Jonah Peretti

Jonah Peretti, the guy behind BuzzFeed, is basically the king of internet virality. Let's put it this way: before anyone really understood what "going viral" meant, he was already poking at the edges, trying to figure out how ideas ricochet around the web. Back in 2005, he helped kick off The Huffington Post, and the next year, he flipped the script and started BuzzFeed, which started as sort of a digital playground for viral content experiments. Fast forward, and now it’s a global media beast, racking up billions—yes, billions—of views every month. The site churns out everything from wacky quizzes to hard-hitting investigative journalism, with a little bit of everything in between. Peretti also cracked the code on social advertising, convincing huge brands to make ads people might actually want to share (imagine that). But it’s not all memes and listicles; the dude’s got serious academic chops too. He’s an MIT Media Lab grad, and he’s taught at big-name spots like NYU and Parsons. Oh, and before all the BuzzFeed madness, he was already knee-deep in viral experiments, just sort of tinkering with how stuff spreads online. These days, he’s living the LA life with his wife and twins, probably coming up with the next big internet thing while everyone else is still figuring out TikTok trends.