every trading day in New York.

Brittany Stone, a spokesperson for CoreWeave, declined to comment on Intrator's net worth. After attending Binghamton University and Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, Intrator joined Natsource Asset Management, where he spent over 15 years as a portfolio manager and oversaw the firm's energy markets strategy. After leaving Natsource in 2014, he co-founded natural gas hedge fund Hudson Ridge Asset Management, where he served as CEO. In 2016, Intrator and two commodities trading colleagues, Brian Vanturo and Brannin McBee, became interested in Bitcoin after using the token to bet on sports. A year later, they quit their jobs and founded a crypto mining company, Atlantic Crypto, buying up Nvidia computer chips to mine Bitcoin and other currencies. When crypto markets crashed in 2019, Intrator and his co-founders changed the company's name to CoreWeave and bought up more chips from their struggling competitors, stockpiling the chips in a Manhattan office building and in Venturo's grandfather's garage. When OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, AI companies scrambled to secure access to the powerful computer chips required to train and run large language models. CoreWeave, which already had a large supply, began leasing its chips to AI firms, winning big contracts and raising billions in outside money from blue-chip investors including Nvidia, Zoom Ventures and OpenAI. The company made its public debut on the Nasdaq in March 2025 at a valuation of about $23 billion, the largest technology offering for four years.

This AI CEO just doubled his wealth to $10 billion in 12 days -- that's over 100x faster than other billionaires, despite having zero tech background

Forget Apple, Amazon, or Microsoft -- this year's breakout tech stock comes from a company few had even heard of six months ago. CoreWeave, a once-obscure AI cloud startup, went public in March at a disappointing $40 per share. But in the last two months alone, its stock has surged by nearly 300% -- and so has the fortune of its shareholders, including its co-founder and CEO Michael Intrator. The 56-year-old former hedge fund manager's net worth has more than doubled in the last 12 days, from $5 billion to $10 billion, according to Bloomberg. Making the jump to a double-digit billionaire is no easy feat. In fact, the average time is three years and four months; Intrator achieved it about 101x faster. Despite the company's initial lackluster start on the market, Intrator always knew that CoreWeave (and by extension, himself) would go on to "generate enormous value." "I don't really care where it is today or tomorrow or the day after, but I believe fundamentally, the business model that we have, the software solutions that we have, the capacity to build and deliver this and the demand we see in front of us will lead to enormous value to our clients over time," Intrator previously told Fortune. The company's CEO is not alone in benefiting from the stock's success. The wealth of fellow cofounders also has soared. According to Bloomberg, CoreWeave's chief strategy officer, Brian Venturo, is now worth $6.4 billion, and Brannin McBee, the company's chief development officer, is worth $4.7 billion. The rise in their net worths may be credited to the fact that CoreWeave has secured many of the world's biggest tech companies as clients and partners, with the list including Nvidia, OpenAI, and Microsoft. And despite their success disrupting the tech industry, all three founders interestingly do not come from tech backgrounds; they come from the world of finance -- underscoring that breaking into AI doesn't require a resume line from a top tech company. At the same time, it is helpful to know someone who does; CoreWeave brought in Nitin Agrawal last year to serve as chief financial officer after most recently serving as the VP of finance for Google Cloud and holding leadership roles at Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. Helping to build a company from the ground up requires a careful balance of being optimistic -- with the right people. "At the end of the day, it's the people that matter, so make sure you take people along with you in your journey," he told Fortune in March 2024. And you should "always keep a healthy disregard for the impossible while being grounded in reality." Despite CoreWeave's bullish year, that doesn't mean it will stay around -- and other companies have learned the hard way about IPO bubbles. The stock of conservative media outlet Newsmax surged 735% after its IPO in March, giving its founder and CEO Christopher Ruddy a $3.3 billion fortune. However, after the stock fell back down dramatically, Ruddy lost his billionaire status. Moreover, Omada Health Inc. saw significant gains after its IPO in June -- raising $150 million and its stock rose 21%. However, shares have since dropped below its initial price of $23.

Here's How This AI CEO Just Doubled His Net Worth To $10 Billion -- In Just Only 12 Days

Michael Intrator, the CEO of AI startup CoreWeave, has seen his net worth double to a whopping $10 billion in a mere 12 days. This rapid wealth accumulation is unprecedented in the tech industry. What Happened: CoreWeave's stock has skyrocketed by nearly 300% in the last two months. This followed a rather unimpressive initial public offering (IPO) in March. The stock's surge has greatly enriched its shareholders, including Intrator, a 56-year-old former hedge fund manager. Bloomberg notes that Intrator's net worth has soared from $5 billion to $10 billion in less than two weeks. This is an extraordinary achievement, given that it usually takes a billionaire over three years to double their wealth. Despite CoreWeave's initial lackluster performance on the stock market, Intrator remained steadfast in his belief in the company's potential to "generate enormous value." Also Read: Michael Saylor Called Scaramucci From a Yacht and It Changed the Ending of His Book CoreWeave's other co-founders have also seen their wealth grow significantly. Bloomberg reports that the company's chief strategy officer, Brian Venturo, is now worth $6.4 billion, while chief development officer, Brannin McBee, is worth $4.7 billion, reports Fortune. The company's success can be attributed to securing major tech companies as clients and partners, including Nvidia, OpenAI, and Microsoft. Interestingly, all three founders come from finance backgrounds, not tech, highlighting that breaking into AI does not necessarily require a tech background. Why It Matters: CoreWeave's success story is a testament to the immense potential of AI technology and its ability to generate wealth rapidly. The company's ability to secure partnerships with major tech companies, despite its founders' non-tech backgrounds, underscores the importance of strategic alliances and business acumen in the tech industry. This could potentially inspire more finance professionals to venture into the tech industry, particularly AI, thereby fostering greater diversity and innovation in the sector. Read Next Telegram CEO Pavel Durov To Leave His $13.9 Billion Fortune to His 100+ Children Image: Shutterstock/Odu Mazza This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs