The 30 Most Influential LGBT People In Tech

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Thursday publicly acknowledged he is gay, but his sexual orientation has long been known in the tech community and beyond.

In fact, Business Insider named Cook as the most important LGBT person in tech back in December 2013.

In light of Cook’s coming-out, we are re-running our list of the most important LGBT people in tech. (We’ve also decided against ranking this list.)

As Business Insider’s Jim Edwards has noted, it’s unfortunate that some famous, successful gay people like Cook might feel pressured to talk about their personal lives while straight CEOs can maintain their privacy.

Still, it takes courage to give up that privacy in order to inspire others to be more open or insist on equality for gays.

Cathy Brooks

Cathy Brooks, a lesbian activist, previously worked at Seesmic and founded a digital marketing firm. She also hosts a podcast about tech/society. But Brooks dropped her career to pursue her passion for dogs back in February 2013. She opened up a private dog park and training academy for dogs in Las Vegas and founded The Hydrant Club, a place for cool canines to “romp and learn.”

Lisa Brummel

Lisa Brummel has been with Microsoft ever since she graduated from college in 1989. Brummel has held a variety of positions at the tech giant, but has since become the executive vice president of human resources. Brummel is the one who informed employees that Microsoft would axe its controversial stack-ranking system — a system that hurt morale by turning teammates into competitors. 

Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook is the most powerful gay man in technology. Even before he came out publicly on Thursday, Cook spoke out about gay rights and discrimination. 

“Now is the time to write these basic principles of human dignity into the book of law,” Cook said in his acceptance speech for a lifetime achievement award from Auburn University.

Last year, Cook wrote an open letter in The Wall Street Journal encouraging Congress to pass a law that would provide equal rights to gay and lesbian employees. 

Since taking charge of Apple in 2011, Cook has led Apple through significant product upgrades like the iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and iOS 7. 

Steve Demeter

Steve Demeter is the genius behind the iPhone’s first mega hit game, Trism. Demeter launched Trism in July 2008 at the same time of the App Store. In its first two months, Trism brought in $250,000.  

Nick Denton

Nick Denton is the mastermind behind Gawker Media, the online publishing network behind sites like Valleywag, Deadspin, Jezebel, Kinja, and Lifehacker. 

Ray Everett

Ray Everett is director of product management and principal consultant at TRUSTe, a privacy management services provider. Previously, he served as director of advertising and privacy at Yahoo, where he made sure Yahoo’s privacy promises held up.

Amy Errett

Amy Errett, the CEO and co-founder of Madison Reed, has had a varied career. Before creating the at-home hair color startup, she held management positions at E*Trade, was CEO of lifestyle company Olivia, and general partner at VC firm Maveron. 

Ina Fried

Ina Fried, an award-winning journalist currently for AllThingsD, has covered the tech industry since 2000. She’s held positions at CNET, where she covered Microsoft and Apple. 

Christy Gaughan

Genentech is one of the most innovative biotech companies out there, and a lot of that is thanks to Christy Gaughan, its director of marketing science. 

Gaughan has also served as Genentech’s LGBT employee group co-chair.

Jason Goldberg

Jason Goldberg, CEO and founder of Fab and Hem, is a force to be reckoned with in the startup industry. Fab was roiled by pivots and layoffs last year, but Goldberg still raised $165 million in new funding. Fab was Goldberg’s third startup, the previous two being Socialmedian and Jobster.

Jon Hall

Jon Hall, sometimes also referred to as “maddog,” is the executive director of Linux International, the tech nonprofit organization. In 2012, he was inspired to publicly come out in honor of the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing. 

Hall is a bit of a legend in the Linux community. He’s been the executive director of Linux International for roughly 18 years and has been in the computer industry since 1969. 

Chris Hughes

Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder, left the social network to join the Obama campaign in 2007. He later purchased The New Republic and serves as its “Editor in Chief.” 

Hughes was also one of the first people to use the same-sex marriage icon on Facebook after marrying his partner, Sean Elridge, back in July. 

David Lerman

David Lerman is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Say Media, the company behind ReadWrite, Reodelista, Dogster, xoJane, and other media publications.

He previously co-founded production company MediaLiquid. 

Brad O’Farrell

Brad O’Farrell is the guy behind the insanely successful crowdfunded board game called Story War. It’s kind of like Apples to Apples meets Pokemon and Dungeons and Dragons. 

In March 2013, the game blew past its Kickstarter goal of $20,000 with more than 7,000 backers pledging $363,254.

O’Farrell is also the creator of The Keyboard Cat.

Chuck Osborn

Chuck Osborn is a long-time gaming expert who’s managing editor at IGN, a leading online media publication focused on gaming. 

Prior to joining IGN, Osborn wrote for publications like PCXL, PC Gamer, and NVISION. 

Keith Rabois

Keith Rabois, the former chief operating officer at payments startup Square, joined Khosla Ventures last year as a partner. Rabois was an early leader at PayPal during its eventual sale to eBay. Before becoming a VC, Rabois was a top angel investor in Silicon Valley.

Jeff Ragovin

A few years after starting Buddy Media with Mike and Kass Lazerow, the company sold to enterprise industry giant Salesforce. Today, Ragovin is chief strategy officer of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, where he’s in charge of the company’s social marketing solutions. 

Ragovin is also involved with StartOut, a nonprofit organization to fuel LGBT entrepreneurship. 

Tom Rielly

Tom Rielly is director of partnerships at Ted Conferences, where he manages corporate partnerships. He was previously the founder and CEO of PlanetOut.

Kane Sarhan

In 2012, Kane Sarhan teamed up with Shaila Ittycheria to launch Enstitute, an on-the-job alternative to attending college.

Enstitute helps place aspiring entrepreneurs in apprenticeship-like programs. Enstitute places its students at startups like Thrillist, Tracks, and Bitly. Halfway through its pilot program in 2012, 70% of students received preliminary full-time offers for permanent jobs.

Prior to co-founding Enstitute, Sarhan worked as the creative director at hot New York-based startup LocalResponse. 

Ron Shuman

Ron Shuman joined Tesla, one of the most innovative companies of our time, in November 2013 to head up its HR department where he is responsible for things like recruiting and employee retention.

Darrell Silver

Darrell Silver, an entrepreneur whose first company Perpetually sold to Dell, is back with a startup called Thinkful.

Thinkful is an online school that offers one-on-one education in the programming language Python and front-end Web development. 

Thinkful is part of a new generation of productivity tools, Microsoft former President of Windows Steven Sinofsky has said. 

Joel Simkhai

Joel Simkahi is the brains behind one of the hottest dating apps for gay men, Grindr. 

Grindr first gained popularity in 2009 and has been downloaded millions of times.

Megan Smith

Megan Smith is currently chief technology officer of the United States. Previously, she served as a vice president at Google[x] and was one of the masterminds behind Google’s “moonshot” ideas and products. Moonshot ideas need to tackle a big problem, require a breakthrough in technology, and actually offer a solution. 

Some examples of moonshot projects include Google’s self-driving cars and its balloon-powered Internet initiative, Project Loon. 

Before becoming VP of Google [x], Smith oversaw biz dev at Google’s philanthropic wing, DotOrg.

Darren Spedale

Darren Spedale is the founder of FamilyByDesign and StartOut, a national nonprofit dedicated to fueling LGBT entrepreneurship. Back in 2010, Spedale rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange on behalf of StartOut. 

Sara Sperling

Sara Sperling is currently director of human resources at Snapchat. Previously, she was at Facebook. 

Sperling first came out in college, while studying at the University of California Irvine. She joined Facebook in 2010.

Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher is one of the best tech journalists in the world. She’s known for her solid reporting and scoop after scoop after scoop. 

She previously ran tech site AllThingsD alongside Walt Mossberg and founded re/code this year.

4. Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel, famous for being Facebook‘s first investor and the co-founder and former CEO of PayPal, is the brains behind the Thiel Foundation. As part of the two-year fellowship, 20 teenagers receive $100,000 to drop out of college and start a company. 

As both a VC and entrepreneur, Thiel has been involved with companies like Palantir Technologies, Founders Fund, and Facebook, where Thiel was the social network’s first outside investor and director.

Thiel is also the founder and president of Clarium Capital.

Lorenzo Thione

In his early 20s, Thione launched his first company, Powerset, a search engine startup. That company eventually sold to Microsoft for about $100 million, where it ultimately became part of the tech giant’s Bing search engine. 

He’s currently chief executive officer at the Social Edge, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Owen Thomas

Owen Thomas, the current editor-in-chief of ReadWrite, is the epitome of a Silicon Valley insider. Thomas is the one who “transformed Valleywag into the Silicon Valley’s authority on tech gossip.“

Disclosure: I used to work with Owen during his time at Business Insider. 

Edith Windsor

Edith Windsor, a former IBM engineer, became an unlikely activist in the gay rights movement. Back in 2010, Windsor sued the government for a $363,053 refund of the estate taxes she had to pay when her spouse passed away. The Supreme Court ultimately decided in her favor, marking the first the US-recognized marriage between partners of the same sex. 

Now see ….

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