Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 7, 2026

Adam Guild

Adam Harrison Guild is an American technology entrepreneur known for being the co-founder and CEO of Owner.com. His company provides an online infrastructure platform for restaurant operations. Guild is a Thiel Fellow and a recipient of Forbes 30 under 30 recognition.

Last revised
Jul 7, 2026
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Adam Guild
Born (1999-10-01) October 1, 1999
OccupationEntrepreneur
Known forOwner.com
AwardsForbes 30 under 30
2021

Adam Harrison Guild (born October 1, 1999)1 is an American technology entrepreneur known for being the co-founder and CEO of Owner.com.23 His company provides an online infrastructure platform for restaurant operations.4 Guild is a Thiel Fellow and a recipient of Forbes 30 under 30 recognition.

Guild first got the idea for the technology startup after helping his mother's online dog-grooming business.5 He launched Owner.com in 2020 to help independent restaurants by giving them more control over their deliveries, customer data and overall business.3 Through its AI technology,6 he has increased their profit margins by reducing their reliance on high fee third-party food delivery apps.57819 The company raised $120 million in 2025 and is valued at $1 billion.1011

Early life and education

Adam Harrison Guild was born in the United States on October 1, 1999, and grew up in Los Angeles, California. Raised initially in a two-parent household, his family experienced significant changes around the time he turned 12, including his parents' divorce, which contributed to a challenging emotional period during his early adolescence.1213

Guild attended high school in the United States where he began developing his interest in technology during his early teenage years. By age 12, around the seventh grade, he launched a Minecraft server that quickly grew into a significant project, consuming much of his time and attention.14 Guild dropped out of high school halfway through the 10th grade at age 16, primarily to focus on scaling his Minecraft server business, which had already attracted millions of users and generated substantial revenue.

The decision was driven by his obsession with the project, which he described as having "totally consumed my life," leaving little room for formal schooling.914 Following his dropout, Adam Guild pursued self-directed education to compensate for the absence of structured schooling, committing to a rigorous regimen of reading over 100 books per year on business and related topics, listening to thousands of hours of podcasts, and enrolling in online courses from institutions like Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management.1415

Personal life

Guild lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. His younger brother is Topper Guild, who has more than 84 million subscribers as of January 2026 on YouTube.14

Awards and recognitions

Guild has been recognized in the Forbes 30 under 30 list and is a Thiel Fellow.151617

References

References

  1. Jungreis, Max. "How a 21-year-old CEO landed $3.5 million for software that he originally built to help his mom's struggling dog grooming business keep repeat customers". Business Insider. Retrieved 4 October 2024.
  2. Garfinkle, Allie. "Why Owner cofounder and CEO Adam Guild is serving up software especially for mom-and-pop restaurants". Fortune. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
  3. Conklin, Audrey (11 December 2020). "High school dropout starts company that offers free delivery for restaurants". FOX Business.
  4. Melendez, Steven. "This startup wants to help mom-and-pop restaurants drop Grubhub". Fast Company.
  5. Staff, Entrepreneur (16 August 2022). "15 Young Founders Rethinking Everything From Artificial Intelligence to Carbon Removal, Sustainable Fashion to...Pizza!". Entrepreneur.
  6. Feldman, Amy. "Next Billion-Dollar Startups 2024". Forbes.
  7. Ongweso, Edward (17 November 2020). "This Startup Is Saving Restaurants From Heavy Delivery App Fees". Vice.
  8. Chernova, Yuliya. "Adam Guild, the co-founder of the restaurant-software startup, says he hasn't taken a day off for six years". WSJ. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
  9. Barreira, Alex. "Bay Area Inno Under 25 2021: Adam Guild, CEO and co-founder, Owner.com". American City Business Journals.
  10. Roof, Katie. "Restaurant tech startup owner.com hits 1 billion evaluation". Bloomberg.
  11. Guszkowski, Joe. "Tech supplier Owner.com raises $120M, giving it a $1B valuation". Restaurant Business.
  12. "Adam Guild Reads 182 Books a Year, and He's Read This One 14 Times. Here's Why". Entrepreneur. April 25, 2019. Archived from the original on September 27, 2022. Retrieved March 29, 2026.
  13. Walker, Karen (October 14, 2021). "Pivoting Toward Success: Owner.com's Adam Guild". Forbes. Archived from the original on September 25, 2024. Retrieved March 29, 2026.
  14. "Scrappy tactics and a huge post-COVID pivot | Owner's unconventional journey to product-market fit | Adam Guild (Co-founder and CEO of Owner)". First Round Capital. May 27, 2025.
  15. Sorvino, Chloe (1 December 2020). "Meet The Breakout Entrepreneurs Who Are Resetting The Food Industry While Under 30 Years Old". Forbes.
  16. Hall, Christine (31 August 2021). "Owner.com serves up $10.7M so that independent restaurants can get cooking". TechCrunch.
  17. Solomon, Aron. "Commentary: Meet the college dropout who invested in Figma–and 22 other Thiel Fellows". Fortune.