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If 2016 is the year when Silicon Valley upstages the power players of the last century, it will be thanks to the role of data analytics in the modern political campaign, the reach of social media and cold, hard cash. Wired magazine identified the most politically influential tech industry players.
Some of those listed as the most D.C.-connected will come as a surprise to absolutely no one: Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who stumped for President Obama and invested in the data analytics firm, Civis Analytics, that is helping power Hillary Clinton’s election efforts; Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose advocacy group, Fwd.us, is pushing for immigration reform; and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who shelled out $3 million to Sen. Marco Rubio’s Super PAC and hosted a fundraiser for the presidential hopeful.
Wired also names some lesser-known figures playing an outside role in the race for the White House, including Justin McCooney, a former video editor on “The Apprentice,” who introduced The Donald to Twitter, and Aidan King and David Frederick, the two guys who started a Reddit forum for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, which they used not only to spread the word about his candidacy but also to generate small contributions.
Wired’s most wired list also includes Hillary Clinton’s chief technology officer (and former Googler) Stephanie Hannon, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and veteran political operatives David Plouffe and Chris Lehane. Here’s the magazine’s full list of influencers.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
