53. Ron Conway

Founding Partner, SV Angel

From Foursquare to Path and Airbnb, if there's a hot startup, odds are Conway's firm helped it get off the ground. 

Conway's connections help him get in on later-stage and secondary deals, too: SV Angel recently facilitated a $30 million secondary purchase of Pinterest shares from early employees.

In addition to his work with SV Angel, Ron Conway has been helping to change laws in San Francisco and California to benefit startups. In San Francisco, Conway supported a tax law called Proposition E, which won in the last election by a landslide. 

Before Proposition E, companies were paying payroll taxes on every job they created, even if they weren't generating much revenue. Proposition E replaces payroll taxes with a gross receipts tax. It could save San Francisco startups millions of dollars.