The Best and Worst Entrepreneurs of 2013

From delivering packages by drones to bringing high-speed rail to California, entrepreneurs were all about moving fast in 2013. Here’s a look at the top innovators that made news this year – both good and bad.

1. Travis Kalanick, Uber

When taxi commissions tried to shut down taxi-hailing app Uber, CEO Travis Kalanick fought back – and won – getting approval in states like California, Colorado and New York this year. In August, Kalanick confirmed the company had raised more than $250 million.

2. Ben Silbermann, Pinterest

Social networking site Pinterest isn’t making any serious money yet – but even without a proven monetization model, CEO Ben Silbermann led the company through two massive rounds of funding this year, raising $425 million overall. Most recently, analytics firm Piqora showed that Pinterest was making a major impact on sales for retailers, doubling and tripling traffic on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, respectively.

3. Evan Spiegel, Snapchat

One of the gutsiest moves this year came from Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, who the Wall Street Journal reports turned down a $3-billion acquisition offer from Facebook. Can it really go for more than that? We’ll have to wait and see …

4. Noam Bardin, Waze

Waze CEO Noam Bardin took the acquisition bait – selling his social navigation app to Google for a reported $1 billion. Waze is just one of the Israeli startups that had a good year, with VC funding up 34% last quarter for Israeli companies, netting a total of $660 million.

5. Jack Dorsey, Square and Twitter

Twitter’s successful IPO may be just the beginning for co-founder Jack Dorsey. Just weeks after taking the social media site public, the Wall Street Journal said the serial entrepreneur may be planning an IPO for Square, his mobile payments startup.

6. Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX and Hyperloop

Speaking of serial entrepreneurs, Elon Musk owned the spotlight in 2013 when he released plans for a Hyperloop transit system, promising a 30-minute trip from L.A. to San Francisco may be more than just wishful thinking. And despite recent reports of fires, Tesla’s stock has been riding high this year.

7. Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Also on the cutting edge is Amazon. In early December, CEO Jeff Bezos told CBS’ 60 Minutes the company is working on Octocopters – or drones that can deliver packages in just 30 minutes. While they won’t be ready for last minute holiday gifts, Bezos says the drones could get off the ground by 2015.

8. Sara Blakely, Spanx

Fashionista Sara Blakely also made news this year, for a good cause. Just one year after becoming the youngest, female, self-made billionaire on Forbes’ list, thanks to her well-known undergarment brand Spanx, this year Blakely became the first woman to join Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge – committing half of her fortune to charity.

9. Aaron Levie, Box

Cloud computing was all the rage in 2013 – and floating to the top is Box, led by 28-year-old CEO Aaron Levie. Just named Inc.’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Levie now leads a company of 900 employees, valued at $1.2 billion.

10. David Karp, Tumblr

Levie’s not the only 20-something entrepreneur who’s having a good year. Tumblr founder David Karp turned microblogs into a major sale, overseeing the company’s $1.1 billion acquisiton by Yahoo.

11. The Bad: Paula Deen, Celebrity Chef and Restaurateur

The Bad:

Not all entrepreneurs had a good run in 2013.

Celebrity chef and entrepreneur Paula Deen got axed from Food Network, and her wares were dropped from Wal-Mart, Target and other retailers after racist comments were revealed in a lawsuit by a former employee.

12. Andrew Mason, Groupon

Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason also had a rough go of it in 2013, getting fired from the company he started. While he’s no longer a billionaire, don’t feel too bad for him – he’s still worth a reported $200 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

13. Todd Park and Jeffrey Zients, ObamaCare

Save the sympathy for the entrepreneurs called in to fix the glitch ObamaCare site. President Obama summoned Todd Park and Jeffrey Zients, two successful entrepreneurs in the health-care space, to get Healthcare.Gov up and running.

14. Jason Goldberg, Fab

Fab CEO Jason Goldberg is finding himself in a not-so-fabulous spot. After raising more than $150 million this summer and seeing his company’s valuation shoot up to $1 billion, Goldberg has since had to lay off a reported 37% of employees due to struggling sales. Co-founder Bradford Shellhammer jumped ship, as did a number of other high-profile execs.

15. Walter White, “Breaking Bad”

But no one had quite as bad a year as TV’s most infamous entrepreneur. Meth kingpin and carwash owner Walter White finally got what was coming to him – and got killed off in the show’s final episode.