Josh Mendelsohn, Tech Startups' Washington Lobbyist

The interests of Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., are separated by a lot more than a six-hour flight. A year ago, Josh Mendelsohn decided to change that by co-founding Engine Advocacy, a group representing technology startups. “Legislation that’s bad for startups pops up without any consideration that it’s bad for startups,” says 29-year-old Mendelsohn, who began his career at Google. “Startups aren’t on the map yet, so Washington doesn’t think about them.”

Now a tech entrepreneur, Mendelsohn has the heart of a politico, which makes the Harvard grad a double threat in Washington. At 14 he worked on a campaign for representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.); during his summer breaks from high school he lived in D.C., working at the U.S. Department of the Treasury for future Secretary Larry Summers and Sheryl Sandberg, another department official who would go on to bigger things.