Mark Elderkin (born September 27, 1963) is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Gay.com in 1994 with his husband Jeff O. Bennett. [1] Elderkin served as President of PlanetOut Inc. when the company went public in 2004. He retired from the company in 2006. He founded Gay Ad Network [1] in 2007, which was named as one of the Inc. 5000 fastest growing private companies in America. [2] In 2024, he launched Elderkin Wealth Management, a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firm.
Elderkin was a child prodigy of the clarinet. He graduated from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business with an MBA and Boston University with a BS in Systems Engineering. He has served on the Board of GLAAD and mentors young entrepreneurs. [3]
Elderkin lives in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and West Hollywood, California with his husband Jeff Bennett. His daughter Chloe Bennett Elderkin is a student at University of Southern California Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. [4] [1]
Craig R. Benson is an American politician and entrepreneur who served as the 79th Governor of New Hampshire from 2003 to 2005. Benson first came to public attention when he founded Cabletron Systems, later known as Enterasys Networks, which became one of the largest employers in New Hampshire. Enterasys Networks was acquired by Extreme Networks in November 2016
Peter H. Diamandis is an American marketer, engineer, physician, and entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, and the cofounder and executive chairman of Singularity University. He is also cofounder and former CEO of the Zero Gravity Corporation, cofounder and vice chairman of Space Adventures Ltd., founder and chairman of the Rocket Racing League, cofounder of the International Space University, cofounder of Planetary Resources, cofounder of Celularity, founder of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, vice chairman and cofounder of Human Longevity, Inc.
Stephen Leo Poizner is an American businessman, technology entrepreneur and former Republican California Insurance Commissioner and Gubernatorial candidate. Poizner also was an independent candidate in the 2018 California Insurance Commissioner election.
Cynthia Love is an American human rights advocate, executive, author, public speaker,entrepreneur and businessperson. She is former executive of publicly traded TORO, academic administrator, and retired ordained minister who started eight companies, several non profits and served for four years as the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Community Church and three years as ED of Soulforce
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American businessman. He co-founded the social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is chairman, chief executive officer and controlling shareholder. Zuckerberg has been the subject of multiple lawsuits regarding the creation and ownership of the website as well as issues of user privacy.
Phillip York Goldman was an American software engineer and entrepreneur. He was a Macintosh software engineer at Apple Inc., and was best known for co-founding WebTV.
PlanetOut, Inc. is an online media company or entertainment company exclusively targeting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) demographic.
Timothy MacKenzie Gunn is an American author, academic, and television personality. He served on the faculty of Parsons School of Design from 1982 to 2007 and was chair of fashion design at the school from August 2000 to March 2007, after which he joined Liz Claiborne as its chief creative officer. Over 16 seasons, Gunn has become well known as the on-air mentor to designers on the reality television program Project Runway. Gunn's popularity on Project Runway led to two spin-off shows; Bravo's Tim Gunn's Guide to Style and Lifetime's Under the Gunn, as well as five books. In addition to being an executive producer, Gunn has served as mentor for the teen designers on Project Runway: Junior. He also provides the voice of Baileywick, the castle steward in the Disney Junior television show Sofia the First and narrated the sitcom Mixology.
John Samuel Hendricks is an American businessman and the founder and former chairman of Discovery, Inc., a broadcasting and film production company which owned the Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet networks, among other ventures. On March 20, 2014, after 32 years at the helm, he made public his intention to retire as chairman of Discovery Communications after the annual shareholders' meeting of May 16, 2014. He moved on to found CuriosityStream, an ad-free, on-demand streaming service.
Josh Kilmer-Purcell is an American writer, businessperson, and television personality. In addition to his New York Times and National Bestselling memoirs, his life has been documented in the television reality show The Fabulous Beekman Boys with his husband, Brent Ridge. He has written articles for NPR, Huffington Post, Publishers Weekly, AdWeek, OUT Magazine & others. The pair also participated in the 21st season of The Amazing Race, ultimately becoming the season's grand prize winners.
Christopher Hughes is an American entrepreneur and author who co-founded and served as spokesman for the online social directory and networking site Facebook until 2007. He was the publisher and editor-in-chief of The New Republic from 2012 to 2016.
Gay.com was a chat, personals, and social networking website catering to the LGBT community. The site was a digital brand of Here Media Inc. In addition to community features, the site featured LGBT-related news and features. As of September 2005, San Jose Mercury News ranked gay.com as the most popular online gay personals site in the United States. As of March 2007, Hitwise ranked it number three in domestic American popularity after Adam4Adam and Manhunt. Gay.com also used to compete internationally with dudesnude, gayromeo, and gaydar.
Paul Colichman is an American media entrepreneur who founded the gay cable channel Here!. In 2008, John Waters nicknamed Colichman "the gay Citizen Hearst." He is the CEO of Here Media, Inc. and has produced and/or distributed over 200 motion pictures and television series episodes, most notably Academy-award winning film Gods and Monsters, starring Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave.
Ellen Siminoff is an entrepreneur and investor. Frequently quoted in The New York Times as an Internet industry commentator, Siminoff was named one of Forbes magazine's Masters of Information in 2005.
Compete Magazine is an American LGBTQ niche market health, fitness, and sports magazine and sporting events company. Compete is published by Scottsdale, Arizona-based Media Out Loud, LLC's Compete Sports Media division. The magazine is published monthly.
Here Media Inc. is an LGBT-oriented media company. Headquartered in Los Angeles, the company produces and distributes niche content focused on LGBT consumers.
Ryan Steelberg is an American serial entrepreneur and technology executive who co-founded AdForce (IPO), 2CAN Media, and dMarc Broadcasting. Most recently, Ryan Steelberg co-founded Veritone, where he serves as its President & CEO, as well as the Chairman of the Board. Veritone, Inc. is a leading AI software and services company, public on NASDAQ (VERI).
Jay Gould is an American tech entrepreneur and the founder & CEO of Yashi. Gould is also an active angel investor, and has backed web-based startups including DogVacay, Tout, Buffer, and Fitocracy.
Raymond "Ray" King is an American entrepreneur and co-founder of multiple companies including AboutUs.org and Top Level Design.
Evan Sharp is an American billionaire Internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and chief design and creative officer of Pinterest, a visual discovery engine. He joined the company's board of directors in March 2019.