http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/21/technology/50whomatter.biz2/index.htm 

The 50 people who matter now

A Business 2.0 exclusive list: Meet the executives, entrepreneurs, and cutting-edge innovators who are setting today's business agenda.

Business 2.0 Magazine   By Business 2.0 Magazine staff

June 21, 2006: 1:11 PM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) - Any list of the most important people in business has to start with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and a bunch of folks named Walton, right? They're the richest people on the planet, for Pete's sake. Just break out the rubber stamps and be done with it.

Sorry, not this list. The names presented here weren't selected on the basis of fame, net worth, or the accomplishments of yesteryear.

Instead, our goal was to identify people whose ideas, products, and business insights are changing the world we live in today - those who are reshaping our future by inventing important new technologies, exploiting emerging opportunities, or throwing their weight around in ways that are sure to make everyone e lse take notice.

In assembling this list, we emphasized one key question:                     What have you done for us lately? We also considered its important corollary: What will you do for us tomorrow?

Business 2.0: 50 People who matter

Rank   Name      Company

1    You!       The consumer as creator

2   Sergey Brin and Larry Page   Co-founders, Google

3   Paul Jacobs   CEO, Qualcomm

4   Rupert Murdoch   CEO, News Corp.

5  Steve Jobs CEO, Apple Computer

6   Susan Desmond - Hellmann   President of product development, Genentech

7   The Emerging Global Middle Class   China, India, Russia, Brazil, and elsewhere

8  Fujio Cho  Chairman, Toyota

9  The New Oil Despots   King Abdullah bin Abdul aziz al Saud (Saudi Arabia), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), and Vladimir Putin (Russia)

10  Ray Ozzie  Chief technical officer, Microsoft

11  Marc Benioff CEO, Salesforce.com

12  Robert Iger  CEO, Walt Disney Co.

13  Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake  Co-founders, Flickr

14  Brian McAndrews  CEO, aQuantive

15   Jack Ma  CEO, Alibaba.com

16   Barry Diller  CEO, InterActiveCorp

17   Ed Zander  CEO, Motorola

18   John Thompson  CEO, Symantec

19  Mark Hurd  CEO, Hewlett-Packard

20  Ben Bernanke   Chairman, Federal Reserve Board

21  Bill Gates  Benefactor, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

22  Reid Hoffman  Angel investor and CEO, LinkedIn

23  The New New Media  Kevin Rose (Digg) and Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia)

24   Patricia Woertz  CEO, Archer Daniels Midland

25  Kevin Martin   Chairman, Federal Communications Commission

26   Ed Whitacre  Chairman and CEO, AT&T

27   Jeremy Allaire  CEO, Brightcove

28   Chad Hurley and Steven Chen   Co-founders, You Tube

29  Danny Rimer   General partner, Index Ventures

30   Muhammad Yunus   Founder, Grameen Bank

31  Greg Isaacs   Director of developer relations, eBay

32   Alex Bogusky   Creative director, Crispin Porter & Bogusky

33  Vinod Khosla   Founder, Khosla Ventures

34   David Heinemeier Hansson   Partner, 37 signals

35  Tim O'Reilly   Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media

36  Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrm  Co-founders, Skype

37   Patricia Russo  CEO, Lucent Technologies

38   Oprah Winfrey   Entertainment mogul

39   Electronic Frontier Foundation

40   Jeff  Valdez  Founder, SiTV

41   Stephen Maurer and Andrej Sali  Adjunct associate professor, University of California at Berkeley, and professor, University of California at San Francisco

42  Jeff Bezos CEO, Amazon.com

43   The Pre-Internet Dinosaurs  Larry Ellison (Oracle), Paul Otellini (Intel), and  Michael  Dell (Dell)

44   William McDonough   Architect, William McDonough & Partners

45   Richard Branson   Chairman, Virgin  Group

46   Mike Morhaim   Co-founder and president, Blizzard Entertainment

47  Nick Denton   Publisher, Gawker Media

48  Naguib Sawiris  CEO, Orascom Telecom

49   David Allen  Author, Getting Things Done

50  Blake Krikorian   Co-founder and CEO, Sling Media

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