Jay Samit

When Ryan Williams began attending VidCon, Comic-Con, South by Southwest (SXSW), TechCrunch Disrupt and other tech and fan-geek conferences, he noticed two remarkable things: these events were celebrating geeks, technology, and modern social media; and no one was telling the stories of the awesome people embracing this new form of influence and the wildly successful businesses they were creating. Ryan Williams is a former stand-up comedian turned tech entrepreneur. He was a founding team member at DigiSynd, a pioneering social media marketing group, acquired by Disney in 2008. After leaving Disney to join the Machinima.com, a YouTube video network for the gaming generation, he drove network growth to over 4 Billion video views a month, focused on influencer-driven YouTube video creation. As a start-up marketing executive, he has lead go-to-market product launches for global companies such as Disney, Microsoft, Activision, and Warner Bros. In 2014, Ryan went on to launch a popular podcast dedicated to interviewing the pioneers of what he calls the Influencer Economy. After speaking to more than a hundred artists, experts, and entrepreneurs--from world-famous YouTubers to New York Times best-selling authors to the most creative start-up founders and investors on the planet--he reverse engineered their careers, to understand the stories behind their success, and now presents everything he learned in The Influencer Economy. The three primary steps to success in the Influencer Economy -- launch, share and thrive -- can be applied to both business and life. Ryan tells the fascinating stories of more than a dozen people who turned their visions, ideas, and hobbies into influential and profitable digital media empires. He provides the "Influencer School Lessons" derived from each of these individual's journeys. As well as specific actions that readers can take to follow on the way to launching their own ideas into the online universe. In order to thrive in the digital age, you don't need to go to business school. You don't need an Ivy League degree. You don't need to know celebrities. And you don't need to have a lot of money. You just need to learn the new business framework from the leaders of the Influencer Economy. _____________________________________________ Ryan Williams is an entrepreneur, writer, podcast host and former stand-up comedian. He is the Founder of Ryno Lab; a collaborative influencer-based studio that helps brands and entrepreneurs create digital products, build networks and thrive in the digital age. Ryan's professional experience includes 12 years in marketing, business development, and entertainment. He was an early team member at the venture-backed startups DigiSynd (acquired by Disney), Machinima.com and State.com. He hosts Stories from the Influencer Economy podcast, featured in Apple's "New and Noteworthy" in 2015. He currently lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife and two daughters.

The 21st century is going to be the most disruptive, contentious period humanity has ever lived through. It will challenge our most sacred ideologies around politics, economics and social constructs. It will force humanity to adapt in ways we can't yet imagine. If the cost of providing universal health care is lower than the cost of building a political movement to prevent it, would politicians still view it as socialism? In a world where algorithms and robots take the jobs of immigrants and citizens alike, are border controls an effective response? If unemployment skyrockets due to automation, would conservative governments rather battle long-term social unrest, or could they agree on something like universal basic income? When renewable energy sources are a fraction of the cost of coal-generated electricity, should lobbyists be able to prevent changes to energy infrastructure? When the crowd's mood is measured in influence and exabytes, will real-time democracy render elections a thing of the past? Brett King and Dr. Richard Petty explore the seismic social changes that will be thrust on the world over the coming decades. The Rise of Technosocialism seeks to answer both how our children will live with AI and climate disruption, along with which economies will likely emerge victorious in an always-on, smart world.