James Dacombe: Gen Z founder who left school at 17 and became Europe’s youngest billionaire

At 25, British entrepreneur James Dacombe has joined a rare group of young founders whose fortunes have crossed the billion-dollar mark before most people have settled into a career. The North Yorkshire-born programmer left school at 17 to focus on CoMind, the brain-technology company he had started as a teenager, choosing a path far removed from the usual university route. Years later, another bet on technology has transformed the scale of his wealth.As reported by Fortune, his AI chip company, Olix, raised $312 million in August 2026 at a valuation of about $3.3 billion, sending the estimated value of Dacombe’s roughly 30% stake close to $1 billion. The rise has made him the youngest self-made billionaire in Europe and the UK but the fortune is only part of the story.How a decision to leave school at 17 changed James Dacombe’s careerDacombe grew up in North Yorkshire and attended Ashville College in Harrogate. He had already developed an interest in programming well before adulthood, working on websites and apps from the age of 13.By his mid-teens, the conventional path was becoming less attractive. He studied physics, maths, economics and business for his A levels, but his atten...