Big Sean, Drew Afualo And More Share The Importance Of Mental Health, Community And Connectivity At The Under 30 Summit

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Big Sean, Drew Afualo And More Share The Importance Of Mental Health, Community And Connectivity At The Under 30 Summit

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Big Sean was 11 years old when he started dreaming of making it big in music. He wanted to be the Black artist that would represent his hometown of Detroit. And with Grammy nominations and seven BET awards, he says he stands proud today.

But what did it take? A long battle with his mental health, he told the audience at the 2024 Forbes Under 30 Summit this week, where he detailed his journey of using Adderall and losing himself to the momentum of the industry. “I was so addicted to the music industry that I didn’t even realize what I was into anymore,” Big Sean said. “I had to step away from everything, from music, from all the obligations I had. I just had to rediscover who I was.”

This year’s Under 30 Summit, which kicked off Sunday, explored themes of vulnerability and lessons learned—translating into invaluable advice for the audience members who came to Cincinnati, Ohio from 66 different countries and 44 U.S. states. Speakers from across different sectors of business and entertainment took the Under 30 stage on Monday and Tuesday after a Sunday night music festival featuring performances from singer-songwriter Shaboozey, DJ and producer Metro Boomin and Cincinnati-native DJ Xandra.

The record-producing star Metro advised all the young people in the crowd to make the most of their 20s: To surround themselves with like-minded individuals and hustle every single day, but to do it with patience. “Stay down, stay patient,” he said to the twentysomethings. “Look at it like you’re a piggy bank. Keep depositing, keep depositing, keep depositing.”

Business legends like former American Express CEO Ken Chenault and Ken Frazier, the former chairman and CEO of Merck, talked about how leaders focus on the people and not the money. Rare Beauty chief marketing officer Katie Welch and fellow panelist Robyn Delmonte, A.K.A. GirlBossTown on social media, lent their marketing genius: They both emphasized how the most successful brands will build a community that tells them their next big move.

The Summit also featured talks from creators like Drew Afualo, Bobbi Althoff, Dani Austin and billion-dollar advice from high net-worth individuals like Josh Harris and Ankur Jain, among many more icons. Other than taking home a notebook’s worth of thoughts to reflect on, attendees also enjoyed experiences like book signings with Forbes Top Creator Afualo and poet Rupi Kaur, a live recording of Althoff’s The Really Good Podcast, city-wide tours of Cincinnati and the first ever Women in Sports Summit hosted by ForbesWomen publisher and president Moira Forbes.

We can’t do four days of experiences, learning and networking justice without a larger word count on this newsletter, but you can read about it all in our live blog here. And yes, we’re already gearing up for next year’s Under 30 Summit in Columbus, Ohio. See you there?!

Cheers,

Alex & Zoya

Inside Facebook’s Scammy Abortion Access Network

Women with unwanted pregnancies are turning to one another for pills and herbal remedies on Facebook. Forbes found nearly 800 groups and pages (across 76 countries), and at least 300 of the groups operate in countries where abortion is at least sometimes illegal. But many of the group members say they are getting scammed instead of supported.

On Our Radar

-Once on track for Forbes’ Billionaires list, record-making producer Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is facing a long and growing list of allegations that have reduced his empire to rubble. Over the last two decades, he’d expanded his businesses across lifestyle categories like the Sean John fashion and fragrance lines, a Cîroc vodka partnership with British spirits conglomerate Diageo and founded the Revolt TV network, earning nearly a billion dollars. But Forbes took a look inside the rise (and recent fall) of his empire. (Forbes)

-More than four years after we were sent home for Covid lockdowns, countless companies are still determining what makes the most sense for their workforce. Amazon, along with multiple tech firms, recently announced it wants workers back in the office five days a week starting in the new year. So much for the life of a digital nomad. (Forbes)

-We can all relate to asking a question to a chatbot and getting back an answer that, well, doesn’t make any sense. Sometimes it doesn’t actually address the question at all, while other times the bot will contradict itself or change its mind halfway through. But OpenAI is attempting to create a more intelligent, and intentional, LLM. Nicknamed “Strawberry,” its latest o1 model will use a “think, then answer” approach to responding to prompts and allegedly “performs similarly to Ph.D. students on challenging benchmark tasks in physics, chemistry, and biology,” according to the company. (Vox)

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