I worked at one of the social platforms for many years. We had someone on one of the teams nominated (by us) and make it to the 30U30 list. We had a focused PR push to get this person on the list because it was good for the company. This person was in fact relatively junior and had no specific history that you could point to for excellence. They were a great person, but top 30 would be hard to argue.
There was no explicit quid pro quo that I was witness to, but I know that we gave the magazine an exclusive interview with our CEO not long after and I heard they were related. My point is that so many of these rewards are just more of who do you know, and have little value in fact when you dig in a bit.
This seems like the smart way to go about it to be honest. I think anyone who really knows their worth wouldn't really be too fussed about making it on the list except purely for marketing reasons and those who really need it are by reasoning probably startups that are struggling on some front. Making it on the list if anything could draw ridicule from people in the same industry who don't need cheap marketing. Thus crafting up some "fake" guy to be in the list for some pr seems like a good way to get the best of both worlds
There was no explicit quid pro quo that I was witness to, but I know that we gave the magazine an exclusive interview with our CEO not long after and I heard they were related. My point is that so many of these rewards are just more of who do you know, and have little value in fact when you dig in a bit.