FRIENDLIEST
CHRIS HUGHES
In one way or another, Chris Hughes has probably changed your life. Though he’s said he doesn’t think of himself as a builder of online communities, the wunderkind techie was one of the four founders of Facebook. In 2007, he became Barack Obama’s director of online organizing and launched My.Barack.Obama.com (a.k.a. MyBO), an unprecedented networking site for Obama supporters that raised $30 million.
Hughes also helped develop Vote for Change, a site that registered a million people to vote in 2008. Last spring, the Harvard grad became an entrepreneur in residence at the venture capital firm General Catalyst Partners and joined progressive communications firm GMMB as a strategic adviser. Hughes’s current status? “I guess a two-fold answer,” he says. “I’m considering starting another Web company while simultaneously expanding my work with organizations that combat global poverty.”
Hughes turned 26 in November.
