[2] Hanauer was born to a secular Jewish family in New York City and raised in Bellevue, Washington.

[6] He has managed, founded, or financed over 30 companies across a broad range of industries including manufacturing, retailing, e-commerce, digital media and advertising, software, aerospace, healthcare, and finance, including Insitu Group (purchased by Boeing for $400 million) and Market Leader (purchased by Trulia in 2013 for $350 million).

In 2000, Hanauer co-formed the Seattle-based venture capital company Second Avenue Partners, which "looks to invest in promising teams and transformational ideas in a wide range of areas including the internet, consumer and social media, software, and clean energy.

"[14] Their foundation has supported the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Center Fund, Progress Alliance of Washington (whose vision is a "Washington State that is a healthy place to live with shared economic success and security, and a democracy that works for its people"), and Woodland Park Zoo.

[17] In June 2014, Hanauer wrote an op-ed for Politico magazine in which he foresaw pitchforks coming for his "fellow .01%ers" if they did not address the issue of increasing wealth inequality.

"[22] Hanauer has been a vocal advocate of increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour across the U.S.[23][24] In 2013, "as striking fast-food workers across the country began rallying around calls for $15 an hour, Hanauer and David Rolf, a labor leader, kicked off an organizing drive in the small airport community of SeaTac, Washington, that resulted in the country’s first law mandating a $15 minimum wage.

"[28] In May 2012, authors at National Journal, Time, and HuffPost reported that Hanauer's March 1, 2012, TED talk on inequality had not been published online by the organization.

Jobs are created by a feedback loop between customers and businesses that is set in motion by consumers increasing their demand.Thus, instead of further cutting taxes for wealthy people, the modus operandi of trickle-down economics, workers in the United States would be better served by policies designed to stimulate higher median income: If lower income tax rates for the wealthy really worked we would be drowning in jobs, and yet unemployment and underemployment is at record highs.

[36] Huffington Post writer Jillian Berman expressed bewilderment, for TED had previously published talks by politicians like former U.S.