First comes innovation. Then comes discerning, provisory, hyper-informed opinions from these five consumer tech influencers.
Some have earned their loyal followings by analyzing the newest products; others, through their thoughts on the tech climate and its revolving doors. Here, meet five of the most trusted minds, from a 20-year-old VC to a gadget dork who raises an eyebrow at every product until it’s proven itself otherwise.
#consumertech #siliconvalley #nyt #techcrunch #VC #podcasts
@hstebbings1996
Two years ago, a London kid dropped out of college because he loved VC so much. He conceived an interview-style podcast, The Twenty Minute VC, during which he’d converse with most powerful investors in the world. Sounds crazy until you realize it worked, and then it sounds even crazier. Harry Stebbings has spoken with every name on Product Hunt, earning him about 300k downloads per hyper-digestible episode.
Location: London, England
Followers: 478
Twitter Followers: 4,732
@alexia
One of the OG tech bloggers, Alexia Tsotsis climbed the TechCrunch ranks to the top before making a power play heard ’round the web: leaving to pursue the MSx management masters program at Stanford University’s business school. In one of the announcement posts, someone did the good work of digging up Alexia’s first article ever.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Followers: 10,700
Twitter Followers: 166k
@austinnotduncan
Austin Evans’ consumer tech reviews are a two-way sort of conversation. A video review goes up—YouTube’s his platform—and the comments come in. One of his latest videos on the future of laptops gathered over 4,500 responses in three days. His “stage presence” and authoritative delivery make him one of the great tech-splainers right now.
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Followers: 263,358
Twitter Followers: 309k
@uravgconsumer
Judner Aura has, for years, positioned himself as just “your average consumer” but at least now, he’s pretty far from that with sponsorships from LG and Sony. His Instagram acts like a news feed for his YouTube reviews, plus a peek at how he sets up his desktops and tech.
Location: He plays coy
Followers: 105,421
Twitter Followers: 127k
@fmanjoo
It’s easy for a very very seasoned tech reporter—as this one is—to become disenchanted with their own beat, but Farhad Manjoo infuses his writing with warmth, curiosity and always somehow answers the question, “But what does this mean for humans?” With bylines at Slate, WSJ and now NYT, he’s certainly an opinion to trust. (Check out his latest on Snapchat’s revolutionary growth.)
Location: West Covina, CA
Followers: 989
Twitter Followers: 146k
THE GET
