THIS WEEK SEES an influx of nerds way richer, smarter and more forward-thinking than you. The Dublin Web Summit is taking place, and an astounding galaxy of online supernovas has descended on the city.
Their genius endeavours will be well reported, of course, as Dublin continues on its way to being one of the social and industrial hubs of social media. But there are far more important things to think about when this many innovators come to town, such as who’s who, who should you be looking out for, and how much are they worth?
NIKLAS ZENNSTROM
Founder of Skype
Meet the man who enabled emigrants across the globe to phone home for free, and who probably wants parents to stop referring to the service as “the Skype”. Skype Communications was sold to Microsoft this year for more than €6 billion, a deal finalised this month. Big bucks, but Zennstrom left the company in 2007.
ERIC LY
Founder of LinkedIn
Ly is one of the founders of the company that essentially reinvented the CV. The website is valued at more than €1 billion, and when shares went public this year, stock rose by 109 per cent in the first day of trading. Ker-ching.
TONY WANG
General manager, Twitter
A web summit wouldn’t be a web summit without a dude from Twitter. It’s pretty difficult to quantify the worth of the company, but it’s best valued at however much Google might decide it can afford to pay for it, which could run to something crazy, such as €8 billion. As it stands, Twitter might make around €70 million this year, but what it makes and what it’s worth are two different things.
BEN PARR
Editor-at-large, Mashable
Parr is probably the most important journalist at the summit, as Mashable is the source for social-media news, though it’s worth more in influence than cold hard cash.
ALEXANDER LJUNG
Co-founder, SoundCloud
The site that made MySpace look clunky instead of revolutionary, Soundcloud is now the go-to point for streaming and cataloguing music online. So far the site has received about €9 million in funding, has five million registered users, and has a celebrity investor in the form of Ashton Kutcher.
