A web guru, viral media expert, and occasional social activist, Peretti is a partner in Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer's HuffingtonPost.com and the founder of viral content aggregate BuzzFeed.com. He's also known for his online prankery: With his comedian sister Chelsea Peretti, he created viral sites like BlackPeopleLoveUs.com and the New York City Rejection Line.

A graduate from the MIT Media Lab, Peretti made a name for himself on the web with his mock websites Black People Love Us, and his chain email-friendly thread the "Nike Sweatshop Emails," in which Peretti and a Nike representative discuss why Nike cannot print "sweatshop" on Peretti's custom Nikes. His legit foray into the media world came as a director and developer at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center and then with the launch of the Huffington Post in 2005. The "internet newspaper," the Huffington Post may now be best known as a celebrity-blogger platform, where the like of Scarlett Johansson and James Franco wax poetic about the topic du jour. The website went public in 2011, and Peretti has since gone on to found an even more lighthearted but equally lucrative enterprise, Buzzfeed, which "provides a snapshot of the viral web in real-time" by making lists of the best ‘90s heartthrobs and gifs yawning puppies. [Image via Getty]