1. Reid Hoffman

Based in Palo Alto, CA, USA

Co-founder of LinkedIn, founding team member of PayPal, early investor in Facebook, Airbnb, and OpenAI, partner at Greylock, and the most consistently influential thinker on the theory and practice of entrepreneurship over the past two decades. His Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future — published January 28, 2025 — became an instant New York Times and USA Today bestseller, endorsed by Bill Gates, Yuval Noah Harari, Satya Nadella, and Fei-Fei Li, and is now taught at Wharton and Stanford. In February 2025 he was appointed Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics; in March 2025, Distinguished Academic Visitor at Cambridge. His Masters of Scale and Possible podcasts continued throughout 2025, with Possible winning a Webby Award. He also co-founded Manas AI in the review period. The most networked and intellectually prolific entrepreneur of his generation.

 

 

2. Paul Graham

Based in London, UK

Co-founder of Y Combinator — the most influential startup accelerator in history, having backed Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, DoorDash, Coinbase, and hundreds of others — and the author of essays that have functioned as the founding intellectual documents of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship for twenty years. Throughout 2025-2026, Graham's essays on founders, AI, and the changing nature of startup building continued to generate extraordinary levels of sharing and debate among the global founder community. His X (formerly Twitter) posts sparked ongoing conversations at the intersection of programming, intelligence, and building. His concept of doing things that don't scale, of being default alive or default dead, of the ramen profitable founder — these are the intellectual architecture of how a generation of entrepreneurs thinks.

 

 

3. Brian Chesky

Based in San Francisco, California, USA

Co-founder and CEO of Airbnb — one of the most disruptive companies ever built, now a profitable public company — and one of the most actively sharing tech founders on LinkedIn throughout 2025-2026. Chesky's posts on how Airbnb operates with a lean management structure (he has no Chief Marketing Officer, runs product-led growth directly, manages with extreme simplicity), and his public commitment to working in a building-forward culture rather than a meetings-forward culture, generated some of the most discussed content in the founder community during the review period. The founder who remained most relevant as a practitioner and voice throughout the transition from hypergrowth to profitable longevity.

 

 

4. Henrique Dubugras

Based in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Co-founder and CEO of Brex — the corporate card and spend management platform he built specifically for startups and scaling companies, having dropped out of Stanford to do so — and one of the most compelling founder stories in Silicon Valley. Born in São Paulo, Dubugras started coding at 12 and launched Pagar.me, a payments company, at 16 before moving to the US. Brex's model — offering corporate credit cards to startups without requiring a personal guarantee, using revenue data rather than credit history — disrupted a market that had barely changed in decades. Active throughout 2025-2026 as a speaker, media commentator, and public voice on what it takes to build financial infrastructure for the next generation of startups. Serves on the boards of Expedia Group and Mercado Libre, bringing an unusual combination of founder experience, financial technology depth, and cross-border perspective to the entrepreneurship conversation.

 

5. Katrina Lake

Based in San Francisco, California, USA

Founder of Stitch Fix — the personalised styling and e-commerce platform she built from scratch and took public on Nasdaq in 2017, becoming the youngest female founder to lead an IPO in US history at the time — and one of the most respected and publicly engaged entrepreneurship voices in the ecosystem. Active throughout 2025-2026 as a board director at multiple companies including Airbnb and Glossier, an angel investor, and a speaker on founder resilience, building consumer businesses with genuine unit economics, and what sustainable company building looks like beyond the hypergrowth-at-all-costs model. Her willingness to step back into the CEO role at Stitch Fix in 2022 when the company needed her and then step back out again is widely cited as a model for founder maturity. One of the most respected operational founders in consumer technology.

 

 

6. Garry Tan

Based in San Francisco, California, USA

President and CEO of Y Combinator and one of the most actively engaged startup community builders in the world. Throughout 2025, Tan maintained an extraordinary LinkedIn and X presence, posting multiple times daily on entrepreneurship, AI, policy, and San Francisco's tech revival, regularly generating viral content in the founder community. Under his leadership YC continued to batch hundreds of startups per cycle, many AI-native, with the W2025 batch among the most AI-focused in YC's history. His public advocacy for founder-friendly AI regulation, his personal investments, and his commitment to the idea that the best thing for the world is more startups made him the most visible public face of YC's continued relevance.

 

 

7. David Sacks

Based in San Francisco, California, USA

Co-founder of Yammer (acquired by Microsoft for $1.2B), former COO of PayPal, general partner at Craft Ventures, and — from January 2025 onwards — America's first AI and Crypto Czar under President Trump, a role that made him one of the most politically consequential technology entrepreneurs in the world during the review period. His All-In Podcast continued to be the most listened-to tech and venture conversation in America throughout 2025. His direct access to US AI policy at the highest level made his views on entrepreneurship, AI governance, and the future of the technology industry uniquely consequential throughout the review period.

 

 

8. Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Based in London, UK

Founder of Ness Labs, neuroscientist, researcher at King's College London, and the most practically thoughtful voice on how founders and creators can build and sustain intellectual and creative output over the long term. Her Maker Mind newsletter and community, her research on neuroplasticity and creativity, and her 2025 activities consistently showing up as a must-follow in "founders to follow" lists throughout the year made her one of the most original voices in the entrepreneurship space — bringing scientific rigour to questions about how people build, learn, and grow that most founder content handles with anecdote. A genuinely important voice for a generation of founders who are thinking seriously about the long game.

 

 

9. Immad Akhund

Based in San Francisco, California, USA

Co-founder and CEO of Mercury — the banking platform that has become the default financial infrastructure for startups, with 300,000+ customers, $248 billion in transaction volume in 2025 (up 59% year-on-year), and over a third of all venture-backed US startups as customers. Mercury raised a $300 million Series C at a $3.5 billion valuation led by Sequoia in March 2025 and applied for a National Bank Charter in December 2025. In May 2025, Akhund launched a $26 million solo GP fund backed by over 350 angel investments including Airtable, Linear, Substack, and Applied Intuition. Active on LinkedIn throughout the review period, his posts on fundraising dynamics, hiring, and founder-market fit generate significant engagement in the startup community. A serial founder — previously co-founded Heyzap (sold for $45M in 2016) — who built the most important financial product in the startup ecosystem from scratch.

 

 

10. Melanie Perkins

Based in Sydney, Australia

Co-founder and CEO of Canva — one of the most remarkable entrepreneurship stories of the past decade, built outside Silicon Valley, repeatedly rejected by investors, now valued at over $40 billion and used by over 200 million people. Throughout 2025-2026, Perkins remained actively engaged on LinkedIn, her company launched AI-powered design tools at scale, and her story continued to serve as the most convincing global counterargument to the idea that you need to be in San Francisco to build a world-changing company. A role model for non-traditional paths to extraordinary outcomes.

 

 

11. Sahil Lavingia

Based in New York City, NY, USA

Founder of Gumroad — the creator economy platform — and one of the most transparently honest founders writing about the reality of building a company. His decision to drastically downsize Gumroad, write openly about the failure to achieve the scale he'd hoped for, and ultimately build a profitable, small-team company with genuine margins became one of the most widely shared essays in the founder community. Throughout 2025-2026, his work on the creator economy, his angel investments, and his public writing on building sustainable versus venture-scale businesses offered a valuable counterpoint to the growth-at-all-costs orthodoxy. One of the most honest and therefore most trusted voices in the ecosystem.

 

 

12. Greg Isenberg

Based in Miami Beach, FL, USA

Founder of Late Checkout, an AI-focused product studio and accelerator, and one of the most actively sharing voices on the new wave of AI-native solo and small-team entrepreneurship. Throughout 2025-2026, Isenberg's LinkedIn and X presence offered real-time commentary on AI startup strategies, community-led growth, and the economics of building in a world where code is near-free. His posts on Tobi Lütke's AI memo, on AI agents replacing functional roles, and on the "AI solopreneur" opportunity generated hundreds of thousands of engagements throughout the review period. A practitioner voice with genuine reach.

 

 

13. Kat Cole

Based in Miami, FL, USA

President and COO of Athletic Greens (AG1) and one of the most respected operational entrepreneurs in the direct-to-consumer and CPG space. A former executive at Cinnabon and Focus Brands, Cole built her reputation on the idea that great businesses are built by people who understand both operations and culture at a granular level. Throughout 2025-2026, her LinkedIn presence focused on the intersection of leadership, operational rigour, and entrepreneurial resilience, making her one of the most practically useful voices for founders scaling physical or DTC businesses outside the pure software startup world. An important diversifier in a list that can skew heavily tech.

 

 

14. Alexis Ohanian

Based in Brooklyn, NY, USA

Co-founder of Reddit — which he built from a two-person startup into one of the most visited websites in the world before leaving and later returning to the board — and founder of Seven Seven Six, one of the most visible and actively communicating venture funds in the startup ecosystem. Throughout 2025-2026, Ohanian remained one of the most publicly engaged entrepreneurship voices on social media, with his content on founder culture, parental leave in the startup world, and what the next generation of company building looks like generating significant reach and debate. His public advocacy for founders prioritising their health, relationships, and identity alongside their companies offers a genuinely countercultural perspective in a profession that often glorifies self-destruction.

 

 

15. Wes Kao

Based in New York City, NY, USA

Co-founder of Maven and co-creator of the cohort-based course format with Seth Godin, and one of the most incisive voices on the mechanics of marketing, positioning, and building a learning business. Throughout 2025-2026, her newsletter on marketing and communication for founders consistently produced some of the most rigorous and applicable content in the space, with her frameworks on "spiky point of view," "leader vs. manager mode," and making complex ideas land becoming required reading in product and marketing circles. A rare combination: genuinely original frameworks delivered with clarity.

 

 

16. Polina Marinova Pompliano

Based in New York, NY, USA

Founder of The Profile — one of the most widely read independent newsletters on peak performance, founder psychology, and what drives extraordinary people — and author of Hidden Genius: The Secret Ways of Thinking That Power the World's Most Successful People (2023). Throughout 2025-2026, Pompliano's newsletter and LinkedIn content continued to attract a large and loyal following among founders, investors, and operators who want to understand the mental models and decision-making frameworks of the world's best performers rather than just their tactics. Her work sits at the distinctive intersection of long-form journalism, founder psychology, and practical performance insight — a combination that few other voices in the entrepreneurship space offer.

 

 

17. Astro Teller

Based in San Francisco, CA, USA

CEO of X (Alphabet's moonshot factory) and the world's most institutionally credible practitioner of ambitious, high-risk innovation at scale. His concept of "rapid learning" — building to fail fast and cheaply before committing to large bets — has become one of the most cited frameworks for ambitious entrepreneurship in the review period. Throughout 2025-2026, X's projects in autonomous delivery, energy, and connectivity continued to advance, and Teller remained an active presence at major innovation conferences. The most rigorous public thinker on how to structure institutional entrepreneurship and moonshot bets.

 

 

18. Arianna Huffington

Based in New York City, NY, USA

Founder of The Huffington Post and Thrive Global, and one of the most widely followed voices on the intersection of entrepreneurship, wellbeing, and sustainable performance. Throughout 2025-2026, Huffington remained extraordinarily active on LinkedIn, publishing multiple posts per week on how founders can build businesses without burning out, and her Thrive Global work on the science of performance and recovery continued to expand its enterprise client base. With over 10 million LinkedIn followers, she is one of the most-read entrepreneurship voices on the platform, particularly for female founders and leaders in non-tech sectors.

 

 

19. Shaan Puri

Based in San Francisco, CA, USA

Co-host of My First Million — the most listened-to independent entrepreneurship podcast in the world, with millions of downloads per episode — and one of the most consistently idea-generating voices in the startup ecosystem. Throughout 2025-2026, My First Million continued to break down new business ideas, AI opportunities, and founder case studies with an analytical rigour that distinguishes it from the motivational speaker-heavy world of entrepreneurship content. His daily LinkedIn presence and his posts on AI-native business models generated significant engagement throughout the review period.

 

 

20. Sam Parr

Based in New York City, NY, USA

Co-host of My First Million alongside Shaan Puri, and founder of The Hustle — the business newsletter he built from zero and sold to HubSpot — Sam Parr's continued presence as both an entrepreneur and content creator throughout 2025-2026 makes him one of the most credible practical voices in the ecosystem. His conversation with Jason Lemkin on reverse-engineering a $100M exit, and his interview style that prioritises operational specifics over inspiration, keeps My First Million the most practically useful entrepreneurship podcast in the world.

 

 

21. Jewel Burks Solomon

Based in Atlanta, GA, USA

Founder of PartPic (acquired by Amazon in 2016, becoming Amazon PartFinder), former Head of Google for Startups US, and now Managing Partner at Collab Capital — which closed a $75 million Fund II in June 2025 with Apple and Goldman Sachs Asset Management as limited partners, bringing total capital under management to over $125 million. Through Collab Capital and her prior Google role, Solomon has deployed over $50 million in non-dilutive capital to more than 500 underserved businesses since 2020. She keynoted Accelerate 2025 in November and serves on the boards of Spelman College, CallRail, and the Center for American Entrepreneurship. A rare figure who has been a founder, operator at scale at Amazon, ecosystem builder at Google, and now a full-time investor — giving her a practitioner's lens at every stage of the entrepreneurship journey.

 

 

22. Mark Suster

Based in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures and one of the most prolific and transparent writer-investors in the venture ecosystem. His Both Sides of the Table blog has been a reference resource for founders for fifteen years, and his continued publication throughout 2025-2026 — covering the AI startup landscape, fundraising mechanics, and what VCs actually look for — remained among the most practically useful content available to early-stage founders. A former two-time founder himself, his perspective bridges the founder and investor experience in a way that most venture-only voices cannot.

 

 

23. Vlad Tenev

Based in Palo Alto, CA, USA

Co-founder and CEO of Robinhood — the company that did more to democratise retail investing than any other in the past decade, and which after navigating the turbulence of the 2021 GameStop crisis returned to profitability and expanded aggressively into crypto and retirement products throughout 2025. Tenev's active public presence on the democratisation of financial access, his congressional testimony, and Robinhood's continued product expansion under his leadership make him one of the most consequential fintech founders of his generation. His willingness to operate in public — defending product decisions, engaging with regulators, and sharing the company's long-term thesis — makes him a genuinely useful voice for founders navigating regulated industries.

 

 

24. Codie Sanchez

Based in Austin, TX, USA

Founder of Contrarian Thinking and one of the most followed entrepreneurship voices globally, with millions of followers across platforms and a specific focus on acquiring, operating, and building what she calls "boring businesses" — laundromats, car washes, service businesses — as an alternative to the venture-backed startup path. Throughout 2025-2026, Sanchez remained extraordinarily active with daily content, her newsletter, and her community, generating significant debate about what entrepreneurship actually looks like for the 99% of founders who will never raise venture capital. Her framework for building wealth through business acquisition rather than business creation offers a genuinely distinct and practically actionable perspective in a space dominated by Silicon Valley startup narratives.

 

 

25. Chris Dixon

Based in Menlo Park, CA, USA

General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, author of Read Write Own (2024) — one of the most widely read books on crypto and decentralised technology in the period — and one of the most intellectually rigorous investor-writers in the technology ecosystem. Throughout 2025-2026, Dixon continued writing and speaking on the intersection of decentralised technology, entrepreneurship, and the question of who owns and controls the internet's core infrastructure. His blog has been a reference resource in the founder community for fifteen years. A genuinely independent voice in a space full of incentivised takes.

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Congratulations to All 25 Honourees

 

Think an entrepreneur or startup leader leader belongs on next year's list? 

 

Nominations for the 2027 Industry Leaders Top 25 can be made here https://www.theindustryleaders.org/nominate

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Selections are made at the sole editorial discretion of The Industry Leaders based on publicly available information. Inclusion or exclusion does not constitute an endorsement, and positions within the list do not reflect a definitive ranking of merit.