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The video games industry isn’t just growing—it’s exploding. Between 2017 and 2021, global revenues in gaming surged by more than $100 billion, according to Boston Consulting Group. And 2026 Under 30 honoree Jordan Lazarus saw the shift early.

Like many teenagers, Lazarus was hooked on gaming. And when Fortnite dropped onto the scene and turned players into influencers, he recognized a business opportunity. Today, he runs Xen Gaming, an esports team and talent agency representing 35 gaming creators, who compete under the Xen banner in major tournaments while Lazarus secures brand deals with partners like Amazon and Walmart.

“The best way to understand that concept is to think of any sports team. I own a team in gaming like the Knicks, and we have players that play for us,” Lazarus explains. “And instead of letting these players join an agency, we represent them, run their emails, do their legal. We’re a one-stop shop for talent.”

It’s a relatively new model, but one that’s paying off: Xen’s roster boasts a combined following of 45 million, with creators posting daily across games like Fortnite and Call of Duty, alongside lifestyle content on platforms like YouTube. Standouts include U.K.-based @AaronTheLoco, known for his Call of Duty content and 1 million TikTok followers, and @BushCampDad, whose 1.8 million YouTube subscribers tune in for Fortnite strategies. “My job is helping these creators monetize, scale, do merchandise, production, everything they possibly need,” Lazarus says.

Now 27, Lazarus began laying the groundwork while he was in college. He launched an Instagram account called @Fortnite.clips, betting that users would search for exactly that. The account quickly grew to 50,000 followers, giving him leverage to reach out to streamers he was already watching and offering to help expand their audiences.

But audience growth alone wasn’t enough. So a 21-year-old Lazarus flew himself from Long Island to San Diego for TwitchCon. That trip led to his first major deal—a six-figure partnership with gaming gear company Logitech, featuring six Xen creators.

Since then, Lazarus has brokered partnerships with brands like Nascar, 7-Eleven, Tetris and GoPro, with brand deals serving as Xen’s “breadwinner.” (There’s no upfront costs for creators to join the Xen team, but the company takes commission from every deal.) Their deals also extend beyond traditional advertising: With tools like Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), brands can now build full campaigns directly inside games.

The market opportunity is big, but Lazarus keeps his team small. Creators who aren’t showing signs of growth don’t stay on the roster, he said: “It is a business at the end of the day.”

Lazarus owns 100% of the company and operates with just one other full-time employee—plus contracted production crews, editors and legal support. Though he raised a SAFE as a teenager, he says he hasn’t felt pressure to raise more capital, choosing instead to scale through revenue. That discipline came at a cost, though: He didn’t pay himself for the first three years.

With Grand Theft Auto VI finally set to release this year, Lazarus expects another surge in the industry. The highly-anticipated title comes well over a decade after GTA V, and reportedly carries a development and marketing budget of over $1 billion.

“It’s going to change a lot, the advancement in that game. I think it’s good for the culture because whenever there’s advancement, everyone’s chasing it,” he says. “All the biggest games are now going to have to spend a lot of money to compete. And gaming’s going to continue to just boom.”

See you next week,

Zoya & Alex

Sam Bankman-Fried’s Venture Bets Would Have Made Him $100 Billion Richer Had He Stayed Out Of Prison

Before FTX collapsed, Bankman-Fried assembled a prescient portfolio brimming with home runs, including Anthropic and SpaceX. Lucky vulture investors will reap astonishing returns, as crypto’s boy wonder serves out his 25-year sentence. Read more here.

Lister Lowdown

-Pro hacker-turned-founder and Under 30 2025 alumna Zoe Wrenn announced this week an additional $2 million in funding into her AI music startup, Tamber, bringing the startup’s total funding to $5 million. A musician herself, Wrenn understands the power of human-made music in an AI world. So while Tamber allows musicians to use prompts to create music based on the “color, texture, taste, feeling, or place” they want to emulate, all sound created on Tamber comes from an original library built entirely from real-world audio, rather than synthetic sources. Investors include Adobe Ventures, Rackhouse Venture Capital, M13 and more, and the new funding comes just ahead of a public launch this month (following Tamber’s previously active beta offerings).

-AI-powered financial platform Rogo announced this week a $160 million Series D fundraising round led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Sequoia, Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures and others. Rogo was founded by Under 30 listers Tumas Rackaitis, Gabriel Stengel and John Willett in 2021 and made its way to the Under 30 list in 2026. The new cash—which will go toward global expansion and scaling the startup’s AI agent, Felix—brings the platform’s total funding to more than $300 million.

The Local Spotlight: Forbes Under 30 Arizona

We’re bringing you the scoop on a new Under 30 Local Arizona community member. Up this week: Nina Cedro and Erica Kazuko, the cofounders of TalaKō Creative. They launched their creative marketing agency in 2025 and have more than a dozen small business clients on their roster.

The two met through Arizona’s dance community long before they became business partners. When they met, they were both freelancing in social media and content creation, and soon found their joint interest in creating more intentional, community-driven marketing campaigns for small businesses and founders.

The following has been slightly edited for length and clarity.

The name TalaKō Creative comes from your Filipino and Japanese roots. Can you describe the inspiration for the name?Cedro: The name TalaKō Creative was deeply inspired by both of our cultural backgrounds as AAPI women. When we were brainstorming names for the agency, we knew from the beginning that we wanted something that reflected both of our heritages while also tying back to the heart of our creative approach.

Kazuko: “Tala” means star or shining light in Tagalog, and “Ko” means child in Japanese. For us, TalaKō represents using childlike creativity and imagination to shine a light on the stories of local businesses.

What were you doing before launching the brand, and what did you each bring from that school, work, and career experience into this startup?Cedro: I spent almost eight years at Tesla across sales, operations, and service leadership roles. Alongside my corporate career, I was heavily involved in community work within the Filipino American and broader Asian American community. I currently serve as a Senior Director for the PUSO Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit focused on supporting underserved communities through education, housing, and humanitarian initiatives.

What I ultimately brought into TalaKō Creative was a combination of operational structure, relationship-building, and strategic thinking. Erica and I complement each other very naturally: She leads with an incredibly strong creative vision, while I tend to focus on operations, client relationships, growth strategy, and business development.

Kazuko: Before launching TalaKō Creative, my path honestly wasn’t linear. I originally wanted to study marketing, but at the time I didn’t think I was a creative person. So I worked in banking and later in the mortgage industry.

The biggest turning point for me was dance. Once I started training, I fully immersed myself in it, eventually launching my own dance brand in 2024. Dance completely changed how I viewed creativity and community. It taught me that creativity is something you develop through practice, not something you’re simply born with.

The world of digital media, marketing and advertising has changed drastically in the last few years. What do most clients come to you for today?Cedro: So many of our clients are wearing an overwhelming number of hats at once. They’re managing operations, staffing, customer experience, finances—and on top of that, they’re expected to consistently market themselves online. That’s where we typically come in. Most clients initially approach us for content creation, social media management, and digital marketing strategy, but our role often evolves into acting as a fractional marketing partner for the business.

A huge part of our work is helping founders clearly tell their story and creating brand alignment. We want the experience someone has online—through social media, content, or a website—to feel consistent with the product, service, or environment they experience in real life.

Is there a trend that you have seen emerge as a game-changer in marketing and advertising over the last five years?

Kazuko: One of the biggest game changers has been brands building publicly before everything is fully polished or complete. More founders are bringing audiences into the process early by sharing behind-the-scenes moments, challenges, growth, and the real journey of building something.

And as AI becomes more integrated into marketing and content creation, human connection becomes even more valuable. The brands that are winning right now are the ones creating genuine trust and community, not just visibility.

What about a trend that’s fallen off?Cedro: There was a period where many businesses felt pressure to jump on every viral audio, meme, or social trend simply for visibility, but audiences have become much more aware of when content feels forced or disconnected from the brand itself.

Trends still absolutely have a place in marketing, but I think consumers today are looking for more intentionality and authenticity.

Any dream collabs, clients or projects on your vision board?Cedro: Lucy Guo. After spending time immersed in Arizona Tech Week and the Forbes Under 30 Summit ecosystem, I’ve become really inspired by founders who are building innovative companies while also understanding the importance of strong branding, storytelling, and community around what they create.

As an Asian American woman, representation has always mattered deeply to me, especially in entrepreneurship and leadership spaces that haven’t always felt accessible or reflective of our communities. Seeing women like Lucy Guo building at such a high level while remaining unapologetically themselves is incredibly inspiring.

Kazuko: Reese Witherspoon and her company Hello Sunshine, or Olympic skier Eileen Gu.

I connect deeply with Reese’s journey because she didn’t come from a traditional business background either. Seeing how she turned storytelling into such an impactful company has been really motivating to me as a founder.

For Eileen Gu, as an Asian American woman, the representation she brings is incredibly powerful. Beyond her accomplishments, I’m really drawn to her mindset, discipline, and the way she carries herself across so many different spaces. I could easily see her building an amazing company one day with a strong culture and purpose behind it.

Why have you decided to build this company in Arizona?Cedro: We genuinely believe this is one of the most exciting growth markets in the country right now. As someone who transplanted here, I’ve watched Arizona—especially Phoenix—evolve incredibly quickly over the last few years. Between the influx of new residents, expanding industries, major companies establishing operations here, and the overall momentum around innovation and entrepreneurship, it felt like there was a real opportunity to build something meaningful in a rapidly growing environment.

Kazuko: What I love most is that even with all of that growth, the community still feels very connected and collaborative. People genuinely want to support each other and see one another succeed, especially within the small business and creative communities. For the type of company we’re building, that environment has been really important.

What are 3 words you’d use to describe the Arizona startup ecosystem? Cedro: Evolving, Scrappy, Innovative.

Kazuko: Growing, Inspiring, Collaborative.

“Promote, hire, fire”: TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn?

Cedro: For a founder or personal brand, I’d probably say:

Promote: Instagram; Hire: LinkedIn; Fire: TikTok.

But I actually think the answer changes depending on whether you’re talking about a personal brand versus a small business.

Kazuko: I agree that each platform serves a very different purpose.

For a product-based brand, I’d say: Promote: TikTok; Hire: Instagram; Fire: LinkedIn

For a personal founder brand: Promote: Instagram; Hire: LinkedIn; Fire: TikTok.

What’s something you think too many small businesses focus too much on? Not enough on?Cedro: Too much focus: Vanity metrics—things like follower count, views, or trying to make every piece of content look perfect.

Not enough: Consistency and branding alignment.

Kazuko: Too much focus: Trying to “go viral.”

Not enough: Building genuine connection and consistency.