11 Most Influential Young Leaders In Tech Ranked By PeekYou

While one might assume that the wizened minds of older Silicon Valleyites were responsible for some of the hottest web startups in recent memory, many such companies were established by relatively young founders.

The guiding voices behind some of the past year's biggest web-based wave-makers (including photo-sharing service Instagram, social music network Turntable.fm, mobile credit card-reader Square, fast-growing Pinterest and others) happen to be twenty- and thirty-somethings who, despite their young ages, also happen to wield a huge amount of influence online.

PeekYou, a self-described "search company focused on indexing the public web around people," recently released a list of some of the web's most influential tech leaders of 2011 and 2012, based on their PeekScore. One's PeekScore ranges from 1 to 10 and is measured by how many friends, followers, or readers one might have, in addition to how active one is in blogging, social networking and web content creation. Even one's presence in the news has a bearing on whether his or her PeekScore will turn out to be closer to 1 ("not very important") or to 10 ("very important").

Flip through the slideshow below to find out who the most influential young tech founders are and how they scored on PeekyYou's scale. Are you surprised by any of the leaders to make the list?

Next, take a look at the list of the year's top-rated tech CEOs, according to their employees.

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Comments

[Jack Boats]

11:32 PM on 04/03/2012

Where is Kim Dotcom? Half these kids ripped off his business model but went to the right schools and sucked up to the right people to avoid having the Feds crack down.

WHAT A CROC I use none of the aboves products.

[Jack Boats]

11:26 PM on 04/03/2012

Hi! I have this highly questionable idea for an internet start-up and I've just graduated from an Ivy League school where I learned how to wear expensive suits and talk to CEOs. Now give me enough venture capital to hire some actually very intelligent people with better ideas so I can ignore them and have them work on my really not so good idea that I convinced you to pay for. Don't worry I have some super sneaky financial experts and lawyers to massage the numbers long enough to keep you in the dark at least long enough until the IPO, at which time I'm selling my preferred stock and moving on to the next venture capital firm for with another idea.

-Any most influential young leader in Tech

[ResearchtheFacts]

10:13 PM on 04/03/2012

We knew none of their names before this article. What is the introduction piece? Where are the women techies?

[traveler291]

09:09 PM on 04/03/2012

is ben silbermann listed due to having a site designed around stealing intellectual property?

[trikkegirl]

07:58 PM on 04/03/2012

There are no women!! WHERE ARE THE WOMEN!!????!!!

GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

[Brogrammer]

08:57 PM on 04/03/2012

Women are the largest 'consumers' in online industry. If you spend all your time consuming, how can you produce? It's a shame really, most computer programmers used to be women.

[Jack Boats]

11:28 PM on 04/03/2012

There all on pinterest pretending to be exclusive and spending there hubbys money!

[dngrwill]

07:54 PM on 04/03/2012

Oh boy is tech in trouble. I would suggest another title instead of "up and comers" - "people who worked at facebook and twitter and are famous for that and whose ideas are mostly derivations of existing tech."
what about the CEO of furniture.com???? (hint - shipping furniture is expensive...)

[Flight]

07:39 PM on 04/03/2012

I'm several years older than these guys, but I try to read and stay abreast of all the 'new stuff' and tech revolutions though I admit I still have many things to learn. That being said, if I had the opportunity to choose to 'chat' with either Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg - I'd choose Dorsey. Something in the things I've read about him I find intriguing. Oh well...maybe one day that'll happen.