Friday, November 7, 2014

Announcing the 2014 socalTECH 50: Southern California's Ones To Watch

This is our second year of creating our list of the top 50 people to watch in Southern California's technology industry, and it was NOT an easy task.

As we found last year, it's a tough, unforgiving task to narrow down a list of the folks in Southern California's technology industry to just fifty to watch. There were many, many people who are not on the list who indeed deserve to be on this list -- in fact, we had so many names from readers and our nominating committee, we were forced into the difficult task of trimming back many deserving names. This year was particularly difficult, due to an explosion of startup activity in the region, which is now drawing entrepreneurs from around the world attracted by the rich environment for technology and media startups here.

The socalTECH 50 is aimed at identifying and highlighting the top 50 people in the technology industry, who are most likely to create the next big thing, produce the next big exit or to influence the industry in a significant way. We deliberately have omitted any of the folks on our list from last year, as well as very high profile and high visibility serial entrepreneurs who already have significant exits and success under their belt. We also consciously avoided a list of the perennial "power players" in the local industry -- folks like Elon Musk, Brian Lee, Patrick Soon-Shiong, George Strompolos, Scott Painter, Mike Jones, Eric Pulier, Steve Jillings, Jason Calacanis, etc.--to try to shine some light on folks who people might not have heard of, but should, or will.

Here is this year's list of the socalTECH 50, and their current companies. We'll be honoring these 50 in conjunction with this year's Digital Family Reunion at the Skirball Center on December 10th (tickets now available):

Brad Brooks, TigerText / Whisper
Juan Bruce, Epoxy
Corey Brundage, HONK
Lina Chen, Nix Hydra Game
Justin Choi, Nativo
Ryan Cummins and Matt Pohlson, Omaze (shared)
Grant Delgatty, URB-E
Kelsey Doorey, Vow to Be Chic
Rick Eiserman, TrailerPark
Rob Emrich, Mobile Majority
Jonathan Eppers, RadPad
Perse Faily, Tillster
Mazen Fawaz, Agent Ace
David Hughes, The Search Agency
Bryce Maddock, TaskUS
Amit Jain, Bridg
Zach James and Rich Raddon, ZEFR (shared)
Will Kassoy, AdColony
Ben Katz, CARD.com
Jonathan Kessler, Cargomatic
Ali Khoshgozaran, Tilofy
Philip Lelyveld, USC Entertainment Technology Center
Nanxi Liu, Enplug
Tim McIntyre, StackIQ
Josh Meyers, Slickdeals
Scott Morrow, Luxury Link
Austin Neudecker, Rev.com
Xander Oxman, Club W
Josh Payne, StackCommerce
Rachel Payne, FEM
Jordan Ramer, EVConnect
Russ Reeder, MediaTemple
Dan Rodrigues, Kareo
Scott Saunders, Payoff.com
Farbod Shoraka, BloomNation
Ian Siegel, ZipRecruiter
Michael Slavin, Privlo
Laurence Sotsky, Wilshire Axon Sports
Leura Spielman, Laurelandwolf.com
Jason Spievak, Invoca
Ian Swanson, ConnectHQ
John Tabis, The Bouqs Company
Min-Liang Tang, Razer
John Tomich, Onestop Internet
Julie Uhrman, OUYA
Meredith Vallando Rojas, Digitour Media
Blaine Vess, StudyMode
Ann Wang, Enrou
Kevin Whaley, Mapp Biopharmaceuticals
Micah Winkelspecht, Gem

Thanks to our readers, who helped to suggest people to include in this list, as well as our nominating committee, a group of insiders in the industry who helped us to make sure we had good exposure to the people who are making waves in the community. That nominating committee included Darya Allen-Attar (ChickLauncher), Paige Craig, Peter Delgrosso (D&B Credibility), Ivan Nikhoo (Siemer & Associates), Kamran Pourzanjani (Bestcovery), David Toomey (Cresa), Andy Wilson (Rexter, Innovate Pasadena), Richard Wolpert (AmplifyLA, Accel Partners), and Jeff Zwelling (Convertro).

Thanks also to our sponsors (positions still open), who are making the event to celebrate our winners possible!

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