He’d been talking about becoming a billionaire in the tech industry since middle school. Today, 21-year-old William Bennett of Castaic has a business plan through 2063.
At 19 years old, Bennett began building a tech company called Lux Vitae Industries. He’s always been one to look deep into the future.
“High school is when I actually started to organize my thoughts into what would be the business plan and product timeline,” he said during a recent telephone interview. “The university program I’m in at USC is made up of about 45 students from around the world each year. Being in that program has really helped me in this process because, for example, sophomore year, I was living in Hong Kong — about 30 minutes away from Shenzhen, which is where 80% of the world’s electronics are manufactured — and I was able to meet with a team of engineers at their manufacturing facility there, and I was able to make a lot of connections.”
From an early age, Bennett seemed to have an entrepreneurial spirit. He said his dad had built a pool company, which made quite an impact on him. He also grew up very inspired by the likes of the late Steve Jobs and his Apple computers and electronics.
Bennett was also a creative spirit.
“I would bring all my art supplies to school in my backpack and lay it out on the sidewalk, and I would just start drawing and sketching,” he said. “Art has always been very, very important to me.”
Another early interest was in leadership. During elementary school, Bennett got involved in student government. One of his closest friends today, in fact, started as his rival.
He and Audrey Hallare, also 21, would vie for the same role as class president in elementary school. Hallare was class president when they were in fifth grade. Bennett got the spot in sixth grade.
According to Hallare, Bennett has always had big ideas.
“Ever since we were little,” she said, “Will was very forward thinking, very much a leader. I feel like he always had these crazy ideas. His own teachers were like, ‘How did you think of that?’ He was so creative and artistic, and I feel like that even translated into the subjects of math and science. He’s putting all that together into what he’s doing right now.”
Hallare recalled Bennett’s early days of 3D printing in middle school. He had blueprints of a house he wanted to create. She spoke about the size and complexity of the model house and about how even then he had big ideas. His plans for Lux Vitae Industries are no surprise to her.
Bennett said Hallare was his best friend throughout elementary and middle school, and her current boyfriend is now a member of his engineering leadership team.
“I feel like once we went to middle school, I was like, ‘No, this (each student leadership role) is Will,’” Hallare said. “I felt like he was just the perfect person for all that, and I don’t think anyone else thought differently. I think even the teachers — even our principal — probably thought the same thing.”
Bennett said he feels he’s kind of a nerd. He got his first chemistry set when he was 10 or 11 years old, and then he started tinkering around and taking things apart, got into 3D printing and did other “nerdy” things. Lux Vitae Industries, he said, is really a blending of all those interests.
Bennett graduated from West Ranch High School in 2022. He then went to the University of Southern California, where he’s currently enrolled in the business school’s World Bachelor in Business triple degree program, which is a joint initiative with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Bennett said he’s scheduled to graduate in May 2026.
And while he’s knee-deep in his academics, he’s very busy getting Lux Vitae Industries off the ground. The company and products they’re aiming to create are by no means small.
“I would say the closest thing to our competitor would be Apple, because we’re entering the market as a premium desktop,” Bennett said. “However, it’s kind of hard to say that there are any direct rivals because what we’re doing is so different. None of the other computers out there are too similar.”
And what sets his company’s computer apart from others, he said, is that it and other products they’ll eventually produce will carry an environmentalist passion. The company’s personal computer, for example, won’t harm the planet.
One way of doing that is that Lux Vitae Industries, Bennett said, is partnering with a Swedish steel company that’s a carbon negative steel source.
“We’re ensuring that all the components that we use are as efficient as they can be,” he said. “And then beyond that, we’re making sure that with every single device that we ship, we’re offsetting over 100% of the carbon that’s involved in any of the remnants in the manufacturing process, in the shipment process, and in our operations in general.”
Additionally, Lux Vitae Industries is building an artificial intelligence-native device with a custom operating system, offsetting 10 years of AI energy use, and pursuing a seven-part plan to create future products that will help fight the climate crisis and support a sustainable, thriving future for humanity and the planet, he said.
Bennett is planning on a November 2027 launch. The personal computer will be the company’s first product available. They plan to offer a limited quantity and gradually grow the company and product line from there.
He plans to start with pop-up locations to showcase and sell products but eventually aims to open permanent brick-and-mortar stores.
Bennett said the company has plans to build and sell 47 products, all mapped out on a timeline that extends through the year 2063. Taking the first step toward that vision, he and his technical co-founder, Joshua Archibald, built the prototype of their first computer last summer.
“I don’t want to divulge too much about the computer — because we have such big competitors,” Bennett said, “but obviously, computers have been around for the past few decades, and our millennia of biological evolution has to conform to these methods of input that aren’t natural to us — to a keyboard, to a mouse, and it can kind of slow down your productivity and inhibit your organic creativity. Humans are very social creatures. We like to work with our device, not on it. So, that’s kind of the direction we’re heading — to make sure that the computer is redesigned from the ground up, designed around the human.”
Hallare has no doubt that whatever her old friend creates will be groundbreaking. Ever since they first met, he’s never ceased to amaze her.
She expects that his company will no doubt do the same.
“Everything he’s ever talked about when he started talking about it — his ideas — I saw all of it, but I wasn’t surprised by any of it,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it became something really big. I feel like that’s just the kind of person Will is.”
For more information about Lux Vitae Industries, go to LuxVitae.tech.
