La lista de los 50 principales innovadores de sus industrias, recopilada por Vanity Fair, incluye a miembros del sector tecnológico y financiero, así como a funcionarios gubernamentales, artistas y políticos.
Conoce a quienes conforman el top 5 y descubre por quíé forman parte de la lista.
1. Jeff Bezos
El fundador de Amazon saltó al centro del escenario con la inesperada compra de The Washington Post en agosto, extendiendo su influencia a una industria más, luego de revolucionar las ventas en línea de libros, música y abarrotes, lo que le valió pasar del sitio 3 del año pasado al primer lugar.
Las expectativas de lo que puede lograr en el periódico se suman a rumores sobre un futuro telíéfono celular desarrollado por Amazon o un aparato para pelear contra el Apple TV, explica Vanity Fair.
2. Larry Page (foto) y Sergey Brin
Ocupando el mismo lugar que en 2012, los fundadores de Google presumen un avance de más de 20 por ciento en las acciones de su empresa, íéxito que les ha permitido compras como la de Waze, por mil millones de dólares, o proyectos como Google Glass.
En agosto, Motorola Mobility, que Page adquirió por 12 mil 500 millones de dólares en 2012, presentó su nuevo Moto X, que algunos han nombrado el “anti-iPhone†y que será el primer smartphone fabricado en EU.
3. Tim Cook (foto) y Jonathan Ive
El sucesor de Steve Jobs enfrenta muchos retos. El último gran producto innovador de Apple fue el iPad, en 2010, lo que ha puesto nerviosos a los inversionistas y las acciones han caído 35 por ciento en un año. El lanzamiento del iPhone 5S y 5C fue recibido con críticas mixtas, aunque muchos piensan que en 2014, lo mejor está por venir, destaca la publicación.
La decisión de Cook de dar el puesto de diseñador de software a Ive, tras el desastroso debut de los mapas de Apple, destacó como una de sus acciones más importantes, aunque no fue suficiente para que mantuviera el primer sitio que ocupaba en la lista del año pasado.
4. Mark Zuckerberg
¿Puede alguien de tan sólo 29 años reinventarse? Habría que preguntarle a Zuckerberg, que hace un año era blanco de críticas por los malos resultados de sus acciones tras su tan esperada oferta pública inicial, pero que actualmente es aplaudido por haber logrado lo que muchos creían imposible: convertir a Facebook en una máquina de hacer dinero gracias al negocio de publicidad en móviles, división que logró ingresos de 656 millones en el último trimestre, desde prácticamente cero un año antes.
Pero este joven maravilla no se duerme en sus laureles, destaca la publicación, pues ha adquirido varias compañías, como Instagram y Snapchat, con el objetivo de mantener a los adolescentes dentro de su reino, lo que le vale ocupar el mismo sitio que en la lista de 2012.
5. Elon Musk
Tesla Motors coqueteaba con la bancarrota en 2008, pero Musk ha comandado a la compañía hasta sobrepasar las estimaciones de analistas y el valor de mercado de la empresa sigue subiendo. Desde que debutó en los mercados en 2010, la acción ha aumentado de valor nueve veces; tan sólo este año, el aumento ha sido de 400 por ciento.
Y el empresario ya tiene la vista puesta en el futuro con el “Hyperloopâ€, que podría transportar a pasajeros de San Francisco a Los íngeles en sólo 30 minutos, según afirma Musk, quien tambiíén mantiene contratos con la NASA a travíés de su otra compañía, SpaceX.
6. Lee Kun-hee & Lee Jae-yong, Samsung Electronics
AGES: 71, 45
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: New
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Amid the bruising legal battle over the violation of patents held by Apple for the iPhone, Samsung—ruled by the father-and-son duo of Lee Kun-hee and Lee Jae-yong—has transformed itself into Cupertino’s most credible challenger. As of this summer the Korean electronics giant was reportedly selling more of its smartphones than Apple was iPhones, while achieving Apple-like profits. Samsung’s clever, and successful, ad campaign “The Next Big Thing Is Already Here,†timed to the release of the iPhone 5, raised the question, “Is Apple still cool?â€
BIG MOVE: Late last year, the elder Lee, whose father founded Samsung in 1938, announced that he was promoting his son and likely heir, Lee Jae-yong, or Jay Y. Lee as he is known in the U.S., to vice-chairman.
OFF THE CLOCK: This summer Jay Y. Lee attended the Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference, solidifying Samsung’s place as an influential player in the U.S.
7. Keith Alexander, National Security Agency
AGE: 61
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: New
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The leaks this summer by former computer-security analyst Edward Snowden suggest that the N.S.A. chief has given his organization access to much of the data running through Silicon Valley’s biggest companies, including Facebook, Google, Apple, Yahoo, and Microsoft. Alexander has also reportedly expanded the U.S. military’s ability to launch its own cyber-attacks—for instance, the 2010 Stuxnet virus created by the U.S. and Israel to temporarily take down an Iranian nuclear reactor.
BIG MOVE: Since the Snowden leak, Alexander has been outspoken in defense of the N.S.A.’s secret data-gathering programs, claiming at a conference that it has thwarted 54 terrorist plots, including a plan to bomb the New York City subway system.
OFF THE CLOCK: The four-star general unwinds by playing a smartphone game called Bejeweled Blitz.
8. Jack Dorsey, Square, Twitter
AGE: 36
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 5
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The digital-product savant has finally given up his operational role at Twitter, which he invented and co-founded in 2006 (and which recently filed for an I.P.O.), to focus on Square, which makes a tiny credit-card reader that turns a smartphone or tablet into a sophisticated cash register. The company already hosts more than three million merchants—including 7,000 Starbucks cafíés—and has been expanding into online payments.
BIG MOVE: This fall, Square will move into new offices in San Francisco, occupying more than 150,000 square feet, which will allow it to triple its employees. The new space is conveniently located a block from Twitter.
OFF THE CLOCK: Dorsey celebrated Independence Day by renting a red Ford Mustang and driving cross-country with his girlfriend, Kate Greer.
9. Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz
AGES: 42, 47
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 6
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Andreessen’s star power and Horowitz’s reputation as a hands-on operator, along with their venture-capital firm’s “Founders First†credo and marketing prowess, have made them a magnet for entrepreneurs. Though it’s too early to say how good their returns will be, the duo has managed to get a piece of pretty much every important deal of the past few years—including investments in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Skype.
BIG MOVE: Andreessen was one of five winners of the first Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (for creating the Internet). He had to skip his audience with the Queen, but sent in his place two young engineers, who enjoyed high tea with Her Majesty and the other award winners.
OFF THE CLOCK: Andreessen has been reading history books in preparation for a rematch of his widely watched 2013 Milken debate, on innovation in tech, with rival shaman V.C. Peter Thiel. Horowitz is known for his fondness for rap. He was recently spotted having dinner with Nas and Mark Zuckerberg.
10. Reid Hoffman & Jeff Weiner, Linkedin/Greylock
AGES: 46, 43
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 10
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST:LinkedIn isn’t as sexy as Facebook or Twitter, but with 225 million members posting their ríésumíés to the site, and with pretty much every large American company paying to access those ríésumíés, the so-called Facebook for grown-ups has shown healthy profits and quintupled its stock price since its 2011 I.P.O. It’s a triumph for Weiner, and has allowed Hoffman to focus on investing and mentoring. He and his partner David Sze have made Greylock one of the most respected V.C. firms in the Valley.
BIG MOVE: To entice members to the site while not job-hunting, Weiner launched Influencers—which includes columns by 250 big-name contributors, among them Bill Gates and President Obama.
OFF THE CLOCK: Every year Hoffman co-organizes the Ben Franklin-inspired Weekend to Be Named Later, a “gathering of ambitious friends to brainstorm ways to change the world.†Weiner gained LinkedIn’s employees’ devotion when all were given iPad minis earlier this year.
11. Dick Costolo, Twitter
AGE: 50
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 13
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: All eyes in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street are on Twitter after the announcement last month—in a tweet, of course—that it was filing for an I.P.O., reportedly valuing the company at $10 billion or more. And Costolo seemed to have finally answered pundits’ concerns about monetization: television. The short-form messaging service, which has more than 200 million active monthly users, will take in revenue of $583 million this year, according to an analyst’s estimate, thanks largely to ads that are sold in conjunction with live TV broadcasts.
BIG MOVE: Last October, Twitter paid a reported $30 million for Vine, a popular Instagram-for-video app. The deal, brokered by co-founder Jack Dorsey, has opened up a new front in Twitter’s battle with Facebook.
OFF THE CLOCK: At the Super Bowl this year, arguably Twitter’s most important—and lucrative—event, Bill Simmons of ESPN’s Grantland pranked Costolo, telling him that the Twitter service was “down.†Simmons reported Costolo’s “whole body convulsed†before he realized it was a joke.
12. Reed Hastings & Ted Sarandos, Netflix
AGES: 52, 49
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 40
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Having made the round-trip from new-media darling to near death, Netflix is back on top. In the wake of the Qwikster debacle, Hastings and Sarandos rebranded the service as a next-generation HBO and have been rewarded with a soaring stock price and a growing domestic subscriber base of nearly 30 million—putting it neck and neck with HBO. The company’s fans now include Emmy voters, who rewarded it with 14 nominations for House of Cards, Arrested Development, and Hemlock Grove.
BIG MOVE: While most of the attention is focused on the new shows, in August, Hastings and Sarandos announced a high-prestige deal with the Weinstein Company. Combined with a deal with Disney for exclusive streaming rights to new titles beginning in 2016, this solidifies Netflix’s position as a critical distribution outlet for Hollywood.
OFF THE CLOCK: When he wants quiet time, Hastings retreats to a glass cube built on the roof of the Netflix headquarters. Sarandos heads to a $10 million Malibu beach house that he and his wife, Nicole Avant, bought from David Spade in July.
13. Ben Silbermann, Pinterest
AGE: 31
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 8
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Fresh off a venture-capital round that put his company’s value at $2.5 billion, Silbermann’s scrapbook-cum-social-network has reportedly passed 70 million users—more than triple the figure from 2012. The only thing missing is revenue, which Silbermann is charmingly candid about, but last year he hired Tim Kendall, Facebook’s former head of monetization.
BIG MOVE: The company has become one of the most important sources of traffic for online-shopping sites. This spring, Nordstrom started slapping the Pinterest logo onto in-store displays for products that had been especially hot on the site.
OFF THE CLOCK: Low-profile Silbermann was recently spotted at dinner with some of the most notable tech C.E.O.’s: Jack Dorsey, Box’s Aaron Levie, and Dick Costolo.
14. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook
AGE: 44
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 41
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The Facebook C.O.O. took a place on the national stage in March with the publication of Lean In, an empowering manifesto that encourages women to pursue more ambitious career goals. Sandberg’s book received a largely positive reception and has remained at the top of the nonfiction bestseller lists, but critics charged that her advice is applicable to only a small sliver of wealthy professional women.
BIG MOVE: Sixteen months after Facebook’s badly managed public offering, Sandberg has helped repair relationships with investors, touting the recent gains in mobile advertising.
OFF THE CLOCK: Sandberg insists that she has no plans to enter politics, but her vocal advocacy of her former boss Larry Summers’s failed bid to be chairman of the Federal Reserve raised eyebrows.
15. Marissa Mayer, Yahoo
AGE: 38
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 7
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Tasked with turning around a declining icon of the dot-com era, the Google veteran spent the past year making a flurry of acquisitions, including Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Meanwhile, Mayer has been trying to revamp Yahoo’s corporate culture, using a mix of carrots (free smartphones for every employee!) and sticks (no more working from home). So far, the effort has been a mixed bag: Yahoo’s stock price has soared by 79 percent and online traffic even topped Google’s this summer, but advertising revenue continues to be flat, and rumors of a falling-out with investor Dan Loeb, who recruited Mayer, in the wake of his cashing out of Yahoo and leaving the board have not helped matters.
BIG MOVE: In a bid to improve Yahoo’s video offerings and to better compete with YouTube, Mayer is reportedly courting Katie Couric for a Web talk show.
OFF THE CLOCK: Mayer, known for hosting fabulous parties, celebrated her 38th birthday earlier this year on San Francisco’s Treasure Island, with a beach-boardwalk theme, sandcastles, and surfboards.
16. Herb Allen III, Allen & Co.
AGE: 46
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 18
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The Allen & Co. scion—a throwback to a bygone era of discreet Wall Street moneymen—has quietly come into his own. Along with his father, he presides over the renowned Sun Valley schmooze-fest, which continues to be the place where major media deals get hatched—this year, Jeff Bezos’s purchase of The Washington Post was sealed there. Allen’s other annual gathering for up-and-coming tech entrepreneurs is held almost entirely out of the public eye, at the Ritz-Carlton in Tucson. Attracting an equally rarefied bunch, it is considered by some to be the more important event. Marc Andreessen, Jack Dorsey, and Peter Thiel are regulars.
BIG MOVE: The fact that Donald Graham chose Allen & Co. to quietly shop his family’s most high-profile asset speaks volumes about the firm and its C.E.O. His father, Herbert, once said of his son, “Compared to him, I’m outgoing.â€
OFF THE CLOCK: Allen is rarely seen out on the town, disappointing those who might want to lobby for one of the most coveted invitations around. “In all the years I’ve known him,†a business associate marveled, “I’ve only seen him out once.â€
17. Preet Bharara, Attorney
AGE: 45
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 17
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Having already earned convictions of high-profile Wall Street titans, a growing list of New York City politicians, and even the Times Square would-be bomber, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has taken aim at perhaps his biggest target yet: SAC Capital Advisors founder Steven Cohen. In July, he stunned Wall Street by indicting Cohen’s hedge fund for securities fraud. A conviction in the SAC case would cap an already impressive run for Bharara’s office of 74 successful insider-trading prosecutions—with no losses to date.
BIG MOVE: Bharara has denied having political ambitions, but insiders speculate that a run for either governor or U.S. Senate seems possible, and Bharara would be a front-runner to succeed Eric Holder as U.S. attorney general were Holder to leave.
OFF THE CLOCK: Last October, Bharara took his wife and guitar-playing middle child to a Bruce Springsteen concert where the Boss dedicated “Death to My Hometown†to the star prosecutor. “It might have been the coolest thing ever,†says Bharara, who, like Springsteen, grew up in Monmouth County, New Jersey. “He even pronounced my name correctly.â€
18. Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures
AGE: 52
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 23
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: “We’re not interested in world domination or empire building,†says Wilson of his boutique investment firm, which has stayed small even as competitors on the West Coast have raised billion-dollar funds and made dozens of new investments this year. The New York firm’s modest size—on top of Wilson’s track record, which includes very early bets on Kickstarter, Tumblr, and Twitter—has lent it an air of exclusivity rivaling that of any of his expansionist competition.
BIG MOVE: After helping to stoke the social-media revolution, Wilson has turned his attention to finance, investing in start-ups that do business in Bitcoin, a controversial virtual currency that Wilson believes could eventually replace traditional national currencies. In a widely read blog post, Wilson wrote, “We have made more money on things that were highly ridiculed than on any other cohort.â€
OFF THE CLOCK: Wilson and his wife, Joanne, provided the start-up capital to the Academy for Software Engineering, New York’s first public high school focused on teaching students how to write code.
19. Tyler Perry, Filmmaker
AGE: 44
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 36
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Few would have predicted that Oprah Winfrey’s new channel would need rescuing, but Perry has emerged as the network’s savior since signing a multi-year deal last October. His shows have brought in record viewership for OWN, enabling it to turn a profit this year. Meanwhile, Perry continues to churn out successful, if not always critically loved, films. Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor grossed $52 million in U.S. theaters before topping Nielsen’s home-video sales chart in its first week of release.
BIG MOVE: Chintzy dresses, gunplay, and—if past performance is any guide—huge box-office receipts are on the horizon for the holidays, when Perry will reprise his role as a cantankerous grandmother in Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas.
OFF THE CLOCK: Perry unwinds by flying an extensive collection of radio-controlled airplanes.
20. Daniel Loeb, Third Point
AGE: 51
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: New
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The hedge-fund billionaire’s modus operandi is simple: Quietly amass stakes in struggling companies, then loudly demand big changes—often in the form of a scathing “public letter†to the C.E.O. he aims to fire. Last year, Loeb engineered the ouster of former Yahoo chief Scott Thompson, helped recruit Marissa Mayer, and then made nearly $600 million by selling off Yahoo shares when the stock price soared. The next target of Loeb’s ire was Sony, which has rebuffed his scheme to spin off its entertainment division—a move that incurred the scorn of George Clooney, who accused him of “trying to spread a climate of fear.†Uncharacteristically, Loeb backed off. In Loeb’s crosshairs most recently is Sotheby’s, in which he has a 5.7 percent stake.
BIG MOVE: As concerns about the Eurozone reached a fever pitch last year, Loeb made a counter-intuitive bet on the struggling Greek economy, and made a reported $500 million profit.
OFF THE CLOCK: Loeb studied with an Ashtanga guru in India and married a former yoga instructor.
21. Yuri Milner, Digital Sky Technologies
AGE: 51
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 20
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: After bankrolling the social-media revolution with a series of savvy bets on Facebook, Twitter, and Airbnb, the Russian billionaire has shifted his sights to China, which he sees as the next big market outside of the U.S.
BIG MOVE: Last December, Milner led a $50 million venture-capital round for 23andMe—the genetic-testing service co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, separated wife of Sergey Brin, allowing 23andMe to drop its price to just $99 per test.
OFF THE CLOCK: This year, Milner brought together fierce competitors—Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, Brin and Wojcicki, and Apple chairman Arthur Levinson—to launch the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, one of the most lucrative prizes in all of academia.
22. Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp
AGE: 35
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 29
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Yelp—which attracts more than 100 million users a month who come to read reviews of restaurants, bars, dentists, and pretty much every other kind of business—is on a roll. Second-quarter revenue rose 69 percent year over year, and its stock price has doubled since last summer.
BIG MOVE: As of July, users can order food directly from Yelp’s app. The hope is to create an additional revenue stream to help Yelp turn profitable and to fend off an aggressive challenge by Google.
OFF THE CLOCK: Stoppelman is part of a group of tech luminaries who periodically gather for dinner and networking. Other participants have included Marissa Mayer, Jonathan Ive, Reid Hoffman, Michael Birch, and Trevor Traina.
23. Dan Doctoroff, Bloomberg L.P.
AGE: 55
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 32
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Under Doctoroff’s reign, the $8-billion-a-year company has diversified, launching data products for law and government, and even a venture-capital fund to invest in Silicon Valley start-ups. Meanwhile, Bloomberg has been under scrutiny since reports surfaced that some of the company’s journalists had accessed client information on the firm’s terminals. The revelation prompted a public apology—and in August Bloomberg agreed to appoint an independent senior editor to respond to complaints in the future, as well as a newsroom standards editor.
BIG MOVE: Befitting a company founded by an engineer, Bloomberg has put increasing focus on its digital future under Doctoroff. This summer, Bloomberg.com surpassed Dow Jones, Reuters, and CNBC in terms of Web video streams.
OFF THE CLOCK: Doctoroff has become a major funder of research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (A.L.S.), which claimed his father’s life in 2002. He began a new, $25 million fund-raising campaign earlier this year.
24. Salar Kamangar & Robert Kyncl, YouTube
AGES: 36, 42
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 30
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The pioneering Web-video company has recently redoubled its efforts to enter the fray of more traditional TV-style programming, opening the 41,000-square-foot YouTube Space LA production facility in a Los Angeles airplane hangar originally built by Howard Hughes.
BIG MOVE: Hollywood and YouTube got a little closer in May when Jeffrey Katzenberg’s DreamWorks Animation bought AwesomenessTV, a tween-oriented YouTube network. Kyncl, a Netflix veteran, who now heads up YouTube’s content group, helped broker the deal.
OFF THE CLOCK: Last year, The New York Times declared Kamangar one of Silicon Valley’s most eligible bachelors.
25. Cory Booker, Politician
AGE: 44
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: New
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The Newark mayor is the odds-on favorite to win a U.S. Senate seat in October’s special election, which would cement him as the Democratic Party’s rising star. Booker’s backstory (he famously lived in a Newark housing project after graduating from Yale Law School) and his flair for personal heroics (last year he ran into a burning building to save a neighbor) have earned him an outsize reputation.
BIG MOVE: While his speech on social media was a hit at the SXSW conference in March, his foray into tech start-ups has been less successful. Waywire, a video-sharing site he co-founded, has faltered, and in the fall he resigned from the company.
OFF THE CLOCK: Booker was named by Town & Country as one of the “Top 50 Bachelors,†though aides tease that Twitter is his real girlfriend.
26. Kevin Systrom, Instagram
AGE: 29
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: New
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Systrom became the poster boy for the app economy when he agreed to sell Instagram to Facebook for $1 billion, just a year and a half after launching the service. Rather than turning his product over to Zuckerberg and “vesting in peaceâ€â€”to use the Silicon Valley term—Systrom has taken an active role at the company, operating Instagram as an autonomous division that is arguably Facebook’s most important. The photo-sharing app has continued to grow and now has 130 million users, who upload 45 million photos a day.
BIG MOVE: In June, Instagram added a video-sharing feature, which lets users shoot and share 15-second mini-movies. This puts the app in direct competition with Twitter’s Vine and continues a brewing drama between the two services.
OFF THE CLOCK: Systrom has become a more frequent presence in gossip columns and was recently spotted in a “selfie†with Kim Kardashian posted on Instagram.
27. Chris Meledandri, Illumination Entertainment
AGE: 54
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: Returning
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The animated-film world’s scrappy upstart is coming into his own. Meledandri, who was responsible for Twentieth Century Fox’s Ice Age, launched Illumination in 2007 with backing from Universal and a business model that called for modestly budgeted animated features. Although Illumination operates with cut-rate budgets—generally $75 million, or less than half what Pixar typically spends—pretty much all of its films so far have been hits. Meledandri’s latest, Despicable Me 2, has grossed more than $800 million worldwide to date. NBCUniversal C.E.O. Steve Burke said it would “end up being the single most profitable film in the 100-year history of Universal Studios.â€
BIG MOVE: Meledandri’s partnership with Audrey Geisel, the widow of Dr. Seuss, has already resulted in two films—Horton Hears a Who! and The Lorax—and he is also working with Johnny Depp on a live-action biopic on Dr. Seuss’s life.
OFF THE CLOCK: Meledandri was not allowed to watch cartoons as a child, a prohibition he has lifted for his own children.
28. Megan & David Ellison, Film Producers
AGES: 27, 30
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: New
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The Ellisons have used their vast wealth—their father is Oracle co-founder Larry—to emerge as two of Hollywood’s most important young producers. Press-shy Megan, who has helped bankroll such critical hits as The Master and Zero Dark Thirty, is known to swoop in to revive lagging productions with quick infusions of cash. Older brother David’s Skydance Productions has had more commercial success, partnering with Paramount on blockbusters such as Star Trek Into Darkness and World War Z.
BIG MOVE: Though the Ellisons are said to be competitive with each other, they teamed up to beat out Lionsgate for the rights to the Terminator franchise.
OFF THE CLOCK: Like father, like children. Megan collects pricey real estate. An aerobatic pilot, David is known to spend quality air time with Dad, also an avid aviator.
29. Paul Graham, Y Combinator
AGE: 48
LAST YEAR’S RANKING: 27
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: Admission into Graham’s vaunted Y Combinator—a three-month program that is part investment fund, part business school—is the closest thing there is for a Silicon Valley start-up kid to finding a golden ticket. The program has an acceptance rate of 2 percent, making it more selective than Harvard or Stanford, and has produced more than 500 start-ups—including Dropbox and Airbnb. As of May, the valuation of all the start-ups funded by Y Combinator was about $11.5 billion.
BIG MOVE: Last year, Graham replaced YC’s Start Fund with a new venture-capital program, backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Yuri Milner, Maverick Capital, and General Catalyst, which will invest $80,000 into every accepted Y Combinator company.
OFF THE CLOCK: Graham is known for his essays—often about start-ups—which he posts on his Web site. One of the most engaging: “Why Nerds Are Unpopular.â€
