R yan Cohen is an American entrepreneur and investor who made his fortune in the e-commerce industry and later became a major figure in the "meme stock" phenomenon. He is the co-founder of the successful online pet food and supplies retailer, Chewy. He and his partner founded the company in 2011 and built it into a major player in the pet e-commerce market. In 2017, they sold Chewy to the retail giant PetSmart for $3.35 billion, which was at the time the largest-ever e-commerce acquisition.

After his massive success with Chewy, he became a prominent activist investor. He is most famous for his large and influential investment in the struggling video game retailer, GameStop. His investment and his subsequent appointment as the company's chairman in 2021 was a key catalyst in the massive and historic short squeeze of GameStop's stock, which was driven by retail investors on social media platforms like Reddit. He has since been leading the company's attempted transformation from a brick-and-mortar retailer into a technology company, and he has become a cult-like figure for the "ape" community of retail investors.