The Top 10 Writers You Need to Start Following on Medium
There’s a lot to love about publishing on Medium, as I recently detailed in my post, 10 insanely good reasons to publish on Medium. Medium delivers good engagement, offers the potential to reach a new (and potentially larger) audience, and only a minimal effort on your part is required!
But in addition to being a great place to grow your personal brand and help expose your content to a new audience, Medium is an amazing place to discover new writers.
Here’s are the 10 most popular writers on Medium you can start following today.
1. Gary Vaynerchuk
Followers: 175,682
Gary, in his own words: Family first! But after that, businessman. CEO of @vaynermedia. Host of The #AskGaryVee Show. A dude who loves the Hustle, @Winelibrary & the @NYJets
Vaynerchuk shares great insights and advice with his followers on everything from social media trends, to content strategy, to entrepreneurship and business advice. These are all topics I’m insanely passionate about as well.
One of Vaynerchuk’s most popular articles is “The Snap Generation: A Guide to Snapchat’s History”. In it, he writes:
I was surprised early on that people didn’t realize that the way Snapchat works is much closer to how we communicate face to face than any other social network. What I mean by this is that: when we talk to each other, passing in the halls or just living out our lives, those moments disappear. Snapchat emulates that behavior and psychology.
2. Ev Williams
Followers: 170,995
Ev, in his own words: Reader, writer, ponderer, father. CEO of Medium // @ev
Here’s how Williams has described Medium: “Medium is not a publishing tool. It’s a network. A network of ideas that build off each other. And people.”
Williams uses Medium to share quick thoughts and ideas on technology, life as a working parent, and, naturally, to share updates about Medium.
One of Williams’ most popular posts is “Taking Medium to the Next Level”. In it, he further laid out what Medium is all about:
“Medium has become an ideas exchange, where thinkers, creators, and those with a story to share come to find their audience, move people, and move us all forward.”
3. Hillary Clinton
Followers: 161,985
Hillary, in her own words: Wife, mom, grandma, women+kids advocate, FLOTUS, Senator, SecState, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, 2016 presidential candidate.
What will you get from Clinton? Politics and lots of it. You can read tales and speeches from the campaign trail, messages to voters, attacks on her Republican opponent Donald Trump, and her thoughts on a variety of important issues (including women’s equality, immigration, and national security).
One of her most popular posts was “Why I chose Tim Kaine”, in which she explains:
“He’s a man of relentless optimism who believes no problem is unsolvable if you’re willing to put in the work. … But this is what’s important: Tim has never taken a job for the glory or the title. He’s the same person whether the cameras are on or off.”
4. Tim O’Reilly
Followers: 155,063
Tim, in his own words: Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media. Watching the alpha geeks, sharing their stories, helping the future unfold.
O’Reilly dedicates his insightful writing to the future of technology and business.
One of his most popular posts, “This is strictly a business decision”, analyzes United Technologies’ outsourcing of jobs. In it he writes:
“There is an orthodoxy that I’d like to see challenged, that profits are sacrosanct, because they are demanded by ‘the market,’ while workers and their income are fair game. It is not an economic law as fixed as the law of gravity that a business must always seek the lowest costs and the highest profits, especially when those profits are merely being taken out of the company to pad the pockets of ‘activist investors.’”
5. Marc Andreessen
Followers: 142,508
Marc, in Carl Icahn’s words: ‘Andreessen is the quintessential guy who is wrong with corporate America…Hard to hear, talks with a squeaky voice that only a dog can understand.’
Andreessen has a large following, but he is pretty much inactive on Medium right now. When he was active, Andreessen wrote on topics like technology, media, and economics — often made up entirely of his own tweets.
One of his more popular Medium posts is “Success is a Question of When, Not If,” in which he discusses startups:
“8/Fourth, founders by definition live in the future, see a world that doesn’t yet exist & try to make it so. Nailing timing = hardest thing.
9/Which is often why more pragmatic founders end up building the big & important companies — the idealists were just too early.”
6. Biz Stone
Followers 138,533
Biz, in his own words: Co-founder and CEO Jelly Industries, Inc. Also Co-founder of Twitter, Inc and A Medium Corporation.
Stone writes about the future of technology, offers advice to startups, and shares lots of updates on Jelly. One of his popular posts is “The Complexity of Simple,” in which he writes:
“Keeping things simple means letting go. It means giving up some control to the people who are going to use what you’re building. Build the basics and as people use it, you’ll discover two things. First, you’ll find out where the value is. Second, you’ll find out what’s missing. Then you iterate.”
7. Jason Fried
Followers 133,060
Jason, in his own words: Founder & CEO at Basecamp. Co-author of Getting Real, Remote, and NYT Bestseller REWORK.
Startups, business advice, and design are among the topics you’ll discover Fried writing about on Medium. One of his most popular posts is “Do you have to love what you do?” in which he writes:
“There’s nothing wrong with loving what you do, of course — I just don’t think it’s a prerequisite for starting a business or building a fulfilling career, let alone doing great work. In fact, I think it’s disingenuous for really successful people to put so much of the focus on love, just as it’s disingenuous for really rich people to say money doesn’t matter. People tend to romanticize their own motivations and histories. They value what matters to them now, and forget what really mattered to them when they started.”
8. M.G. Siegler
Followers: 125,001
M.G., in his own words: General Partner @ GV (formerly Google Ventures). In past lives I wrote at TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and ParisLemon. A man of few words. Except when writing.
No surprise here, Siegler writes a lot about Apple, as well as technology trends and startups. “Requiem for a Headphone Jack” is one of his most popular posts. He writes:
“But the key is to offer a bridge, not a crutch. Or, as I once called the physical keyboard on a smartphone, an “adult pacifier.” In a way, I suspect the Lightning port option is a bridge itself, to our inevitable wireless headphone future. Yes, they’re still slightly problematic now for a number of reasons. But every single time I pull my wired EarPods out of my pocket and they’re tangled in a way that defies the laws of science, it’s clear where we need to get to. And this is a necessary step.”
9. Julie Zhuo
Followers: 118,882
Julie, in her own words: Product design VP @ Facebook. Lover of food, games, words. Find me @joulee or on juliezhuo.com
Zhuo writes about topics that include management, motherhood, and product design.
“Design, Illustrated in 3 Charts,” is one of her most popular posts. It showcases her doodles rather than her words. Here’s one of Zhuo’s charts — the “Holy Grail of Good Design”:
10. Larry Kim
Followers: 113,590
Hey, that’s me!
Me, in my own words: Founder of WordStream. Top columnist @Inc ❤ AdWords, Facebook Advertising, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Start-ups, Venture Capital & Unicorns
What you’ll get following me is tips and inspiration for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, marketing, advertising, growth hacking, and productivity. I also run a popular publication called All Things Marketing & Entrepreneurship.
One of my most popular articles is “Multitasking is Killing Your Brain.” Here’s an excerpt:
“Multitasking is not a skill to add to the resume, but rather a bad habit to put a stop to. Turn off notifications, create set email checking time slots throughout the day (rather than constant inbox refreshing), and put your mind to the task at hand.”
Originally published on Inc.com
About The Author
Larry Kim is the CEO of Mobile Monkey and founder of WordStream. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
