The curse of the Forbes 30 under 30

‘Congrats to the other winners, I’ll see you in prison!” is hardly the celebration you would expect a young business leader to share on X. But for Forbes 30 Under 30 winners, such as analyst and podcast host Ed Elson, the award risks becoming a cynical joke.

The addition this week of Turkish fintech founder Gökçe Güven, one of the class of 2025, to the growing list of scandal-tinged honourees brought a moment of reckoning for the list’s true value to young entrepreneurs. Güven’s lawyer said in a statement that she is “committed to clearing her name and fighting the government’s allegations, including that she sought to defraud investors”.

US federal prosecutors charged Güven with fraud and identity theft arising from an alleged scheme to defraud investors in her startup Kalder. US attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement: “Beware of fraud masquerading as entrepreneurship.”

Previous honourees range from disgraced crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried to Charlie Javice, found guilty of fraud over the number of customers her startup had. Forbes itself acknowledged its “Hall of Shame” back in 2023 – a list of its “one-time superstars who all wound up fraudsters”.

The benefits – funding, empower­ment, inevitable PR perks – are a “double-edged sword” for former winners like Soma Pirityi, a class of 2022 founder of AI analytics firm ETA Technologies. This is exacerbated by some honourees’ track records and unrealistic standards.

“I don’t think the issue is the accolade itself; it’s that some entrepreneurs believe there’s a magic bullet that leads to overnight success,” said Pirityi.

Many 30 Under 30 alumni have flourished as CEOs, billionaires and tech innovators. But Dr Spinder Dhaliwal, reader in entrepreneurship at Westminster Business School, said hype can trump genuine success. “Figures are exaggerated in the hope of getting on the list and raising your profile,” she said. “If success is measured by how compelling a story sounds, rather than the soundness of the business, misrepresentation is inevitable.”

Photograph taken from X