In 2020, Jason Kuperberg, aged 27, and Matt Shumer, aged 23, established Otherside AI, a startup dedicated to creating innovative tools such as the writing assistant HyperWrite. This advanced tool utilizes generative AI to assist nearly 2 million users in crafting various content formats, including birthday cards, tweets, and essay outlines. Currently, the duo is actively developing an AI agent capable of navigating browsers autonomously to perform tasks like flight bookings and pizza orders.
Both Kuperberg and Shumer have been recognized among the notable individuals on the 2024 Forbes 30 Under 30 Consumer Tech list, which showcases young entrepreneurs who are significantly impacting the realm of consumer technology.
For over a decade, Forbes has been showcasing young tech visionaries, researchers, and tech leaders through the annual 30 Under 30 Consumer Tech list. To qualify for this year’s list, all candidates needed to be under 30 years old as of December 31, 2024, and must not have been previously featured on a 30 Under 30 list in North America, Asia, or Europe.
The selection process for this year’s list involved reviewing numerous nominations and online submissions from diverse sources, along with extensive research and outreach conducted by the list editors. A distinguished panel of judges, including Uttara Sivaram, an Under 30 alumna and privacy expert; Steve Jang, the founder of Kindred Ventures, an early-stage VC firm; Stephanie Marrus, the managing director of entrepreneurship at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF); and Dave Salvant, the co-founder of Squire, a barbershop booking app valued at $750 million, evaluated the candidates.
One notable trend among this year’s listmakers is the significant influence of AI across various domains. The automation of investment processes has been revolutionized by Eve Halimi, aged 27, and Anam Lakhani, aged 26, the founders of Alinea Invest, an AI-based investment app that is projected to generate $1.2 million in revenue in 2023. Additionally, more than 200,000 GenZ individuals utilize the platform to enhance their investment knowledge and manage their portfolios effectively. Meanwhile, at Tempo Labs, based in Toronto, Peter Gokhshteyn and Kevin Michael, both aged 28, are developing tools that enable users to input text prompts to generate and modify code for creating web pages and applications. Gokhshteyn emphasizes, “Our AI empowers non-technical individuals to produce high-quality code without extensive engineering expertise.”
Another noteworthy entrepreneur, Jordan Singer, aged 28, transitioned from a product designer to establish Diagram, an AI design startup that gained popularity among its 100,000 users before being acquired by the \(20 billion design corporation, Figma, in 2023. The educational sector is also experiencing disruption through AI, as highlighted by **Jagriti Agrawal**, aged 28, the co-founder of Kira Learning. This platform, focused on computer science education, utilizes AI to identify errors in students’ code. With a valuation of \)75 million, Kira Learning has already generated $2.5 million in revenue this year.
Several founders featured on the list have been successful in developing tools to identify AI-generated text and images. For instance, in response to the rising popularity of text-to-image AI tools, Emily Wenger, aged 29, Shawn Shan, aged 26, and Jenna Cryan, aged 29, co-founded Glaze. This Chicago-based initiative aims to safeguard artists from unauthorized usage of their work in AI training datasets. Their tools have benefitted over a million artists. Moreover, Edward Tian, aged 23, and Alexander Cui, aged 25, created GPTZero from their dormitory to detect text produced by conversational AI chatbots like ChatGPT. This tool has gained immense popularity, boasting 1.5 million registered users from various professions, including educators and journalists.
Beyond the realm of AI, entrepreneurs are leveraging technology to address critical social issues that are often overlooked. Vedant Pradeep, aged 27, serves as the CEO and co-founder of Reframe, an app designed to reduce alcohol consumption, which achieved \(13 million in revenue in 2022 and is currently valued at \)350 million. Additionally, Max Mayblum, aged 29, launched Givers, a platform facilitating 15,000 caregivers in receiving timely payments through program enrollments. Immigrant entrepreneurs Caleb Lee, aged 28, Timothy Makalinao, aged 27, and Larry Zhang, aged 27, collaborated to establish Bandana, a job search platform committed to offering transparency regarding hourly-wage job opportunities.
These exceptional individuals represent just a fraction of the remarkable talents featured on this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 Consumer Tech list. Explore the profiles of all the honorees across various categories in the 30 Under 30 2024 edition.
