What did they have in common? Elon Musk, Bill Gates e Steve Jobs as youngsters? All three showed unmistakable signs of their brilliance as teenagers. Musk he sold video games, Gates he was programming at 13, Jobs tinkered with electronics in his father's garage. Today these signs are still there, but they have changed: no longer isolated child prodigies, but young people who build communities, found university startups and think big from the first idea. What if I told you that we already know some of these new visionaries, but we haven't noticed them yet?
Forbes put them on the Under 30 list, Invitalia finances them, universities incubate them. They are here, before our eyes. And I tried to “sneak a peek” at some of them. Are you watching with me? Let’s start, as always, with an important premise.
The DNA of the new visionaries is no longer what it once was
Forget the myth of the man alone in command. The little Elon Musk who at 12 years old created Blastar, a game similar to space invaders, and sold it for $500 to the magazine PC and Office Technology It represents a model that will probably never be repeated. Difficult childhood in Pretoria, the beatings at school, the conflictual relationship with his father Errol Musk: aside from the character's "organic" issues, all these experiences have forged a character that today we would define as antisocial, but which at the time was necessary for him to emerge.
The new visionaries, on the other hand, show a completely different profile. Let's take Gianluca Cake, 26 years old, founder of RarEarth. His startup has developed a unique process to recycle rare earths from electric vehicle engines. He doesn’t work alone in a garage: he has a team, funding, university incubators. It was selected by Forbes not for its eccentricity, but for the solidity of the project and the social impact of its innovation. And that's not the only factor to consider.
From Pretoria to the labs: how a “genius” is born today
The training path has changed radically. Musk had to leave South Africa, move to Canada, then to the United States, drop out of Stanford after two days to found Zip2 with his brother KimbalIt was 1995, the internet was in its infancy, opportunities (they say) were scarce and concentrated in a few places.
Today new visionaries are born and grow everywhere. Even in Italy, if you'll pardon the joke. Domenico Edoardo Wallbreaker, Anna Mauro, Francis Lopez e Andrea Villa They are 25 years old and founded ORiS (Orbital Recharge in Space). Their project? Wireless power transmission into space via satellites that store energy and transfer it via lasers. They are pre-incubated by the Polytechnic of Turin, have access to advanced laboratories, qualified mentorship and a global network of contacts.
Yes. Because the most important difference is not in the individuals, but in the ecosystem that surrounds them. In 2024, 263.320 new businesses were born in Italy, Of which 117.281 driven by young people under 35. A silent army of potential new visionaries.
Viola Bonesu, Henry Castles e Peter Galimberti, all under 26, co-founded Pliny, a management control software for SMEs that uses artificial intelligence. They are supported by Exor Ventures and they are part of the Berkeley SkyDeck. Sure, they may lack a little bit of context and craziness, but they also have one little thing that Musk didn't have: a structured support system from the start. Because it's not all Silicon Valley here.
New American Talents Beyond the Garage
While everyone is looking to Silicon Valley, a new generation of visionaries is emerging from cities like Seattle and Atlanta. Joel Bervell, 28, a physician and “Medical Mythbuster” with 1,3 million followers, fights racial disparities in healthcare through TikTok and Instagram, demonstrating how medicine can be democratized through social media. Nikki Seaman, 29 years old from Atlanta, has transformed the boring olive industry with Freestyle Snacks, creating innovative liquid-free packaging that is now distributed in over 3.000 stores including Whole Foods. Safir Monroe, 28 years old and also from Atlanta, founded UnDelay after working for Delta Air Lines, developing software to optimize airport operations that now serves four American airports.
All three are on the Forbes 30 Under 30 2024-2025 list, but above all they represent a new entrepreneurial philosophy: instead of chasing the next social network or dating app, they are solving real problems in traditional sectors such as healthcare, food and transport. They are not trying to be the new Elon Musk: they are something different, and perhaps for this very reason more effective. And leaving Italy, or rather Europe, or rather the West, what do we find?
Not just Americans or Europeans
As we look to our young talents, On the other side of the world something even more interesting is happening. Wang Xingxing di Unitree, just 35 years old, emphatically declared to the president Xi Jinping that his humanoid robot company was “born and raised in China.”
Insieme a Liang Wenfeng di DeepSeek and other young entrepreneurs, represents what they call the “Fantastic Four” at home: the new generation that no longer copies the West, but innovates in strategic sectors such as artificial intelligence and robotics. We should expect big changes even more: especially from that side.
The tools of the new visionaries are different
If Musk had to convince private investors one by one, today programs like Smart&Start Italia finance projects between 100.000 euros and 1,5 million euros. The National Innovation Fund operates through venture capital strategies, while programs such as I'm staying in the South specifically support young people under 35.
The Switzerland is becoming a fertile ground for new visionaries who combine “visionary audacity and methodical pragmatism”. No longer just Swiss precision, but also the global ambition to change entire sectors. Have institutions finally understood how to invest in the future or is it just a “cooler” way of distributing money randomly? We will see this in the next few years, now let's get back to our "geniuses" of the future.
The profile of the new visionaries
Let's start from a clear fact: there is a substantial difference in the psychological profile. Musk has transformed childhood traumas into "an engine", as the biographer wrote Walter Isaac I known (the same as Steve Jobs and other big shots). The beatings at school, the difficult relationship with his father, the isolation: everything became, as I wrote, fuel for ambition.
The new visionaries have a different approach. David Dattoli, Named by Forbes as one of 30 under 30 and founder of the community Marketers with over 60 thousand members, represents this new generation: less solitary, perhaps with less individual talent but more collaborative, especially in a context in which a team can count thousands of subjects (example: three humans and 5000 AI agents). Above all, a new generation attentive to work-life balance but equally ambitious. Is it the right recipe for the future? And if so, how do we know today?
Where to look for the next new visionaries
I'll surprise you: don't expect to find them in the newspapers. No, not even on future scenario sites, not even here. Maybe I'll catch one or two: the easy ones. But The reals new visionaries often work in sectors that seem boring but are essential: Anna Fiscal within Quid project for job placement, or Clio Zammatteo which has gone from simple makeup tutorials to collaborating with major cosmetic brands.
If these seem like small things to you, or characters already “burned” by social media, who knows. So much respect, but maybe that’s how it is. It’s just that people like them, who are doing the same things as them today, have in their hands the equivalent of that $500 Blastar that Musk launched. You always have to predict what will happen next. How many of us, if we had witnessed the first steps of people like Jobs or Gates, would have guessed their trajectory in advance? Be honest.
Anyway, the future of innovation will no longer be a matter of individual rebellious geniuses, but of collective intelligences that know how to collaborate, access structured financing and build global networks from day one. Today's little Musks grow differently, but no less effectively.
As mentioned, our children will judge the next changes: the new “wave” has already begun, only this time it does not have just one face: it has thousands.
