Tech

George Hotz

Unlocked the first iPhone at 17 and traded it for a sports car; Sony sued him at 21.

Born: 1989 · Glen Rock, New Jersey, US
Roots: White American
Family: Middle class; A suburban New Jersey household; he was a repeat Intel science-fair finalist in high school.
Education: Bergen County Academies; brief stints at RIT and Carnegie Mellon
Started with: A soldering iron; Spent the summer of 2007, at 17, reverse-engineering the iPhone's baseband at his workbench.
Affiliations & societies: None documented.; Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

2007 · age 17
First iPhone unlock1 × 350Z
The first reported SIM unlock; he trades an unlocked phone for a Nissan 350Z and three more iPhones.
2010 · age 20
PS3 jailbreak
Publishes PlayStation 3 exploit work under the handle geohot.
2011 · age 21
Sony v. Hotz
Sony seeks a restraining order; the case settles with his agreement never to target Sony products again.
2014 · age 24
Corporate interludes
Facebook, then Google's Project Zero vulnerability research.
2015 · age 26
comma.ai
Builds a self-driving kit in his garage; after a regulator's letter, he cancels the hardware and open-sources the software instead.
2023 · age 33
tiny corp
A neural-network framework startup; he leaves comma's day-to-day in 2025.

Sources

Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.