30 Under 30 2026: AI, Influence And Tomorrow's Founders I Forbes

Forbes

Forbes 30 Under 30 list editors Alex York and Zoya Hasan discuss the challenging compilation of the 2026 list, which honors young business leaders across 20 categories. They detail the rigorous selection process, explaining they identify key "call outs" by seeking scale, influence, credible backers, and future industry trend potential. From the youngest founders creating new media suites for artists to revisiting the incredible success of past alumni in fields ranging from public safety drones to Hollywood, they explore how the next generation is leading the charge and continuing to challenge established norms.  Read the full story on Forbes:   Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00hi everyone it's alex york hi i'm zoya hassan and we're the editors of the 30 under 30 list

00:08we are here coming to you today to speak about the 2026 under 30 list which just launched first

00:14week of december zoya how are you feeling about having officially launched our our little project

00:20into the world i feel awesome i mean we've been working on it for months and months and

00:25it's just been such a big team effort from so many different people and teams at forbes so

00:31i'm thrilled it's same i'm excited it's truly a beast to put together everything from like the

00:38summit to the list itself for those who don't know we have 20 different categories 30 people on each

00:43category so as i said it is a huge team effort to bring this all to fruition both in the physical

00:49magazine in the online versions so there's so much that has yeah gone into this project over

00:55the last couple of months zoya from your perspective what do you think is like the biggest takeaway

00:58of this year's list yeah i think every year we kind of spot trends and you know we spot what the big

01:06theme is and i think now for the past two or three years the big theme really has been ai um and i think

01:15this year it's even more prominent so you can just kind of see how that industry has really grown

01:20but it's ai is now part of like every single you know you mentioned the 20 categories i think

01:26in every single category we're seeing some sort of play on ai and so many of our featured honorees or

01:33call outs like on science they're building robots using ai or on the marketing side they're using ai to

01:43build the apps that people can use to buy tickets to events so it's like really penetrated into so many

01:48different industries and then obviously we have our core ai category too which i think is responsible

01:54for i think 1.5 billion dollars in funding this year um the total funding on the list this year

02:02somewhere about 3.5 billion higher than that and ai is responsible for 1.5 of that so that's a pretty

02:09significant amount um and i think it's just really you know coming to every single industry

02:17how have you seen ai kind of take over this list this year yeah i would totally agree i think well

02:24first of all we launched that ai list specifically last year for the first time and i think when we

02:28launched that it was like really because we were having these conversations of like ai is

02:33infiltrating so many different industries but like let's have a category that's solely focused on ai

02:37but i think you're definitely right like even though there is a category that's speaking about

02:42into like the companies that are ai first second third fourth like they're solely focused on you

02:47know ai models and agents and you know all the different ways that these companies are using it

02:51it also has impacted every different industry on the category on the list honestly i think that

02:57there's not a single category that doesn't have someone who's involved in ai in some way shape or form

03:02um on the list this year i mean i think about the retail and e-commerce category for instance

03:07the call out or the featured honoree for that category is jenny wang and she is building alta

03:12which is an ai powered shopping app so something that we have done for so long get dressed every

03:16morning and then decide either what to wear or what else we need to buy even something so simple

03:20like that is now being powered by ai or you look at katherine zizov who is on the manufacturing and

03:25industry list and she is essentially helping inventory decisions in terms of like produce

03:32when they're going to put like apples let's say out on shelves she's using ai and sensors and

03:37different forms of new technologies to help people make that more efficient so i think it really does

03:41come down to like using these new technologies to do old things in a lot easier way it's kind of

03:46like the way that i've been seeing it so far it's exciting for us as reporters because we get to kind

03:51of watch this revolution happen um and i think there's just we we're seeing it in real time and

04:00how young people are really leading the charge on that obviously there's the big players you know like

04:06open ai and google and meta etc etc but you're seeing all these really young people start businesses

04:14and take advantage of not only the resources that these bigger players are giving but also end up

04:20sort of competing with them um so it's been really cool to see what's been the average age of the

04:27listers this year yeah you're definitely right like it is such a young cohort of people obviously

04:32in general we look at people who are under 30 years old but the average age this year was a little bit

04:37under 27 years old so it is like a young crop of entrepreneurs that are building some of those like

04:44have gone to either school or have worked for these large companies to your point and others have just

04:48started it like from the ground up from their own experience through testing um you know the waters

04:53or doing their own research it reminds me of rowan chung who is the call it on the education list

04:58where like he tried to go to school and like learn the things that way um but it like wasn't working

05:03for him he realized he was not the best fit for a traditional classroom so he decided to start

05:08teaching other people things about ai and you know other new technologies in his own way now he has

05:14you know an education platform a newsletter social media content um and i think that's the other

05:19big trend that i've noticed this year is like how social media or these other digital platforms of

05:23like sharing your story have really taken over um i mean like i said someone like rowan who has

05:28millions of followers online for his content solely about ai all the way down to alex warren who is

05:35our most followed person on the list this year with around what is it like 29 million followers

05:41um online and so i think that and within our you know top let's say like 30 um most followed

05:47candidates this year we're reaching like 200 million followers across platforms so i think social is a

05:53huge kind of entry point into people becoming entrepreneurs and growing their brands and their

05:58businesses um and i think that speaks to how young these founders are they're understanding that like

06:04me and my peers and also the people who want to use the platform or the products or the services

06:08are online so we have to reach them where they're at right now have you noticed the same thing or how

06:13has social shown up in the categories that you're working on just thinking even about our call outs

06:18like anna katkart on hollywood she is using social media even though she has this whole platform on

06:28netflix essentially and she's gone from you know being this she had this role in this series to all the

06:34boys i've ever loved before and then she got her own spin-off xo kitty so she really has the spotlight

06:40on herself but even she says that you need to use social media because like every time you put out

06:45something you're essentially putting a billboard of yourself um also like claudia saluski i would say

06:50that she she really got her start on social media and then now she's building all these products for

06:55body care so it like it goes both ways i think you see a lot of companies like even

07:03on our food and drink list i call out saws they talked a lot about how they really use social

07:10media to promote their products and obviously we've seen that non-stop social media is the

07:15greatest marketing tool out there but i think it's interesting how it goes both ways that you can go

07:19from social media to becoming an entrepreneur or you can be an entrepreneur and use social media to

07:25become a content creator and then really excel what's interesting about alex warren though is

07:30he you know i interviewed him and he claimed that he doesn't even go on social media anymore which

07:38i don't know how true that is because he comes up on my for you page all the time but it's interesting

07:43because he says he now that he has this success he kind of wants to take a step back from social media

07:49and it's too much for him to handle but it's so interesting because that's been such a big factor

07:57in his growth and in bringing him to the fame he has today you know he started off as a content

08:03creator he was actually homeless and he was you know vlogging his life like singing in 24-hour fitness

08:11bathrooms and he eventually just kept on creating content and kept on growing and was a founder of the

08:18hype house which is just a random fun fact that a lot of people don't seem to know um but yeah social

08:24media turned him into a musician so it's not only like you know you're becoming entrepreneurs your

08:30social media can open so many doors for you but that wasn't really i think his story was fun do you

08:37see with anybody sort of a pushback from social media like i saw with alex or is that rare i think that

08:45there definitely is a little bit of both to your point like it's obviously so critical for people to

08:49use but i think that especially founders today are getting smarter with how they're using social and

08:54maybe they're not showing up in the same way that you know a content creator would but they're using

08:59it in different ways to share the story behind their brand you know kind of the the behind the

09:04scenes of what they're building their products themselves and in a way that isn't necessarily like

09:09pushing products to consumers but just giving kind of an inside look at what it's like to be a founder

09:15today i think that that's you know another thing that i feel like so many members of this younger

09:19generation talk about is just like wanting to see a little bit of like realness online and like

09:23wanting to see behind the curtain um so i think that people depending on the industry are using it in so

09:28many different ways from each other but i think like a lot of the list too it definitely is like

09:32traditional ways of building a business and not all of these platforms or these founders have

09:37needed social media to grow i mean you look at something like you know kreia for instance which is our

09:42media call out and you would think like oh they're on the media list they might be using all these

09:47different forms of media to grow and promote their product as well for them it really is just about

09:51like having a great product um and you know finding these investors they're backed by 83 million dollars

09:56in funding to build like an all hands on deck like creative suite essentially where

10:01artists can come to the platform and edit or render or generate images music videos kind of across

10:07the media landscape um which is just so fun to for i feel like us to to look at obviously in like the

10:13journalism world we talk about how again ai is impacting all these different industries but

10:18for someone like victor and diego who are the co-founders of kreia they really are coming at this

10:22from like an artist first perspective um so i think that's been something that's interesting too like

10:27while social is growing so much it's not like necessarily the the single most important factor in a lot of

10:32these companies still getting that large you know amount of funding that you were mentioning earlier

10:36and kind of going about doing business in more traditional ways still definitely exists i would

10:41say that reminds me of decagon which is one of the highest funded companies this year there are

10:47featured honoree on ai and decagon really hasn't had much into social media but you will see them in

10:54like airports and like on the street and like billboards and stuff so they're really using those

10:59traditional marketing those traditional ways of marketing themselves as opposed to you know the new

11:06way of marketing yourself and you know decagon is building ai agents and they're selling them to

11:12other companies like class pass or duolingo that can use them to handle things like credit card

11:19replacements or just you know handling all things customer service um so it's interesting because their

11:28means of marketing is literally just going to these companies and pitching themselves you know

11:35in person and they've really grown to a 1.5 billion valuation so yeah it does show that

11:40you know social media isn't everything these days and traditional business definitely exists we've talked

11:45a lot about our call outs or our featured honorees should we maybe dive into how we actually pick those

11:51people yes let's do it so yeah if someone asks you like how do i become the face of a category for the

11:57under 30 list what's your answer to them i would say it's a tricky question no i'm kidding um i think

12:04it depends category to category like you know we have our 20 categories the call out is going to look a

12:12little different for each of them however the one thing that's the common thread is there needs to be

12:21influence and that influence can look like

12:23like money or that influence can look like following or it can look like just having

12:30just someone who can represent the entire industry so for example like you know we're talking about ai

12:37obviously we're going to pick this company that's valued at 1.5 billion dollars they're working on ai

12:43agents which literally every other startup these days is trying to work on but they've kind of been

12:49the leader in that and they really soared and they have that influence of having the funding they have

12:55231 million dollars and they have the valuation and they've really proven themselves so a like we're

13:02capturing like the moment in time like what's happening what's the trend who represents that trend

13:08who's succeeding in it and who's going to keep succeeding in it like we always talk about how to

13:12make the list and you need to have the potential to scale our featured honoree like definitely needs to

13:18have the highest potential to scale um so i think that's one thing or with like music it's the same

13:25thing with the moment in time last year our featured honoree shibuzzi had the biggest song of the year

13:31this year alex warren's ordinary has reached 2 billion streams globally so again one of the biggest songs

13:38of the year and he's mtv's best new artist he got nominated for the grammys best new artist and you

13:45know by the way when we picked him we didn't know any of those awards were coming but we that's just

13:50that's just the thing like we need to have that it takes a lot of time and we have an inkling about

13:56who is really gonna succeed in the industry and who can represent you know each of those categories

14:03do you want to talk a bit about you know like hollywood and media and how we pick those call outs

14:09definitely i think like what you're alluding to there is like our need to trend forecast a little

14:14bit like this is someone who is succeeding right now but we have to be able to tell like are they

14:19going to be able to continue succeeding in the future um and i think that that's a great example

14:23of that is anna cathcart who is our hollywood call it as you mentioned she has been in this franchise

14:28for the past seven years playing a character that she's been able to grow with and she is really turning

14:34that into like a multi-pronged career she does brand partnerships with different companies she's

14:39doing an audible an audio series on audible um she's voice acting for angry birds 3 that's coming

14:45up next year so like turning her you know one franchise that she kind of started in into so many

14:51different facets of her career and like of course that will continue as you know we hope and we predict

14:55by naming her a call out beyond i think that's a great you know example of that it also reminds me of

15:01jonathan lord who is our transportation aerospace call this year he is building basically the electric

15:07vehicle of the sea so we've seen for the past you know decade let's say more and more thought and

15:13money and like energy put behind literally energy but put behind these electric vehicles um but on his

15:20side of things he's turning he's using that and kind of momentum to do the same thing for boats so again

15:26like it's something that like it's the right place right time of like this industry is growing and

15:30evolving um but this is where we see and where you know these call outs see it going next and i think if

15:35people can kind of speak to or like be building something that really shows that they have that

15:39foresight and like what's next for these categories that's a great you know kind of indicator for us

15:44to choose them as the face of the category in terms of then like the category call out and then the

15:50list in general we mentioned here too like the call out will want to be either highly funded or successful

15:55financially um and have that scale and that influence as well what else from this year's

16:00list do you feel like really stood out to you of something that would like be a green flag or a red

16:04flag of people that you're looking at call out wise or just across the list in general yeah going back

16:09to cause for just a second i want to do i do want to say you know like money isn't actually everything

16:14because that influence can look different one example i think of is ethan barahas on the science list

16:21he's building robots for space as i had mentioned earlier using ai and you know they're meant to

16:27handle these tedious tasks that astronauts have to do like just moving around cargo in space

16:33so he's like why not build robots to handle that but even though he has such a brilliant idea

16:40the money is really not that high he has 6.1 million dollars in funding which compared to some of our

16:46other listers is kind of low and you know him and i talked about this but what's really interesting

16:54is that they have great credible backers so they have partnerships with nasa and they're working with

17:00the space station so i think a lot of people always ask us whether it's for being a call out

17:06or for just being on the list like how much does the money matter obviously money matters and there

17:11should be you know it just helps us like gauge credibility there but um i think it's important

17:18to note that it also just sometimes looks like who are your partners and who is backing you and what

17:25other resources do you have that make you stand out um in terms of green flags and red flags that's an

17:32interesting question i have to think about that let's come back to that in a second i your your point

17:39there though about having the like legit backers i think is a really like overlooked part of our job

17:46and that's why we you know talk with investors and you know universities or larger organizations that

17:53like really have a stakeholder in these different industries to kind of find out from them who they

17:57would nominate who they recommend for these lists and this is diverting a bit from this year's list and

18:02moving into our different features for this year's magazine and for those who don't know we have the

18:08list that comes out but we also then do coverage on past under 30s who have you know continued to

18:13succeed post making the list this year zoya one of your features is on brink which to is you know

18:20a drone company to your point about having important backers like they have really gone directly to the

18:25source of their customers to the police stations around the country that they want to work with can

18:29you tell me a little bit about that feature and a little bit about blake who's the founder um in the

18:34first place and just what that experience was like for you what you noticed from that reporting process

18:38yeah so blake is one of our alumni from the 2022 social impact list actually and he's building

18:45drones for the police and fire departments across the united states and he's only 25 years old and

18:52he's very talented he's been building these drones since he was 10 years old but he's also up against a

18:57really big challenge which is actually china because china controls 70 of the world's drones including

19:06all the drones that are currently being used by not all of them but a good majority of the drones that

19:11are being used by police officers or even federal agencies like ice so dji is this chinese drone maker

19:19that's really controlling this whole market and what blake is trying to do is go up against them

19:27so his niche is that his drones are built solely for public safety but you know dji was really quick

19:37to tap into that dish like while they make commercial drones they were they quickly recognize there's

19:42a need for drones to be used in 911 emergencies so now they're building for that too

19:48so while blake his revenues aren't very high at brink you know he we estimated about 5 million last year

19:56looking at somewhat of 15 million this year the money's not really crazy but he has those backers

20:03as you mentioned he has sam altman who wrote the first check into his company which is incredibly

20:08impressive he has index mentors he has peter thiel so he has these very incredible backers he's got

20:14150 157 million dollars in funding and he's really going out to these police stations to meet mayors

20:22and chiefs literally three days a week and really putting in the work to sell these made in america drones

20:31and it's actually incredible timing because very soon later this month it's going to be decided

20:38whether or not dji gets banned in the united states over national security concerns and you know data

20:44being sent back to beijing so if that happens it could be massive for a lot for american drone manufacturing

20:56which really there is there aren't many players there there's brink and there's sky dio and um flock

21:03is trying to tap into space but it's going to be a huge deal it's really going to open up the market

21:07to these american companies and this 25 year old is just really trying to be the one that dominates and

21:16you know it's it's just exciting to see whether or not he's going to get there um but yeah i think the

21:22alum features are always so fun because it's the same thing as our you know call outs where we're

21:28trying to capture what's timely what is being talked about we did a feature on 11 labs which makes

21:34voice ai agents which again is so timely and they're now billionaires the founders

21:41and then we have lily reinhardt which you covered so do you want to talk a little bit about

21:45what made that feature so timely for this year yeah so i i did i wrote the lily reinhardt feature

21:52this year for the alum um package and i think that she is a perfect example of kind of what we were

21:57alluding to earlier and like all this is coming full circle here but she is someone who has built

22:02her career in the public eye in hollywood um she really got her big break in riverdale which so many

22:08people of our generation watched on the cw growing up um and you know that ran from 2017 to 2023

22:15and since then she has kind of been what she said is she felt like kind of in like a slower period

22:20kind of off the radar a bit um right after riverdale wrapped in 2024 is when the writer

22:24strike happened and then she has kind of been like coming back into these projects ever since then

22:29um so she just had multiple projects come out this summer an indie film called american sweatshop

22:35about a content moderator um and she plays you know that content moderating kind of this journey that

22:39she goes on and another indie tv show called hal and harper um which she worked on with cooper rave

22:46who is another under 30 alum and the you know she's kind of been in this like indie tv and filmmaking

22:51world and we spoke a lot about how you know these independent projects are a bit harder to make right

22:56now because so much of the tv and film and hollywood industry is relying on you know very fast-paced content

23:02like um works of art so she's kind of like diverting from that a little bit in the acting projects that she's

23:08working on to be able to get more into like the nitty-gritty like filmmaker essence like of what

23:13she is creating but on the other side of that she's also building a skincare company called personal day

23:18and she has totally leaned into the social media side of things to grow that brand um she even told

23:23me that she's you know really well known now for her cookie asmr like cookie reviews and food reviews

23:28on tick tock which has gained her like millions of followers on the platform and she said explicitly to

23:34me like that was a strategy to increase my following before i launched my beauty company

23:39because i know the power of social media today my team knows the power people around me know the

23:43power of like reaching these especially younger um consumers because her you know kind of target

23:48demographic with personal day is this like younger millennial gen z audience and she knows that's where

23:53they're at so it was really fun to talk to her about like coming from this traditional hollywood

23:58landscape and then using these again new methods of like media and mediums to reach audiences today

24:04which like we've been talking about this whole time is really kind of the name of the game right

24:08now i feel like using new technologies to make old new again and to kind of continue changing and

24:14being willing to adapt to how industries are changing i think that that's something that i have

24:18noticed a lot with the under 30s that we have covered is just like the willingness to just adapt

24:23and be nimble and like change um on a dime when you need to kind of like pivot or make a decision in

24:29the company um so it's been fun to see how these different com you know companies and founders both

24:33alum and from the list this year are doing that and continuing to do that um do you have my last

24:39question for you is do you have any like major takeaways of the list this year favorite parts of the

24:44process um or things that you're excited to see come to fruition within the next like 12 months

24:48i would say my favorite parts are obviously picking our call outs because i think that's really

24:54exciting because they get to be the face of the category we get to you know do shoots with them and

24:59interview them on camera and it's just i think the process of picking them is really fun because

25:05obviously we're not like thinking okay this is the one person we're going to go after them we are

25:10listing out options on options and dissecting again and again um who who we really think represents

25:17each of the categories so i would say that's my favorite part i'm just excited to see how all

25:23these companies grow in the next 12 months to be honest like even from our 2025 list we've had

25:31seven new billionaires come out just from that 2025 list it might be more but i'm thinking of the

25:37founders of mercore um who you know again an ai company now those three founders are billionaires

25:46cursor another ai company those four founders are billionaires so you've really seen a lot of the

25:52companies grow over this past year and keep on making headlines and keep on raising money and just

26:01really dominate their spaces which again is like the whole point of the 30 under 30 list is like to

26:05show that young people are really leading the charge and they are these you know these business

26:14people who are who for many years were undermined you know randall lane at forbes always says that he

26:21started the under 30 list because he felt like there was no community of young founders that could

26:27help each other young founders were always undermined and now like 15 years later oh yeah it's our 15th

26:32anniversary let's not forget um 15 years later you really see young people just being people older

26:39people are coming to these younger founders for advice for mentorship for you know being their

26:45customers so it's really cool to see that obviously every year we get the question from the people who

26:50didn't make the cut what they can do better or why they didn't make it obviously there's so many

26:57different answers to that and but what would you tell the people who you know are still very much under

27:0430 who would like to apply again and you know they just didn't make it this year i think the biggest

27:11thing for the candidates that we look at is having like a really clear thesis about like what you're

27:16doing and the impact that you're making so sometimes that's money that you're making based on your

27:20product or service another time that's the you know the scale or the influence that you're are able to

27:26have and the people that come to us with like really clear bios and you know blurbs about like who they are

27:33what their company does and why that matters for economy and business and the communities that

27:37they're reaching i think is always the most important like as succinct and like straightforward

27:42as you can make it when you're applying um is always the piece of advice that i give people because

27:46so many people are doing interesting things that they're really passionate about but i think in

27:50order to like break through the noise there needs to be a really clear reasoning of like why it

27:55doesn't just matter to you but like why it's truly impacting other people out there um so just being

27:59clear about that coming with numbers like as many metrics as you can give us as much you know as you

28:04can show us in as you know objective of examples as you can the impact that you're making and the

28:09change that you're making on the world um is always what we look for as under 30 editors uh so now on to

28:15the next one here we go i know we'll get ready to kick off the next year's list just in a couple of

28:20months here um in the meantime i think that we would love for people to go check out those interviews with

28:25the calls like we've mentioned um they're online along with the under 30 list those features like

28:31we mentioned on brink on lily reinhardt on so many of these other companies um and to your you know

28:37mention there about the billionaires we also have a story coming out about the under 30s who have gone

28:42from the under 30 list to the billionaires list um so there's so much more like content and news and

28:46you know things that we have kind of created for this package this year um so i would encourage people

28:51to go check it out absolutely thanks for joining me alex

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