The problem with the Forbes 30 under 30 list

Arwa Mahdawi of The Guardian writes about the Forbes 30 under 30 lists and why a number of the participants get arrested and in trouble with the law.

Mahdawi writes, “‘The Forbes 30 Under 30 have collectively raised $5.3B in funding,’ the tech entrepreneur Chris Bakke tweeted on Tuesday. ‘The Forbes 30 Under 30 have also been arrested for frauds and scams worth over $18.5B. Incredible track record.’ The first number comes from Forbes and the second is Bakke’s own back-of-an-envelope calculation, but you get the gist: the line between innovator and fraudster seems to have become alarmingly thin.

“The problem here isn’t Forbes, of course; the problem is the vision of success that we’ve been sold and the fetishizing of youth. 30 Under 30 isn’t just a list, it’s a mentality: a pressure to achieve great things before youth slips away from you. The pressure can lead certain ambitious people to take shortcuts. And, in fact, shortcuts are encouraged: millennials, after all, grew up being told to ‘fake it till you make it’, cash in now until you become a withered, irrelevant, 30-year-old prune. If you exaggerate a little bit, that’s not fraud, that’s hustle! Until, of course, the justice department comes knocking.”

Read more here.