Founder18
Thomas Guthrie
15 Y/O•Napier, New Zealand•Tech

Thomas Guthrie

At age 15, founded and leads Runwise and became one of the youngest publicly profiled AI founders to make a first hire (a 38-year-old) after his post went viral — reported by multiple outlets covering the March 2026 post. [estimated superlative — flag for verification]

What they built

Thomas Guthrie founded Runwise, an AI-powered no-code workflow automation builder, at age 15 while still in high school in New Zealand. The platform allows non-technical users to create complex automated workflows without writing code, removing a major barrier for individuals and small teams who need process automation. The product has paying users and Guthrie has grown it to the point of making his first hire.

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The F18 Thesis

Verified track record

  • Economic Times (Mar 2026) (source)
  • Hindustan Times (Mar 2026) (source)
  • Storyboard18 (Mar 2026) (source)
  • MoneyControl (Mar 2026) (source)
  • Wall Street Journal (referenced as part of teen AI founder report) [PictureURL Finder] Update (2026-04-25): - Checked Profile (fast+slow extraction). No founder/team/headshot image link exposed (no og:image/twitter:image/img src/srcset that is a portrait). - Evidence pages above did not expose a stable, direct portrait image link in extracted content. - X profile https://x.com/realthomasgu returned 403 to automated fetch. Result: PictureURL not updated; manual next step is to use an official Runwise “About/Team/Press” headshot if/when published. (source)
Updated April 27, 2026