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More useful for most people: is the company you are considering doing business with run by one of these fine upstanding folks?
This seems extremely mean spirited.
Yes, but so? It provides a modicum of balance versus relentless hype by founders and the doting media. Even if not true it might remind people to have some healthy skepticism. The fact that your reflex is to find it "extremely mean spirited" speaks volumes. Everyone else in life gets shat apron because of other people's unscrupulous behavior, why are these people special? People should assume that there is a good chance any business venture is a fraud.

Ultimately it's one guy's opinion. It's not like he's going to ruin these people's lives or businesses.

The Nikola founder, and Anthony Levandowski for that matter (seems to have gone under the radar), have got to be the most egregious case of corruption and pay-for-play. It's so depressing that no one can do anything about it.
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Some of these really don't make sense. The implication that Cursor is a fraudulent company is a little weird considering they actually have real users.

Like sure, is it a VS code fork with agents stapled to it? Yes. But are they on the same scale as most of the people mentioned? Ehh probably not.

It reads more like a hit piece from someone with a grudge against random SF companies than anything else.

It looks like the score number is just the number of times featured multiplied by a constant.
> The implication that Cursor is a fraudulent company is a little weird

To my reading the premise of the site is pretty straightforward: 30 Under 30 is a warning sign, not a positive signal. Therefore, as a company with 4 founders who were in 30 Under 30, Cursor is a risk.

It’s a silly little satire site, there’s a danger of reading into it too deeply.

Maybe it was added after your comment but that section has a warning box calling the score a "deliberately absurd formula" and saying "this is comedy" in literal bold letters at the top. No one thinks it's serious and it's even clearly labeled as a joke just in case.
the stupidity to this is that it takes a meme and treats it like facts

yes, numerous 30u30 have committed frauds, and yes this list is a paid list. but it's also full of other people who have been duped by what this list represents. compounding memes at the expense of truth just creates more problems than it solves

I wouldn’t work for a company where the founder/ceo was younger than 35 and had zero real world experience.
Forbes "30 under 30" actually has like 600 people a year in 20 categories, and that's just in the USA. Add in international lists and the number rises to well over 1000. Since 2011 there have probably been, what, 10-15 thousand total "honorees"? ~12 instances of fraud in total is probably significantly below the corporate average.

And the "risk index" is idiotic. Basically just companies the creator doesn't like, or is jealous of.

Is "30 under 30" one of those schemes that require people to put themselves forward and maybe pay a fee? I've seen a bunch of "awards" (particularly for companies) that follow the same model.
It’s amusing and bemusing how these lists have become so associated with grifters and fraudsters.

It’s gotten to the point that legit folks are wanting to steer clear of them simply because of the negative stigma with being seen as an XuX grifter.

How old is this site, because most of the reference links are dead links
What is a person who makes a site like this thinking about when they do it?

What is their motivation? What are they trying to achieve?

I think the site likely started off as a meme. However it also seems to have a bit of a "hit piece" vibe to it in the last section
Is the formula based on the actual probabilities. I’m pretty sure you could do that, but it’s not clear it it.
percentage wise they have more billionaires than frauds on the list, at least so far.
I've met several of the people on the first few pages on the watch list, and they are among the sketchiest Silicon Valley people I've met. The criteria are plausible.
Would say, the 30 under 30 list has like 600 people, not 30. So the fraud rate is quite a bit lower than headlines of seemingly 2 / 30. Its more like 2 / 600, which is maybe the baseline fraud rate?
> Risk Index

> Mercor — 3x on 30u30

Interesting, I only know this company because they’re the leading spammer hitting my inbox in the AI job board category.

I'm all for the big names and ones that have proven issues and companies like Delve to be shamed

But Cursor? Why they are operating in a risky space on tech that is all new what ethical things did they do to warrent inclusion in this shame board?

Lets not tarnish folks either -cancel culture is worrisome there

We're Missing the biggest frauds of all time: https://www.whitehouse.gov/

When your president is a complete fraud and con man, the whole country is tarnished - its too late for America to bounce back, we are in end stage capitalism now that Trump and his cronies are siphoning money out of the boundaries his administration establish -no different than Putin and his oligrachs except that America still has some protections in place..

Seems like there should be an incarcerated stamp for people who were in jail for fraud but later got out, like Shkreli.