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From AI tools to social media-style news sites, Under 30 honorees like Aaron Parnas, Eli Rallo and more are shaping the media industry of tomorrow.
By Alexandra York, Dean Sterling Jones and Nicole McElroy
When Victor Perez was eighteen, he faced a crucial decision: study classical guitar at a Spanish music conservatory, or enroll in university to study technology. The Barcelona native decided to merge both interests by studying audiovisual systems engineering at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. At school, Perez dove into academic research on AI—and sparked the idea for Krea, his creative tools software platform that lets anyone generate professional-level art (Think: photo, video, and graphic design).
Launched in 2022 with cofounder Diego Rodriguez Prado, 29, Krea is now backed by $83 million from investors like Bain Capital Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Abstract Ventures.
“It was not that I saw a problem and started a company to fix it. Everything was kind of chaotic and kind of serendipitous at first,” says Perez, now 28. “I got really interested in AI and coding coming from a creative background, and there was a small movement of people growing, especially on Twitter, who were researching how to do creative stuff with AI.”
Perez and Prado are emblematic of the young leaders in the media industry today. This year’s 30 Under 30 Media list honorees are using technology to make old media new again, creating their own content and democratizing access to news.
Take Jack Brewster, 29, who is cutting through the chaotic news space with Newsreel. The former journalist founded the platform after realizing that traditional media was failing to engage his own generation. “Journalism wasn’t reaching them,” Brewster tells Forbes. “So I built something that could.” His solution? An interactive app that uses a visual, swipeable format (not dissimilar to social media platforms) to make the news more engaging to Gen Z. The app now boasts a waitlist of more than 10,000 users and has partnerships with universities like Oberlin College and Penn State.
Meanwhile, independent journalist and lawyer Aaron Parnas, 26, has built a 630,000-subscriber politics and current events newsletter, The Parnas Perspective—which is the top “news” publisher on Substack. And he counts 7 million followers across social media. Readers—and viewers—come to his pages to learn about complex legal and political stories in more straightforward ways. Says Parnas: “The biggest myth about young people is that we don’t care. Nothing could be further from the truth—we’re organizing, mobilizing, and driving the next wave of change in this country.”
Even today’s authors are using modern means to build readership. Eli Rallo, 27, started as a content creator on TikTok before publishing her first non-fiction book, I Didn’t Know I Needed This, in 2023. This year, she published her second, Does Anyone Else Feel This Way?, and she’ll release her debut fiction novel, I Hope Eden Reads This, in 2027. Beyond her own work, she also runs the online book club and “literary salon” called Prose Hoes, consisting of in-person events and a podcast to discuss her latest reads.
While there’s a strong focus on founders, a range of changemakers on the 2026 list are poised to make waves inside their organizations. James Tralie, 28, is NASA’s star storyteller, producing TV shows, films and digital content to keep more than 10 million viewers engaged with the organization’s mission and discoveries—his work even led him to an Emmy nomination. Audrey Blackmore, 28, is a producer at sports media site Boardroom, where her coverage on athletes like A’ja Wilson and Paul George attract 23 million monthly views—thanks largely to her trailers and b-roll promoting their content. At Andreessen Horowitz, Brent Liang, 28, leads the firm’s new media arm, which produces videos, trailers and movies for the firm’s portfolio companies.
From AI creative tools to TikTok news platforms, the media industry has changed drastically in the 15 years since the Under 30 list first launched. And it’s true that some fear for what the future holds. But the leaders on this year’s list are building with the times—to make old new again, and to create what’s next.
“What is important is to adapt,” says Perez. “At the end of the day, I don’t think that this is something meant to replace. It is something meant to allow creatives to have more possibilities, with formats they might have never been able to create.”
To select the 2026 honorees, Forbes editors collected nominations from Under 30 alumni and the public, conducted our own research and tapped the expertise of independent judges: Jenny Chiu, broadcast journalist; Iman Hariri-Kia, author; Hernan Lopez, founder, Owl & Co; and Lynette Nylander, executive digital director, Harper’s Bazaar. Of those named to the final list, 48% are women, 35% identify as people of color, and 70% are founders. All candidates in this year’s class must have been 29 or younger as of December 31, 2025, and never before named to a Europe, North America or Asia 30 Under 30 list.
This year’s list was edited by Alexandra York, Dean Sterling Jones and Nicole McElroy. For a link to our complete 2026 30 Under 30 Media list, click here, and for full 2026 30 Under 30 coverage, click here.
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