A New York teenager who taught himself to code at the age of seven now rakes in $1.4 million a month through his AI calorie-tracking app.
Zach Yadegari, 18, founded Cal AI from his parents’ home in Roslyn, a village in Nassau County, Long Island in May 2024, and he now has 30 employees.
The app’s users upload a photo of their meal, and the artificial intelligence software estimates the total calories with 90 percent accuracy, according to the company.
Cal AI is available on Apple and Google Play for a subscription fee of $2.49 per month or $29.99 annually.
Yadegari told CNBC Make It he started learning to code at the age of seven at a software summer camp, after playing online games like Minecraft.
Throughout his youth, Yadegari focused on making a viral mobile app ‘because everyone has a phone in their pocket,’ he told the outlet.
He created several apps which didn’t take off, until he struck gold with Cal AI.
Yadegari said the idea came when he was using calorie-tracking apps himself while working out to try to impress girls at school.
Zach Yadegari, a New York teenager who taught himself to code at the age of seven, now rakes in $1.4 million a month through his AI calorie-tracking app. Yadegari said the idea came when he was using calorie-tracking apps himself while working out to try to impress girls at school
Cal AI is available on Apple and Google Play for a subscription fee of $2.49 per month
But all the available apps involved entering the number of calories manually, a process he found time-consuming and boring.
So Yadegari set out to build an AI-powered version that would ‘do all of the work for you’.
He started the venture with his friend Henry Langmack, who he met at coding camp, and two friends he met on X – Blake Anderson, 24, and Jake Castillo, 30.
Yadegari and Langmack coded the app, while the group stayed in a San Francisco ‘hacker house’ for one month in July 2024.
The teen said he worked 40 hours per week writing new code for the app and developing its features with his co-founders, all while completing his school work.
Yadegari said his parents were supportive, especially because he managed to maintain a 4.0 GPA at Roslyn High School.
‘My parents are really happy with everything with Cal AI, especially my mom. She actually uses the app,’ Yadegari told CNBC. ‘Overall, they’re really proud.’
Yadegari told CNBC Make It he starting learning to code at the age of seven at a software summer camp, after playing online games like Minecraft
Yadegari, 18, founded Cal AI from his parents’ home in Roslyn, Long Island, in May 2024
Cal AI users upload a photograph of their meal, and the artificial intelligence software estimates the total calories with 90 percent accuracy, according to the company
Cal AI spends almost $770,000 per month on advertising alone, and with other costs combined, its expenses match its revenue.
But included in these expenses are the cuts for the co-founders, including a $100,000 sum for Yadegari recently.
The teenager said he wants Cal AI to become ‘the biggest calorie-tracking app’ by overtaking the current leader, MyFitnessPal.
In the meantime, Yadegari lives a life of luxury, saying he parties ‘almost every night’ in an off-campus where he lives with his friends at the University of Miami.
Yadegari is studying business at the college, but he doesn’t plan to stay for longer than a year, thanks to the success of Cal AI.
