Daniel Kan, Kyle Vogt

In March, General Motors showed how important self-driving cars are to the future of the auto industry, shelling out $1 billion to acquire Cruise Automation, a small, yet-to-launch self-driving software startup founded by Vogt and Kan (read more about them here). The deal marked the second billion-dollar exit for CEO Vogt, a robot-­obsessed MIT dropout who competed in two seasons of ­BattleBots. It’s a first for COO Kan, who has entrepreneurship in his blood—his mother and brother have each founded multiple companies.