4 ms·

Under 30-year sentences: why so many of Forbes’ young heroes face jail

88 points by frereubu 4y ago

ftxbro 4y ago
"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." Nah that's not it. It's selection bias. Many people are clever enough and born with some advantages and got education and good ideas and worked hard and smart etc. But some that do all of that also break some laws to get advantages. Those are going to be the ones rising even faster. Forbes' young heroes are the fastest rising ones so just by selection bias it's going to be full of lawbreakers.
- kajecounterhack 4y ago
  I disagree with your take. Feels more believable that the ecosystem's combination of {forward-looking + optimism + available capital} begets grifters trying to take advantage of that necessity (vs your take: that grifting is inherently advantageous). Typically grifting doesn't scale, or you're the one in a million Adam Neumann.
  - RobotToaster 4y ago
    Arguably, the fact they got caught proves it didn't scale well.
    - sam_goody 4y ago
      > “All the best hackers, all the best phreakers in the world, we don’t know who they are because they never got arrested. And they never went to prison. This is why you don’t know who the best ones in the world are. This is the truth. Think about it.” The closing comment in an interview with Susan Thunder [1]. That they got caught may just reflect their lack of experience at fraud. They re, after all, under thirty. [1]: https://www.theverge.com/c/22889425/susy-thunder-headley-hackers-phone-phreakers-claire-evans https://www.theverge.com/c/22889425/susy-thunder-headley-hac...
      - milleniall 4y ago
        It could also be that they have gotten way with "smaller things" before, but now they have chewed on something just a little bit too big.
      - kajecounterhack 4y ago
        Except failed vs successful grifters, we _kind of_ know who they are because it's part of their personality. Like "successful" would be folks like Adam Neumann or Anthony Levandowski. Not sure if Trump counts -- maybe most of his wealth is inherited.
  - pg_1234 4y ago
    "Fake it till you make it" culture. In any regulated industry this is also known as "fraud".
- hilbert42 4y ago
  "Forbes' young heroes are the fastest rising ones so just by selection bias it's going to be full of lawbreakers." No doubt society's go-getters take more risks and thus have high potential to get into trouble through impatience and over exuberance. Whilst impatience and exuberance likely play a role in why these young people are falling foul of the law I don't believe they are the main reasons. A few people seem to be intrinsically bad eggs and there's nothing likely to keep them on the straight-and-narrow, but for the rest Society has failed to indoctrinate them with a decent sense of ethics—they only develop pangs of guilt after being caught, not before they embark on some dubious course of action. A decent training in ethics from an early age would have provided that forewarning guilt. There's no doubt that in recent decades societal pressures to do the right/ethical thing in business has decreased significantly, and it seems to me that we'll continue to see many such cases until Society resets itself. However, I don't see that happening anytime soon. (I've thoughts on why Society's attitudes have changed for the worse when doing business but it's not feasible to expand on them here.) Incidentally, I've worked in both the private and public sectors and years ago when in the public sector I recall the frustration of trying to get things done in a lethargic rule-driven bureaucracy. There was always temptation to bypass the rules and on many occasions colleagues and I came close to nearly falling foul of them. We avoided any major trouble and kept ourselves 'clean' by adopting two approaches. The first was getting to know the auditors—not for the purposes of deceiving them but to know what they considered important—and we did this openly, this way they knew our problems and were usually more than helpfull with both official and unofficial advice (but nothing 'unlawful' of course). Second, was for us to get to know the rules well and work within them to the very limits allowed. (I recall chalking a large rectangle on the floor in front of my key staff whilst saying that doing anything inside the rectangle was permitted within the rules, stepping over the line was not. I'd then walk right around the chalked line whilst leaning over and almost falling into the 'unpermitted' outside area. I'd procede to say that to get things done this is how we have to do business—and to be successful and keep out of trouble each of us had the responsibility to hang on each others' belts to stop anyone falling into the 'forbidden' region.)
  - ftxbro 4y ago
    I feel like something has gone wrong somewhere if "getting to know the auditors" has become an important part of compliance.
anovikov 4y ago
Because these are stupid enough to propagandise their success by agreeing to be included in those lists (or maybe even actively seeking to get there!). They are also stupid enough to get caught. Those smart enough usually don't get caught, but they are also smart enough to keep low profile and we don't know about them.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Is part of this that prosecution is political process. Either targeting opposition or just in general highly visible targets. So if you make yourself a prominent public figure and also do stupid things that can get you caught. You are more likely to be prosecuted and stepping stone for someone?
  - alephnerd 4y ago
    If you're extremely visible, someone who is terminally online can easily dig into your background. Most people on the 30 under 30 list are also younger (and thus have at most a 20 year social media presence) and don't have the money, resources, or knowhow to scrub any personal data online.
scotty79 4y ago
The secret ingredient is crime.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bambax 4y ago
> Turns out those numbers might have been just a teeny bit exaggerated. On Tuesday Javice, 31, was charged by the justice department with “falsely and dramatically inflating the number of customers of her company” in order to get JPMorgan Chase to buy it. According to the lawsuit, Frank only had about 300,000 clients and fabricated data to show a larger customer base. She enlisted a data scientist to make up a few million customers, basically, and JPMorgan, which has about 240,000 employees and pays its CEO $34.5m for his expertise, didn’t seem to spot this in its due diligence. It's possible due diligence was performed, came out with reservations, and was ignored; if higher ups want to do a deal, they want to do a deal and that's that.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  These type of people implicitly trust people in their caste. You know the phrase "its a club and you ain't in it?" They are all in the club.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
danielrpa 4y ago
We have this idea that people under 30 are smarter, more agile and likely to innovate, Mar Zuckerberg said it himself. Guess what, most older people will facepalm when thinking about the stuff they did and said when they were under 30...
- koromak 4y ago
  I get better at pretty much everything I do, every year I grow older. Except maybe working out. I'm sure that will stop some day, but it sure as shit isn't 30.
  - jl2718 4y ago
    I did a lot of running races in Afghanistan with mostly very young troops. It was such a thrill beating them because it was so obvious that they were physically superior to me, just as my younger self was. But I could defeat them mentally, let them lead and then crush their spirits by gaining pace when they hit the pain and boredom and self-doubt of the middle. I knew they’d give up if they turned the corner and I had already turned the next. There’s no way I’d beat them in the height of spirits at the end if I didn’t crush them in the middle. I’m not sure there’s a direct analogy to SWE. Maybe acceptance of the necessity to do something the simple hard way rather than the complicated easy way.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pabe 4y ago
Years ago I read a report about a "consultancy" in Koblenz, Germany. At that time, they basically took a lot of money from males to tell them how to become "Alphas" and increased pressure if they didn't want to sign. So, at least low morale, shady business. A few weeks ago I got aware of one of the cofounders being on the Forbes list. So, just one more data point but maybe the selection done by Forbes really favors "bad people".
SkipperCat 4y ago
It’s very easy to game journalists. Especially when they are looking for content that fits a specific pattern. Sadly, a lot of them are under pressure to publish content with little resources for fact checking and tight schedules. Forbes is just a content mill. Sad but true.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  Journalism died when it started sleeping with politicians. The rest are either unpaid interns writing for by-lines, or corporate narrative salesmen and crafters. The only real journalism being done is by a handful of independents. If it comes out of a newsroom, it is often and simply narrative craft written by unpaid interns and 'journalism' grad students. For example, I read a story about a mysterious bubbling occurring on the side of a river. They interviewed some random people off the street, who expressed concern. The reporter went out to say the nearby power plant doesn't have any idea what it is. No other details. The report ends there, but a real journalist wouldn't stop. As a comment implied, a real journalist would go down to the local fire department, and ask the chief if they can test the gas with a gas meter for hazards. They take water, soil, and gas samples to a local college or lab to have them analyzed and report on the findings. Real journalism just doesn't exist anymore. It is a game of who can write the most inane spun content and draw the most clicks with low value ads. And today they want you to pay monthly for the honor of reading AI generated content.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - runnerup 4y ago
    ProPublica seems to be doing "real journalism" per your definition. I agree we need more.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    > Journalism died when it started sleeping with politicians. It died when ad-tech (Google, Facebook) and social media usurped and eroded quality journalism’s revenue base.
Woeps 4y ago
I don't know, but to me as an outsider it seems that all have them have grown up in a culture where a little bit of humility basically holds you back. But hey, I have a very biased view so it's probably wrong
- jl2718 4y ago
  It definitely does in the short game, but in the long run you’ll realize it was a stupid game.
pg938hkd 4y ago
Most people who are that rich engage in some sort of lawbreaking behavior to get there. Those that rose slower were able to build a history of political contributions and buy influence to protect against prosecution. If you rose to greatness in 5 years you are likely to get exposed and have not enough favors owed to get out of prosecution
- prottog 4y ago
  > Most people who are that rich engage in some sort of lawbreaking behavior to get there. That's a strong claim. Can you back it up? I'd say the more accurate view of the newly-minted rich of this type in the past decade is paper wealth, not marked to market, enabled by loose monetary policy. Forbes considered Elizabeth Holmes a billionaire less than ten years ago, but since then revised it down to zero.
  - pg938hkd 4y ago
    [dead]
anon223345 4y ago
Another issue - PR firms essentially lobby, and pay Forbes to list their clients in 30 under 30 and 40 under 40
- jl2718 4y ago
  This is the only essential fact of the matter. No need for the rest of the article. The reader can self-editorialize.
pjdkoch 4y ago
Dirty under thirty.

88 points by frereubu 4y ago

"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." Nah that's not it. It's selection bias. Many people are clever enough and born with some advantages and got education and good ideas and worked hard and smart etc. But some that do all of that also break some laws to get advantages. Those are going to be the ones rising even faster. Forbes' young heroes are the fastest rising ones so just by selection bias it's going to be full of lawbreakers.

kajecounterhack 4y ago
I disagree with your take. Feels more believable that the ecosystem's combination of {forward-looking + optimism + available capital} begets grifters trying to take advantage of that necessity (vs your take: that grifting is inherently advantageous). Typically grifting doesn't scale, or you're the one in a million Adam Neumann.
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  Arguably, the fact they got caught proves it didn't scale well.
  - sam_goody 4y ago
    > “All the best hackers, all the best phreakers in the world, we don’t know who they are because they never got arrested. And they never went to prison. This is why you don’t know who the best ones in the world are. This is the truth. Think about it.” The closing comment in an interview with Susan Thunder [1]. That they got caught may just reflect their lack of experience at fraud. They re, after all, under thirty. [1]: https://www.theverge.com/c/22889425/susy-thunder-headley-hackers-phone-phreakers-claire-evans https://www.theverge.com/c/22889425/susy-thunder-headley-hac...
    - milleniall 4y ago
      It could also be that they have gotten way with "smaller things" before, but now they have chewed on something just a little bit too big.
    - kajecounterhack 4y ago
      Except failed vs successful grifters, we _kind of_ know who they are because it's part of their personality. Like "successful" would be folks like Adam Neumann or Anthony Levandowski. Not sure if Trump counts -- maybe most of his wealth is inherited.
- pg_1234 4y ago
  "Fake it till you make it" culture. In any regulated industry this is also known as "fraud".
hilbert42 4y ago
"Forbes' young heroes are the fastest rising ones so just by selection bias it's going to be full of lawbreakers." No doubt society's go-getters take more risks and thus have high potential to get into trouble through impatience and over exuberance. Whilst impatience and exuberance likely play a role in why these young people are falling foul of the law I don't believe they are the main reasons. A few people seem to be intrinsically bad eggs and there's nothing likely to keep them on the straight-and-narrow, but for the rest Society has failed to indoctrinate them with a decent sense of ethics—they only develop pangs of guilt after being caught, not before they embark on some dubious course of action. A decent training in ethics from an early age would have provided that forewarning guilt. There's no doubt that in recent decades societal pressures to do the right/ethical thing in business has decreased significantly, and it seems to me that we'll continue to see many such cases until Society resets itself. However, I don't see that happening anytime soon. (I've thoughts on why Society's attitudes have changed for the worse when doing business but it's not feasible to expand on them here.) Incidentally, I've worked in both the private and public sectors and years ago when in the public sector I recall the frustration of trying to get things done in a lethargic rule-driven bureaucracy. There was always temptation to bypass the rules and on many occasions colleagues and I came close to nearly falling foul of them. We avoided any major trouble and kept ourselves 'clean' by adopting two approaches. The first was getting to know the auditors—not for the purposes of deceiving them but to know what they considered important—and we did this openly, this way they knew our problems and were usually more than helpfull with both official and unofficial advice (but nothing 'unlawful' of course). Second, was for us to get to know the rules well and work within them to the very limits allowed. (I recall chalking a large rectangle on the floor in front of my key staff whilst saying that doing anything inside the rectangle was permitted within the rules, stepping over the line was not. I'd then walk right around the chalked line whilst leaning over and almost falling into the 'unpermitted' outside area. I'd procede to say that to get things done this is how we have to do business—and to be successful and keep out of trouble each of us had the responsibility to hang on each others' belts to stop anyone falling into the 'forbidden' region.)
- ftxbro 4y ago
  I feel like something has gone wrong somewhere if "getting to know the auditors" has become an important part of compliance.

anovikov 4y ago

Because these are stupid enough to propagandise their success by agreeing to be included in those lists (or maybe even actively seeking to get there!). They are also stupid enough to get caught. Those smart enough usually don't get caught, but they are also smart enough to keep low profile and we don't know about them.

Ekaros 4y ago
Is part of this that prosecution is political process. Either targeting opposition or just in general highly visible targets. So if you make yourself a prominent public figure and also do stupid things that can get you caught. You are more likely to be prosecuted and stepping stone for someone?
- alephnerd 4y ago
  If you're extremely visible, someone who is terminally online can easily dig into your background. Most people on the 30 under 30 list are also younger (and thus have at most a 20 year social media presence) and don't have the money, resources, or knowhow to scrub any personal data online.

scotty79 4y ago

The secret ingredient is crime.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bambax 4y ago

> Turns out those numbers might have been just a teeny bit exaggerated. On Tuesday Javice, 31, was charged by the justice department with “falsely and dramatically inflating the number of customers of her company” in order to get JPMorgan Chase to buy it. According to the lawsuit, Frank only had about 300,000 clients and fabricated data to show a larger customer base. She enlisted a data scientist to make up a few million customers, basically, and JPMorgan, which has about 240,000 employees and pays its CEO $34.5m for his expertise, didn’t seem to spot this in its due diligence. It's possible due diligence was performed, came out with reservations, and was ignored; if higher ups want to do a deal, they want to do a deal and that's that.

willcipriano 4y ago
These type of people implicitly trust people in their caste. You know the phrase "its a club and you ain't in it?" They are all in the club.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

danielrpa 4y ago

We have this idea that people under 30 are smarter, more agile and likely to innovate, Mar Zuckerberg said it himself. Guess what, most older people will facepalm when thinking about the stuff they did and said when they were under 30...

koromak 4y ago
I get better at pretty much everything I do, every year I grow older. Except maybe working out. I'm sure that will stop some day, but it sure as shit isn't 30.
- jl2718 4y ago
  I did a lot of running races in Afghanistan with mostly very young troops. It was such a thrill beating them because it was so obvious that they were physically superior to me, just as my younger self was. But I could defeat them mentally, let them lead and then crush their spirits by gaining pace when they hit the pain and boredom and self-doubt of the middle. I knew they’d give up if they turned the corner and I had already turned the next. There’s no way I’d beat them in the height of spirits at the end if I didn’t crush them in the middle. I’m not sure there’s a direct analogy to SWE. Maybe acceptance of the necessity to do something the simple hard way rather than the complicated easy way.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pabe 4y ago

Years ago I read a report about a "consultancy" in Koblenz, Germany. At that time, they basically took a lot of money from males to tell them how to become "Alphas" and increased pressure if they didn't want to sign. So, at least low morale, shady business. A few weeks ago I got aware of one of the cofounders being on the Forbes list. So, just one more data point but maybe the selection done by Forbes really favors "bad people".

SkipperCat 4y ago

It’s very easy to game journalists. Especially when they are looking for content that fits a specific pattern. Sadly, a lot of them are under pressure to publish content with little resources for fact checking and tight schedules. Forbes is just a content mill. Sad but true.

PM_me_your_math 4y ago
Journalism died when it started sleeping with politicians. The rest are either unpaid interns writing for by-lines, or corporate narrative salesmen and crafters. The only real journalism being done is by a handful of independents. If it comes out of a newsroom, it is often and simply narrative craft written by unpaid interns and 'journalism' grad students. For example, I read a story about a mysterious bubbling occurring on the side of a river. They interviewed some random people off the street, who expressed concern. The reporter went out to say the nearby power plant doesn't have any idea what it is. No other details. The report ends there, but a real journalist wouldn't stop. As a comment implied, a real journalist would go down to the local fire department, and ask the chief if they can test the gas with a gas meter for hazards. They take water, soil, and gas samples to a local college or lab to have them analyzed and report on the findings. Real journalism just doesn't exist anymore. It is a game of who can write the most inane spun content and draw the most clicks with low value ads. And today they want you to pay monthly for the honor of reading AI generated content.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- runnerup 4y ago
  ProPublica seems to be doing "real journalism" per your definition. I agree we need more.
- FabHK 4y ago
  > Journalism died when it started sleeping with politicians. It died when ad-tech (Google, Facebook) and social media usurped and eroded quality journalism’s revenue base.

Woeps 4y ago

I don't know, but to me as an outsider it seems that all have them have grown up in a culture where a little bit of humility basically holds you back. But hey, I have a very biased view so it's probably wrong

jl2718 4y ago
It definitely does in the short game, but in the long run you’ll realize it was a stupid game.

pg938hkd 4y ago

Most people who are that rich engage in some sort of lawbreaking behavior to get there. Those that rose slower were able to build a history of political contributions and buy influence to protect against prosecution. If you rose to greatness in 5 years you are likely to get exposed and have not enough favors owed to get out of prosecution

prottog 4y ago
> Most people who are that rich engage in some sort of lawbreaking behavior to get there. That's a strong claim. Can you back it up? I'd say the more accurate view of the newly-minted rich of this type in the past decade is paper wealth, not marked to market, enabled by loose monetary policy. Forbes considered Elizabeth Holmes a billionaire less than ten years ago, but since then revised it down to zero.
- pg938hkd 4y ago
  [dead]

anon223345 4y ago

Another issue - PR firms essentially lobby, and pay Forbes to list their clients in 30 under 30 and 40 under 40

jl2718 4y ago
This is the only essential fact of the matter. No need for the rest of the article. The reader can self-editorialize.

pjdkoch 4y ago

Dirty under thirty.