Silicon Valley’s Newest Obsession: An Anonymously Created ‘Hot Guys Of Tech’ List

What do Jackson Dahl, the cofounder of e-sports team 100 Thieves, Steve Jang, the Kindred Ventures founder, and Casey Newton, The Verge’s Silicon Valley editor, all have in common?

They’re three of the 15 debut members on a new ranking that has quickly sucked up oxygen in the Bay Area: Hot Guys Of Tech, an anonymously created website and Twitter account launched yesterday, a well-timed moment when Silicon Valley has an abundance of free time to browse the list, debate its selections or stare at it in bemused horror during Covid-19 lockdown.

Hot Guys’ criteria seem determinedly hard to pin down. The website only offers this by way of explanation: “We scour the industry to find the biggest heart throbs in Silicon Valley. Set your target on these boys.” Its Twitter bio is more direct, calling its roll nothing less than “The Definitive List of Silicon Valley’s Biggest Hearth Throbs.” Hot Guys contains quite a few VCs and investors, as well as several tech executives. There are some bachelors, but not all the listees are single.

Soon after Hot Guys’ launch yesterday, Silicon Valley seemed to accept the ranking as its latest measure of status and celebritydom in good humor.

When reached via Twitter direct message, the person (or persons) running the account declined to comment—other than to describe the past 24 hours as mere “humble beginnings.”

As for the fellows on the list, they seem to be taking it in stride with the natural ease befitting the Valley’s finest specimens. With a wink, Andrew Chen, an Andreessen Horowitz general partner who ranked No. 3 on Hot Guys, deemed it an “outrage.”

Blue-ribbon winner Greg Isenberg, a WeWork executive, didn’t have much to say about his first-place status. “No comment on my end,” he writes in a Twitter DM. The Verge’s Newton struck a similar note.

Daniel Singer found himself showered with well-wishing text messages yesterday afternoon congratulating him on his status as No. 13. “I’d rather not be on the list when you’re 13 of 15,” the Panda founder says with a laugh. Singer took some solace, he says, after a number of female friend sought to assure him. “They’re like, Certain people need to be moved around.” Nonetheless, he does find himself refreshing the site and Twitter feed. “I keep checking in because maybe they’re gonna add more people to the list—maybe change the order.”

“The funny part—and I showed this to my girlfriend—within the preceding 30 to 60 minutes after [Hot Guys debuted], I did start getting a lot of female followers who are in tech,” he says. “All things considered, I’m just glad there’s something silly that we’re all bonding and talking about—that’s taking everyone’s mind off everything.”

And while it’s unclear whether Nikita Bier, the former TBH App cofounder, sent this Saturday afternoon tweet with Hot Guys in mind, it seems relevant to the discussion unfolding around the list.