[This content was originally posted by Gary Vaynerchuk on Linkedin on 4/16/13. Gary is a social media pioneer and the co-founder and CEO of Vaynermedia. You can follow him on Twitter at @Garyvee and find him on Facebook at facebook.com/gary]
Here is part-two of my list of up-and-comers to be following on Twitter. Who did I miss? Let me know what you think! [Link to Part 1]
Mike Mazzeo (@mazzeo) is a really exciting one for me because he’s a VC at lowercase capital. Chris Sacca will get all the attention, but Mike Mazzeo is absolutely one of the forces behind the growth of this incredible company. I first met Maz’ when he was an agent at CAA, and I took a liking to him right away. He’s got drive, he’s got passion, he’s shockingly good-looking, and he’s definitely starting to get his credit. He was in a Fast Company article about the young Turks that are helping LA, and I completely agree with that. He’s making enormous noise right now in LA in the VC scene and the startup scene (the scenes I think are going to be the most exciting going forward). I have enormous confidence that Mazzeo will be tremendously successful in 10 or 15 years, and I think that for anybody who wants to get a good sense of the LA tech scene, this is a must follow.
Matt Van Horn (@mvanhorn) is somebody I’ve known for a long time since his days back at Digg. He’s making some real headway and having an enormous impact on one of my favorite investments, Path. Matt has always been one of “the guys behind the guys”, helping Kevin Rose at Digg and now helping Dave Morin through Path, he’s a tremendously bright young man. He’s extremely passionate about his Golden State Warriors. He’s the gentleman who turned me onto the opportunity at Karma (which was one of my favorite investments I’ve made in the last couple years), and more importantly, he’s the kind of guy that I think is more than willing to engage and help people on Twitter. He’s an absolutely tremendous follow, because I think he’ll give a lot more effort than maybe some of the other people on the list.
Chris Hutchins (@hutchins) is a young partner at Google Ventures. He’s an extremely bright young man. I have enormous respect for this kid. I’d like to see him work with me one day. I think that he’s a perfect person to follow to hear about what’s going on in the San Francisco startup culture, because he’s younger, he’s leaner, and he’s meaner, and he's in the trenches. I think a lot of you follow VC’s who’ve made it, but let’s be honest, they’re having $1000 dinners, and Hutch is having burgers at the corner joint with the next generation. I think that’s the kind of guy you need to follow.
Milana Rabkin (@Milanachka) is a force of nature on the digital scene. She’s an agent at UTA. What she is doing and how she’s going about doing it in the convergence of Hollywood and Silicon Valley is quite impressive. I’ve been fond of her work ethic and mindset from the moment I met her. I love the fact that she has Belarusian roots, and more importantly, I am completely convinced that she has a grand-slam in her career. I think she’s extremely worthwhile to follow, especially if you care about the cross section of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. She is pushing the envelope of what can be don with Celebrities and High value Content.
Trevor Owens (@to2) is a hustler through and through. I’ve interacted with Trevor a couple times through the last few years, and I like the way he hustles. He’s just got it, there’s something about him. I don’t know Trevor super well outside of our couple of meetings, but I follow him, and he’s one of those guys where I could conceivably lose touch with him for a couple of years but he pops up with a big win on the board. If I read an article in Tech Crunch about a $100MM exit and I look and see that Trevor’s involved, it probably wouldn’t surprise me. He’s got that pixie dust ( Something Special ). He reminds me of me in that way. Very social, and somebody that I think is worth paying attention to if you have passion about knowing about what’s going on in the up and coming New York tech scene( meaning companies you haven't heard about yet).
Mike Boyd (@HashtagMikeBoyd) This one’s my personal favorite. Mike Boyd’s working with me right now. He’s a personal friend of my brother’s from college. There’s nobody in the world who knows more about who the next hip-hop artists that are gonna pop are than Boyd. He told me about Future three years ago, Kendrick Lamar three years ago; he’s telling me about Rome Future now (completely convinced that he’s gonna pop). Mike Boyd has predicted Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa and on and on and on. If you care about hip-hop music at all and you wanna be cool around your friends, Mike Boyd has replaced The Source’s Unsigned Hype for me from back in the day.
Greg Shove (@GregShove) is the founder and CEO of SocialChorus, a really interesting advocate platform. I met Greg on a flight from SFO to JFK, and we spent 5 straight hours talking even though we didn’t know each other prior to sitting down. He’s one of those guys that’s not full of crap, and he’ll call you on your crap, and I respect that. He’s hustling, he’s executing, he’s got a very interesting platform, and I think that he’s got a couple more gray hairs than the rest of this list, which makes him extremely worthwhile to listen to. There’s some real knowledge in those gray hairs, and I think any young entrepreneur (or old entrepreneur) would get an enormous amount of value out of Greg. He’s had an incredible career, and is completely worth following.
Michael Schneider (@msfd) is the CEO of Mobile Rodie, a startup that I passed on investing in (but I wish I hadn’t) years ago because of two reasons: 1. I just wasn’t liquid enough, and 2. I ultimately knew that Michael would will that company to victory. I’ve been following Michael for a long time, not only on Twitter, but on Path. I’m genuinely excited for his growth and what he does over the next 4-5 decades. This is an extremely worthwhile entrepreneur, and one that travels quite a bit, so if you’re into knowing what’s going on in Japan or South America from a young entrepreneur’s point of view, I think he can help. He’s also often retweeting and posting about emerging tech. Just a couple days ago he talked about Songza, a music startup that I like. He’s the kind of guy that if you follow, he’ll keep you in the loop of what’s going on in the tech world.
Aaron Dignan (@aarondignan) is the CEO of Undercurrent, one of the few agencies that I respect tremendously. He’s an extremely bright guy; extremely focused. I think he’s extremely valuable to follow on twitter because he doesn’t tweet often, but when he does it’s relevant. He’s probably one of the least frequent updaters on this list, but he’s someone that I respect tremendously, and someone I think people should pay attention to.
