I didn't work on this year's list, but I've worked on them in years' past. The bottom line: It's a subjective list--based on reporting by Inc.'s editors and writers (basically we talk to people and ask them who they admire/who they think should be on the list). We assemble a long list of names and narrow it down to 30, based a sense of who we feel is most impressive and most interesting.

One of the cool things about this list is that it's a one-shot deal, so we'll be looking for 30 new names next year. You can send nominations to 30under30@inc.com

Or put them in the comments here and we'll find them.

Thanks for reading!

Hey, adriannica - check out my comment above for some of how we create the list. And here's a bit more of our methodology http://www.inc.com/30under30/2011/how-we-made-this-years-30-... (although mostly it involves lots of reporting and much internal debating.)