It was a golden decade for young tech founders. Over the last ten years, young founders built and grew the social media companies that now dominate the entire media world. Others spurred mobile commerce, created powerful marketing techniques, invented new forms of content and built dynamic, influential consumer brands.
It’s no small coincidence that the film The Social Network, which delivered to the world a fictionalized mythology of the founding of Facebook, debuted at the start of the last decade in the fall of 2010. The film, a cautionary tale about the power and influence tech networks, rocketed entrepreneurship and start-ups into the national zeitgeist. It made tech cool in the same way that the movie Wall Street—another cautionary tale of wealth and power—gave an earlier generation dreams of trading floor greatness and made greed look good.
In the years following came Instagram, Spotify, Snap, Pinterest, Dropbox, Tinder, Bumble—all sprung from the minds of 20-somethings. These new companies sparked unique new ecosystems in which other new billion-dollar companies developed and thrived.
As the chronicler of bold, young leaders, the Forbes Under 30 franchise had a front-row seat for all of this action. Started in December 2011, our Under 30 lists have studied and highlighted the exploits of the world’s top tech leaders. Many have graced the cover of Forbes and have been subjects of definitive features.
Below are the top Under 30 tech founders of the decade—arranged purely in order of valuation. They have all scaled to incredible size, value and influence. To see how far these companies have come, we’ve included their original Under 30 bios. It makes for a fascinating look back at just how fast tech has moved in the last decade, and offers a valuable glimpse into what the next ten years could have in store. Take a look.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
1. Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook
Company valuation: $595 billion
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: 2011 (27 years old)
Fun Fact: Facebook’s valuation was roughly $80 billion in late 2011. Zuckerberg’s personal net worth today? $77 billion.
Original Excerpt: At the age of 27, his company dominates social media. And he was the subject of an Oscar-winning film.
1. Dustin Moskovitz: Facebook and Asana
Company valuation: $595 billion
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: 2011 (28 years old)
Fun Fact: Moskovitz, a cofounder of Facebook, debuted on our first Under 30 list as the founder of another company—the productivity app Asana, which today has an estimated valuation of $1.5 billion.
Original Excerpt: Facebook alums now trying to end our addiction to email.
Instagram founder Kevin Systrom
3. Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger: Instagram
Company Valuation: ~$100 billion** (bought by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012, the value of Instagram as a stand alone company has been a subject of great debate).
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: Systrom: 2011 (28 years old). Krieger: 2015 (28 years old)
Fun Fact: Back in 2011 Instagram had 15 million users then. Today: 1 Billion plus.
Original Excerpt: In the 14 months since its launch, Instagram has become one of the most widely used social media platforms in the world, with around 15 million users. The photo-sharing app – currently available only on Apple devices — allows users to instantly add special effects to their images. "We worked really hard on making it really easy for people to share their lives in a beautiful way. It’s one thing to share a photo. It’s another for that photo to be gorgeous.”
Spotify Founder Daniel Ek
4. Patrick Collison and John Collison: Stripe
Company Valuation: $35 billion* (private company)
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: 2014 (25 and 23 years old)
Original Excerpt: Backed by Y Combinator, and having raised $50 million from the likes of Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz and PayPal alums, Patrick Collison built Stripe, an online payments company that processes billions of dollars a year for thousands of companies in 11 countries. Originally from Ireland, Collison (the CEO) developed Stripe with brother John (the president). Patrick studied math at MIT and previously sold online auction and management system Auctomatic to Canada’s Live Current Media for $5 million.
4. Daniel Ek: Spotify
Company Valuation: $28 billion
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: 2011 (28 years old)
Key Stat: At the time Ek, who graced the cover our our first-ever Under 30 issue, had 15 million users and had yet to enter the U.S. market. Today Spotify has around 250 million active users—110 million pay for subscriptions.
Original Excerpt: The music industry has been waiting more than a decade for Ek. Or more specifically, someone—anyone—who could build something (a) more enticing to consumers than piracy while (b) providing a sustainable revenue model.”
5. Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy: Snap
Company Valuation: $23.5 billion
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: 2014 (23 and 25 years old)
Fun Fact: Debuted on list with 35 employees. Today Snap has more than 2,700.
Original Excerpt: Run Snapchat, a mobile app used to send 400 million disappearing photos and videos each day. The company raised $50 million at a near $2 billion valuation in December and is reported to have turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook.
6. Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp: Pintrest
Company Valuation: $10.25 billion
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: 2011 (29/28 years old)
Fun Fact: A few months before making this Under 30 List, Pinterest had raised $10 million at a $40 million valuation.
Original Excerpt: Created Pinterest, the hot new website for people to collect images of things online, because text is so last year
7. Sean Rad and Justin Mateen: Tinder
Company Valuation: $10 billion** (Part of the Match Group dating empire, Tinder’s value has recently been estimated around $10 billion)
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: 2014
Original Excerpt: As the CEO and cofounder of Tinder, Rad runs an IAC-backed mobile dating app that makes four million matches each day. He previously founded Adly, a marketing firm that connected brands with celebrity Twitter endorsements. His cofounder Mateen is Tinder's CMO and previously started the Facebook app CoverCanvas.
8. Drew Houston: Dropbox
Company Valuation: $7.5 billion
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: 2011 (28 years old)
Original Excerpt: His simple tool for storing digital stuff is a hit with 50 million users and $240 million sales.
Canva founder Melanie Perkins
9. Melanie Perkins: Canva
Company Valuation: $3.2 billion
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: 2016—Forbes Asia List (28 years old)
Fun Fact: At the time of the list, Perkins had raised $27 million at a $165 million valuation.
Original Excerpt: From the realization that design tools were too complex and expensive, Melanie Perkins cofounded Canva to empower anyone to design. Since launching in 2013, the simple online design platform has reached 8 million users across 179 countries. Corporates like Yelp and Lonely Planet use Canva to to create brand assets. The company employees 100 people mainly in Sydney and Manila. Canva raised $27.6 million, valuing the company at $165 million.
10. Whitney Wolfe Herd: Bumble
Company Valuation: $3 billion* (private company)
Forbes Under 30 Class year: 2017 (27 years old)
Original Excerpt: Wolfe cofounded Tinder and worked to market the app as it became a viral sensation. She left the company and sued over sexual harassment claims, but later settled. Wolfe also started Bumble, a dating app that only allows women to initiate contact. Bumble is majority owned by European dating company, Badoo, though Wolfe oversees day-to-day operations.
11. Steph Korey and Jen Rubio: Away
Company valuation: $1.4 billion* (private company)
Forbes Under 30 Class Year: Korey, 2016 (27 years old); Rubio, 2015 (27 years old).
Fun Fact: While Korey made the 2016 Under 30 list as CEO of Away, cofounder Jen Rubio had already made the 2015 list with another venture: cold pressed juice company, Savse Smoothies.
Original Excerpt: [Korey] ran the supply chain at Warby Parker and Casper before going into business with list alum Jen Rubio, recently raising $2.5 million to launch Away, bringing high-end luggage to the mass market.
12. Emily Weiss, Glossier
Company Valuation: $1.2 billion* (private company)
Under 30 Class Year: 2015 (29 years old)
Original Excerpt: The former Vogue and W Magazine fashion assistant and NYU grad started beauty blog Into The Gloss as a side project in 2010, working on it from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. before her day job. It quickly blossomed from sceney favorite to genuine must-read, generating some 10 million page views a month — and, crucially, a cult following — 60% of readers check in almost daily. After three years interviewing celebs and fashionistas about their beauty habits and testing a heap of products, Weiss discovered a huge gap in the (old-fashioned and rife for disruption) beauty market: stuff that feels luxurious without being frou-frou, and is accessible and affordable. After raising $2 million and hiring folks from Index Ventures, Google and cosmetics giant MAC, Weiss launched Glossier in October, a direct-to-consumer line of beauty products that, she says, "You'll want to be friends with." A month after launching her first collection of useful, prettily packaged and inexpensive creams and balms, Weiss announced Glossier had raised an additional $8.4 million in a Series A round led by Thrive Capital and existing investors including Lerer Hippeau, Forerunner Ventures and Bonobos' Andy Dunn to scale up.
13. Neil Parikh: Casper
Company Valuation: $1.1 billion* (private company)
Under 30 Class Year: 2015 (25)
Fun Fact: In four years Casper has gone from $10 million in venture funding to more than $340 million.
Original Excerpt: Parikh cofounded Casper, a mattress company with about $15 million in venture funding that is trying to change the way people buy mattresses. Casper ships mattresses direct to consumers and has proprietary sleep technology. Now serving as Casper's COO, Parikh previously founded Consignd, a virtual consignment marketplace.
Rachel Romer Carlson founder of Guild Education
14. Rachel Romer Carlson and Brittany Stich: Guild Education
Company Valuation: $1 billion* (private company)
Under 30 Class Year: 2017 (both 28 years old)
Fun Fact: In 2017, Guild had raised $10.5 million in VC funding. The company has since raised $218 million more.
Original Excerpt: Guild sits at the intersection of three groups: companies such as Chipotle looking offer education-as-a-benefit to employees, adult learners interested in upping their credentials and U.S. universities out grow their online student body. Founded by Carlson and Stich in 2015, students can take classes and enroll in accredited programs and degrees from schools such as Straighter Line and Colorado State University. They have some $10.5 million in funding and have enrolled some 1,700 working adults. Carlson's background includes an MBA, MA and BA from Stanford University and a stint in the Obama White House in the Office of Presidential Personnel. Stich, a first generation college student and Teach for America Alumni, holds a MBA, M.Ed and BA from Stanford University.
