Ben Woodhead Deputy editor - digital

Ben Woodhead is deputy editor - digital at the Financial Review Group. He writes on business, technology, politics and the economy and can be found on BRW, The Australian Financial Review and Smart Investor.

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Where to find Silicon Valley’s up and coming CEOs on Twitter

Published 31 August 2012 06:41, Updated 03 September 2012 06:30

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Business website Business Insider has pulled together a list of who it reckons are the hot young CEOs to watch in Silicon Valley. Names in the line-up include Klout boss Joe Fernandez, Stripe chief Patrick Collison and Twitch.tv CEO Emmett Shear.

You can find out more about these entrepreneurs from Business Insider, or follow them on Twitter here:

  • Box CEO Aaron Levie – Why BI rates him: “Box CEO Aaron Levie is the newest member of the billion-dollar startup CEO club. He just finished raising a huge round of funding that valued the company at more than $US1 billion.”
  • Parse CEO Tikhon Bernstam – Why BI rates him: “Tikhon Bernstam is probably building the most important startup of 2012. Parse is basically an app that makes it much easier to build other apps.”
  • Stripe CEO Patrick Collison – Why BI rates him: “Since coming out of Y Combinator, Stripe has become the go-to provider for accepting payments online.”
  • Klout CEO Joe Fernandez – Why BI rates him: “Love it or hate it, everyone checks their Klout scores in the San Francisco Bay Area.”
  • Yardsale CEO Ryan Mickle – Why BI rates him: “Yardsale is an iPhone application bringing the community feeling back to local selling.”
  • Uber CEO Travis Kalanick – : Why BI rates him: “It’s pretty much impossible to get a cab in San Francisco, much less any city in the southern SF Bay Area. But thanks to Uber, that isn’t much of a problem (though it is still quite pricey).”
  • Getaround CEO Sam Zaid – Why BI rates him: “He’s one of the most diligent and hard-working CEOs in the business.”
  • Crowdtilt CEO James Beshara – Why BI rates him: “His startup is solving a pretty common problem. Imagine this: you’re at a restaurant with a big group of friends and the check comes around — then 9 credit cards hit the table.”
  • Postmates CEO Bastian Lehmann – Why BI rates him: “With Get It Now, a service from Postmates, you can leverage a huge network of couriers to deliver just about anything in about an hour. Imagine if a company like Amazon leveraged something like that.”

The list has earned some sceptical comments from Business Insider readers, including one going by the monicker Happy Donkey, who earned 18 thumbs ups for his observation that “I only see perhaps one company that will actually be around in 5 years”.

Let us know who you think are Silicon Valley’s or Australia’s best and brightest new CEOs.

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