100 Women in Tech and Founders to Follow on Twitter

Allyson Kapin
Athena Talks
Published in
4 min readOct 6, 2016

In the last 48 hours, Vice’s Motherboard and The Guardian published articles about how Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and other tech influencers barely follow any women on Twitter. Musk responded with a tweet that the Vice reporter was part of the PC police and that Musk only follows the media and reporters (who happen to be men).

It’s easy for influencers to feel snubbed by articles calling them out. But snubbing aside, the lack of diverse networks is incredibly problematic. Why? Because if you want to help solve the world’s toughest problems facing our communities nationally and globally, only listening and interacting with other influential men in your network gives you a severely limited perspective. You will only hear about how men (typically cisgender and white) view the world and their limited scope of how to solve problems. By narrowing your networks like this, you’ve filtered out so many other diverse perspectives, which would otherwise bring different and innovative ideas into your world.

I’ve witnessed how diverse networks have the power to shake up the startup world and the tech sphere. Over the past year and a half the Women Startup Challenge has introduced 1000+ diverse startup founders to a network of investors, which has led to more investments in women-led startups. But if these investors only networked with people who looked like them, they would have missed out on funding some big ideas and game changing ventures in areas like health tech, energy storage, and fintech, to name just a few.

If you want to start (or continue) listening to more diverse perspectives across Twitter, here’s a list of 100 women immersed in the worlds of tech, startups, investors, and media to get you started. There’s thousands more women that should be on this list, and I’d like to encourage you to continue adding to it. Feel free to post your name, background, and Twitter handle in the comments.

Entrepreneurs and Technologists

  1. Alexa Andrzejewski, Cofounder, Foodspotting
  2. Erica Baker, Build and Release Engineer/Diversity and Inclusion, Slack
  3. Angela Benton, CEO, NewMe Accelerator
  4. Dr. Sue Black, Tech Evangelist; Founder, Techmums; Campaigner, Bletchley Park
  5. danah boyd, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research; Founder, Data & Society
  6. Joanne Bradford, Chief Operating Officer, SoFi
  7. Lisa Mae Brunson, Founder, Wonder Women Tech
  8. Jessica Butcher, Cofounder, Blippar
  9. Kimberly Bryant, Founder, BlackGirlsCode
  10. Angie Byron, Director of Community Development, Acquia
  11. Elisa Camahort, Cofounder, BlogHer
  12. Majora Carter, Cofounder, StartUp Box
  13. Sandy Carter, Business Executive; Formerly Worldwide General Manager of Ecosystem Development and Social Business, IBM
  14. Jean Case, CEO, Case Foundation
  15. Angie Chang, Cofounder, Hackbright Academy
  16. Shaherose Charania, Founder, Women2.0; Advisor, Republic.co
  17. Tracy Chou, Former Pinterest Engineer
  18. Katy Croff Bell, Engineer and Chief Scientist, Nautilus Live; Emerging Explorer, National Geographic
  19. Morgan DeBaun, CEO and Founder, Blavity
  20. Kelli Thomas-Drake, Founder, MyPurpleFolder
  21. Caterina Fake, Founder, Findery; Cofounder of Kahvila Siili, Sesat School, Hunch, Flickr
  22. Sibyl Edwards, President, DC Web Women; Cofounder, Black Female Founders
  23. Jennifer Fleiss, Cofounder, Rent the Runway
  24. Jessie Frazelle, Open Source Developer
  25. Cindy Gallop, Founder, Make Love Not Porn
  26. Lilibeth Gangas, CTCO, Kapor Center
  27. Gesche Haas, Founder, Dreamers // Doers
  28. Mary Hodder, Entrepreneur
  29. Arianna Huffington, CEO, Thrive Global
  30. Jennifer Hyman, Cofounder, Rent the Runway
  31. Janet Ikpa, Diversity Program Manager, Twitter
  32. Jorey Des Jardins, Cofounder, BlogHer
  33. Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama; Chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls
  34. Neelie Kroes, Board member, Salesforce and Rijksmuseum; Advisory Board, Uber
  35. Alexandria Lafci, Cofounder, New Story
  36. Fei-Fei Li, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University, and Director of Stanford AI Lab
  37. Holly Liu, Cofounder and Chief of Staff, Kabam
  38. Sandi MacPherson, Founder, Quibb
  39. Jessica O. Matthews, Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Social Scientist; Founder and CEO, Uncharted Play
  40. Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo
  41. Deldelp Medina, Director, code2040
  42. Susan Mernit, Cofounder, Hack the Hood and Oakland Local
  43. Erie Meyer, United States Digital Service, and Cofounder, Tech LadyMafia
  44. Maci Peterson, Cofounder, On Second Thought
  45. Shireen Mitchell, Founder, digitalsistas
  46. Leanne Pittsford, Founder, Lesbians Who Tech
  47. Nicole Sanchez, VP, Social Impact, Github
  48. Reshma Saujani, Founder and CEO, Girls Who Code
  49. Clara Shih Founder and CEO, Hearsay Social; Board Member, Starbucks
  50. Star Simpson, Engineer, Otherlab
  51. Sukhinder Singh, Founder, theBoardlist
  52. Aminatou Sow, Cofounder, Tech LadyMafia; Social Impact Marketing, Google
  53. Megan Smith, CTO of US
  54. Amanda Steinberg, Founder, DailyWorth
  55. Debra Sterling, Founder, Goldieblox
  56. Lisa Stone, Entrepreneur and Cofounder, BlogHer
  57. Padmasree Warrior, CEO, NextEV USA
  58. Susan Wojcicki, CEO, YouTube
  59. Lea Verou, Human-Computer Interaction PHD Candidate, MIT, Web Developer, Author
  60. Jessica Verrilli, Senior Director of Corp Dev and Strategy, Twitter and Investor
  61. Natalie Villalobos, Head of Global Programs for WomenTechmakers, Google

Investors

  1. Nisha Dua, Partner, BBG Ventures
  2. Anu Duggal, Director, Female Founders Fund (F Cubed)
  3. Kathryn Finney, Founder, digitalundivided
  4. Melinda Gates, Co-Chair, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
  5. Arlan Hamilton, Founder, Backstage Capital
  6. Carolina Huaranca, Principal, Latinx at Kapor Capital
  7. Jalak Jobanputra, Founding Partner, FuturePerfect Ventures
  8. Shelly Kapoor Collins, Partner, Propeller Venture Capital
  9. Freada Kapor Klein, Cofounder, Kapoor Capital
  10. Sarah Kunst, Investor and Founder, Proday
  11. Aileen Lee, Founder, Cowboy Ventures
  12. Christine Lu, Impact Investor, America Innovates
  13. Susan Lyne, President, BBG Ventures
  14. Ann Miura-Ko, Cofounding Partner, FLOODGATE
  15. Rehana Nathoo, VP of Social Innovation (Impact Investing), Case Foundation
  16. Natalia Oberti Noguera, Founder and CEO, Pipeline Angels
  17. Ellen Pao, Investor and Cofounder, Project Include
  18. Heidi Roizen, Venture Capitalist and Operating Partner, DFJ
  19. Kate Shillo, VC and Director, Galvanize
  20. Joanne Wilson, Investor
  21. Monique Woodard, Investor, 500 Startups

Media and Reporters

  1. Davey Alba, Staff Writer, WIRED
  2. Katie Benner, Reporter, NY Times Tech
  3. Johana Bhuiyan, Senior reporter, Recode
  4. Elizabeth Dwoskin, Correspondent, Washington Post Silicon Valley
  5. Kerry Flynn, Business Reporter, Mashable
  6. Jessica Guynn, Tech Reporter, USA TODAY
  7. Xeni Jardin, Editor, Boing Boing
  8. Lynne D. Johnson, Tech contributor
  9. Sarah Lacy, Founder, Pando
  10. Sage Lazzaro, Startups and Tech Writer, New York Observer
  11. Danielle Morrill, Founder, Mattermark
  12. Shalini Ramachandran, TV and Broadband Industry Reporter, Wall Street Journal
  13. Katie Roof, Senior Writer, Techcrunch
  14. Aarti Shahani, Tech Reporter, NPR
  15. Kara Swisher, Founder, Recode
  16. Goldie Taylor, Editor at Large, The Daily Beast
  17. Amy Vernon, Startups and Tech Contributor, INC
  18. Gillian B. White, Editor, The Atlantic

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