Smaiyl Makyshov dropped out of Brown University after one year to launch his own venture capital firm at age 21. The Kazakhstan native, who attended Phillips Exeter Academy, founded Multifaceted Capital and is now 24 years old, operating his second fund from San Francisco.
Makyshov identified what he saw as an investment gap in the venture capital landscape. While prestigious universities like Harvard and Princeton had established VC ecosystems supporting their alumni, top boarding schools lacked similar structured backing for their graduates despite producing high-caliber founders.