One of the best ways to find interesting people to follow on Twitter is to look and see who other smart people are already following.
With that goal in mind, I’ve created a list of Twitter accounts heavily followed by the Hacker News community. The list is ranked by the percent of HN readers following each person. Many of the people uncovered by this list are themselves active users on Hacker News, but many are not, and overall I think it’s a fun way to get a glimpse of who the HN community finds it valuable to listen to (on Twitter, at least).
Data
One of the byproducts of my Hacker News Twitter feeds project was a data set of Twitter names for all Hacker News users.
This data set is not perfect. First, it only covers Hacker News users who have listed their Twitter accounts in their profile. This is only a fraction of all HN users. Second, the set may be missing some users whose profiles I haven’t yet scraped. In the end, the total data set only amounts to 300+ Twitter users, but I that’s probably big enough to be representative of the population of Hacker News readers as a whole.
Once I had this data set in hand, generating the list was done using Python and Tweepy.
1-10
| Rank | Twitter name | Name | % following | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  |
@fredwilson | Fred Wilson | 33.8% |
| 2. |  |
@ev | Evan Williams | 31.6% |
| 3. |  |
@timoreilly | Tim O’Reilly | 28.7% |
| 4. |  |
@jasonfried | Jason Fried | 28.4% |
| 5. |  |
@BillGates | Bill Gates | 26.9% |
| 6. |  |
@shitmydadsays | Justin | 25.3% |
| 7. |  |
@TechCrunch | TechCrunch | 24.4% |
| 8. |  |
@davemcclure | Dave McClure | 24.1% |
| 9. |  |
@al3x | Alex Payne | 23.4% |
| 10. |  |
@dhh | DHH | 23.4% |
11-20
| Rank | Twitter name | Name | % following | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11. |  |
@dcurtis | Dustin Curtis | 23.4% |
| 12. |  |
@venturehacks | Venture Hacks | 23.1% |
| 13. |  |
@ycombinator | Y Combinator | 23.1% |
| 14. |  |
@jeresig | John Resig | 23.1% |
| 15. |  |
@hnshah | Hiten Shah | 22.5% |
| 16. |  |
@cdixon | chris dixon | 22.5% |
| 17. |  |
@ericries | Eric Ries | 22.5% |
| 18. |  |
@newsycombinator | news.yc Popular | 21.9% |
| 19. |  |
@Scobleizer | Robert Scoble | 20.3% |
| 20. |  |
@garrytan | Garry Tan | 20.0% |
21-30
| Rank | Twitter name | Name | % following | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21. |  |
@kevinrose | Kevin Rose | 20.0% |
| 22. |  |
@ConanOBrien | Conan O’Brien | 20.0% |
| 23. |  |
@defunkt | Chris Wanstrath | 19.7% |
| 24. |  |
@AndrewWarner | Andrew Warner | 19.1% |
| 25. |  |
@tferriss | Tim Ferriss | 18.8% |
| 26. |  |
@Jason | Jason Calacanis | 18.4% |
| 27. |  |
@github | GitHub | 18.4% |
| 28. |  |
@codinghorror | Jeff Atwood | 18.4% |
| 29. |  |
@gruber | John Gruber | 18.1% |
| 30. |  |
@biz | Biz Stone | 17.5% |
31-40
| Rank | Twitter name | Name | % following | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31. |  |
@sacca | Chris Sacca | 17.2% |
| 32. |  |
@yegg | Gabriel Weinberg | 16.9% |
| 33. |  |
A Googler | 16.9% | |
| 34. |  |
@jack | Jack Dorsey | 16.6% |
| 35. |  |
@MrTweet | Mr Tweet | 16.6% |
| 36. |  |
@mashable | Pete Cashmore | 16.6% |
| 37. |  |
@paultoo | Paul Buchheit | 16.6% |
| 38. |  |
@garyvee | Gary Vaynerchuk | 16.2% |
| 39. |  |
@twitterapi | Twitter API | 15.9% |
| 40. |  |
@sivers | Derek Sivers | 15.6% |
41-50
| Rank | Twitter name | Name | % following | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 41. |  |
@zappos | Zappos.com CEO -Tony | 15.6% |
| 42. |  |
@zedshaw | zedshaw | 15.3% |
| 43. |  |
@mattcutts | Matt Cutts | 15.3% |
| 44. |  |
15.3% | ||
| 45. |  |
@sgblank | steve blank | 15.0% |
| 46. |  |
@om | Om Malik | 14.7% |
| 47. |  |
@arrington | Michael Arrington | 14.7% |
| 48. |  |
@cshirky | Clay Shirky | 14.7% |
| 49. |  |
@msuster | Mark Suster | 14.4% |
| 50. |  |
@KISSmetrics | KISSmetrics Tweets | 14.4% |
51-60
| Rank | Twitter name | Name | % following | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 51. |  |
@bfeld | Brad Feld | 14.4% |
| 52. |  |
@leahculver | Leah Culver | 14.4% |
| 53. |  |
@chrismessina | Chris Messina | 14.1% |
| 54. |  |
@spolsky | Joel Spolsky | 14.1% |
| 55. |  |
@BPGlobalPR | BP Public Relations | 13.8% |
| 56. |  |
@dharmesh | Dharmesh Shah | 13.8% |
| 57. |  |
@andrewchen | Andrew Chen | 13.8% |
| 58. |  |
@spam | Spam Watch | 13.8% |
| 59. |  |
@joehewitt | Joe Hewitt | 13.8% |
| 60. |  |
@Stammy | Paul Stamatiou | 13.8% |
61-70
| Rank | Twitter name | Name | % following | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 61. |  |
@joshu | joshua schachter | 13.4% |
| 62. |  |
@tlrobinson | uosuqo o | 13.4% |
| 63. |  |
@BarackObama | Barack Obama | 13.1% |
| 64. |  |
@mkapor | Mitch Kapor | 13.1% |
| 65. |  |
@37signals | 37signals | 13.1% |
| 66. |  |
@joshk | Josh Kopelman | 12.8% |
| 67. |  |
@rands | rands | 12.8% |
| 68. |  |
@laughingsquid | Scott Beale | 12.2% |
| 69. |  |
@davemorin | Dave Morin | 12.2% |
| 70. |  |
@maxklein | Max Klein | 12.2% |
71-80
| Rank | Twitter name | Name | % following | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 71. |  |
@davewiner | Dave Winer | 11.9% |
| 72. |  |
@photomatt | Matt Mullenweg | 11.9% |
| 73. |  |
@kn0thing | Alexis Ohanian | 11.9% |
| 74. |  |
@anildash | Anil Dash | 11.9% |
| 75. |  |
@gvanrossum | Guido van Rossum | 11.9% |
| 76. |  |
@swombat | Daniel Tenner | 11.9% |
| 77. |  |
@Dropbox | Dropbox | 11.9% |
| 78. |  |
@marshallk | Marshall Kirkpatrick | 11.6% |
| 79. |  |
@hotdogsladies | Merlin Mann | 11.6% |
| 80. |  |
@loic | Loic Le Meur | 11.6% |
81-90
| Rank | Twitter name | Name | % following | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 81. |  |
@leolaporte | Leo Laporte | 11.2% |
| 82. |  |
@jkottke | Jason Kottke | 11.2% |
| 83. |  |
@markbao | Mark Bao | 10.9% |
| 84. |  |
@ryancarson | Ryan Carson | 10.9% |
| 85. |  |
@ericschmidt | Eric Schmidt | 10.9% |
| 86. |  |
@THE_REAL_SHAQ | THE_REAL_SHAQ | 10.9% |
| 87. |  |
@mixpanel | Mixpanel | 10.9% |
| 88. |  |
@antirez | Salvatore Sanfilippo | 10.6% |
| 89. |  |
@andrewhyde | Andrew Hyde | 10.6% |
| 90. |  |
@Werner | Werner Vogels | 10.6% |
91-100
| Rank | Twitter name | Name | % following | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 91. |  |
@mcuban | Mark Cuban | 10.6% |
| 92. |  |
@patio11 | Patrick McKenzie | 10.6% |
| 93. |  |
@diveintomark | Mark Pilgrim | 10.6% |
| 94. |  |
@tqbf | Thomas H. Ptacek | 10.6% |
| 95. |  |
@rww | Richard MacManus | 10.3% |
| 96. |  |
@azaaza | Aza Raskin | 10.0% |
| 97. |  |
@chrisbrogan | Chris Brogan | 10.0% |
| 98. |  |
@JasonLBaptiste | Jason L. Baptiste | 10.0% |
| 99. |  |
@igrigorik | Ilya Grigorik | 10.0% |
| 100. |  |
@danmartell | Dan Martell | 10.0% |
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