Taylor Lorenz is an independent journalist, author, and media operator who has spent her career documenting how the internet reshapes fame, culture, power, and everyday life. After stints at Business Insider, The Daily Beast, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, she left legacy media in October 2024 to run User Mag, her Substack-based publication covering tech and internet culture, which quickly grew to nearly 100,000 subscribers. Her 2023 book 'Extremely Online' is a landmark social history of the influencer economy. She is widely considered one of the most influential — and most harassed — tech journalists in America.
Sharon McMahon is 'America's Government Teacher' - a former public school educator turned media force who built a nonpartisan civics empire from Duluth, Minnesota. Known for breaking down complex government topics with facts and zero spin, she went viral in 2020 with a kitchen-table explanation of the Electoral College, and never looked back. Today she hosts the top-1% podcast 'Here's Where It Gets Interesting,' writes The Preamble newsletter on Substack, authored the #1 NYT bestseller 'The Small and the Mighty,' and has raised nearly $14 million for charitable causes through her community of 'Governerds.'
Ryan Peterman went from new grad to Staff Engineer at Instagram in three years, then left one of tech's most coveted jobs to build what he wished existed. His newsletter 'The Developing Dev' has 106,000+ subscribers, his podcast 'The Peterman Pod' features career stories from top engineers, and his hardware company Compose is building an ultra-low-profile ergonomic keyboard. Based in San Francisco, he is the rare engineer who codes, writes, interviews Turing Award winners, and designs keyboards with equal intensity.