These 8 entrepreneurs and entertainers, including Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift, are setting records and forging new paths—early in their careers.
Whether with sold-out stadium tours, unicorn tech startups or viral makeup lines, the youngest members of Forbes’ 2025 list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women have achieved outsized success early in their careers–building fortunes worth hundreds of millions–or even a billion– before their 40th birthday.
To make this ranking as a young person isn’t easy. Of the 100 list members, only eight are under 40 this year. That’s down from 11 last year, as a result of two members turning 40, two dropping below our wealth cutoff and one under-40 newcomer. Most of this year’s list members are aged 50 or over (just 18 are under 50). The average age is 63.
For the eighth year in a row, the youngest on the list is 27-year-old Kylie Jenner, from the Kardashian-Jenner family of reality TV fame. She built an estimated $670 million fortune through her beauty business Kylie Cosmetics and more recently has been branching into apparel, perfume and alcohol. Jenner is the only woman in her 20s to appear on this year’s ranking. Though her birth into a rich and ultra-famous family certainly helped facilitate her success, she counts as a self-made woman for the purposes of Forbes’ list because her fortune comes from a company that she established, as opposed to one she inherited.
The richest person among the under 40s on this year’s list is pop star Taylor Swift, worth an estimated $1.6 billion. The 35-year-old musician wrapped up her Eras Tour in December, with her 149 concert dates grossing over $2 billion in ticket sales alone, more than any other tour in history. Her take from the tour–plus a higher estimated value for her song catalog–boosted her estimated fortune by $300 million since last year.
Swift was the youngest self-made female billionaire until April, when 30-year-old tech entrepreneur Lucy Guo took the title thanks to the AI boom. Guo cofounded artificial intelligence startup Scale AI in 2016 and left two years later, but held onto an estimated 5% stake in the company—enough to make her a billionaire when a sale of insider shares in late April valued Scale AI at $25 billion, almost double the previous $13.8 billion valuation.
Pop star Selena Gomez is the only newcomer under 40 to join the ranks this year. The 32-year-old singer, actress and cosmetics entrepreneur first appeared on screen at just 10 years old in Barney & Friends before spending her teens starring in the popular Disney Channel show Wizards of Waverly Place and launching a music career. Forbes estimates that most of her fortune comes from her majority stake in the Rare Beauty makeup line, which she founded in 2020.
Two women among the list’s youngest last year did not meet the increased $350 million threshold required to qualify for our top 100 in 2025: Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd, whose dating app’s stock has halved in value since last year, and healthcare hiring platform Incredible Health cofounder Iman Abuzeid. Two others are still list members but aged out of this cohort: singer Katy Perry and Confluent software firm cofounder Neha Narkhede both have rung in their 40th birthdays since last year.
Photos, From Left: Daniela Amodei, Selena Gomez, Gwynne Shotwell. Illustration by Ben Kirchner for Forbes
America’s Richest Self-Made Women
Forbes’ Ranking Of The Country’s Most Successful Women Entrepreneurs, Executives And Entertainers
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Here are the youngest members on Forbes’ 2025 Self-Made Women list:
Christina Cacioppo
Age: 37 | Net worth: $440 million | Source of wealth: Software | Self-Made Score: 8
Cacioppo is the CEO of automated security and compliance software company Vanta, which was valued at $2.45 billion after it raised $150 million from private investors in July 2024. A Stanford alum from Ohio, the multi-lingual entrepreneur cofounded Vanta in 20187 after working in venture capital and at Dropbox.
Daniela Amodei
Age: 37 | Net worth: $1.2 billion | Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence | Self-Made Score: 8
Amodei, who cofounded artificial intelligence unicorn Anthropic with six fellow OpenAI alums (including her brother Dario) in 2021, became a billionaire in March after a $3.5 billion funding round valued the company at $61.5 billion. She is the president of Anthropic, which makes the Claude family of AI models and has partnerships with Alphabet and Amazon. The latter signed an agreement in late 2024 to invest $4 billion in Anthropic.
Rihanna
Age: 37 | Net worth: $1 billion | Source of wealth: Music, cosmetics | Self-Made Score: 10
The fortune of the pop star from Barbados fell by $400 million since last year amid setbacks at her key businesses. The CEO of her lingerie brand Savage X Fenty quit in August 2024 to take over Victoria’s Secret. Sales are estimated to be flat at her cosmetics line Fenty Beauty, which she co-owns with luxury conglomerate LVMH, after the brand launched in China last year amid what LVMH called a “challenging environment.” In more celebratory news, Rihanna revealed she was pregnant with her third child at the Met Gala in May.
Shuo Wang
Age: 36 | Net worth: $1.5 billion | Source of wealth: Software | Self-Made Score: 8
The cofounder and chief revenue officer of HR and payroll company Deel, Wang is a new billionaire after the company sold shares in February in a private transaction that valued it at $12.6 billion. Deel is profitable and growing but embroiled in a legal battle: Competitor Rippling sued in March, alleging that Deel orchestrated a months-long spy operation. Deel denied wrongdoing and countersued for defamation a month later.
Gareth Cattermole/TAS24/Getty Images
Taylor Swift
Age: 35 | Net worth: $1.6 billion | Source of wealth: Music | Self-Made Score: 8
The country-songstress-turned-pop-icon took the final bow of her Eras Tour in December, concluding a record-breaking run of 149 concerts in more than 50 countries that grossed over $2 billion in ticket sales–double the previous record. The biggest star in the world has found numerous ways beyond concert tickets to monetize her devout fandom, including a concert film of the tour, a book and rerecordings of her albums, all of which earned her more than $200 million over the past two years.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
Selena Gomez
Age: 32 | Net worth: $700 million | Source of wealth: Cosmetics | Self-Made Score: 9
Five years ago, Gomez launched Rare Beauty, naming it after her third solo studio album. The cosmetics company, known for its punchy liquid blushes and sold through its website and Sephora, brought in roughly $370 million in revenue in 2023. Forbes estimates that it’s worth $1.3 billion and that she owns at least 51%. The former Disney Channel star reportedly earns $600,000 per episode (40 so far) as an actress in and co-producer of the hit show Only Murders in the Building. She was nominated in December for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actress in the movie Emilia Pérez.
In March she released a new album with her fiancé, producer Benny Blanco. In May, MForbes reported that Wondermind, a mental health startup cofounded by Gomez, laid off 60% of its fifteen-person staff.
Lucy Guo
Age: 30 | Net worth: $1.3 billion | Source of wealth: Artificial intelligence | Self-Made Score: 8
A few years after dropping out of her undergraduate computer science program to join a fellowship for young entrepreneurs backed by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, Guo cofounded artificial intelligence labeling firm Scale AI with the now-billionaire Alexandr Wang in 2016. After reportedly getting fired by Wang and leaving Scale AI in 2018, Guo founded an early-stage venture capital firm before then launching her most recent startup Passes, a creator platform and Patreon competitor that has partnered with celebrities including former NBA player Shaquille O’Neal.
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Kylie Jenner
Age: 27 | Net worth: $670 million | Source of wealth: Cosmetics | Self-Made Score: 7
Though Coty sold its stake in the skin care line of her half-sister, Kim Kardashian, it’s happy with its 51% stake in Kylie Cosmetics, citing its successful global expansion into new markets including India and Singapore. Jenner’s new Cosmic fragrance also appears to be boosting sales. Though a bright spot for Coty, valuations of beauty stocks are largely down, and Coty shares have tumbled 50% since last year. Jenner, who came of age on the reality TV show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, debuted a canned, fruit-flavored vodka soda called Sprinter last year.
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