Vanity Fair released its 2011 New Establishment list, which features the top 50 “buccaneering visionaries, engineering prodigies, and entrepreneurs” that are shaking things up and paving the way to the 22nd century.
So it comes as no surprise that the tech world dominates the list, with Mark Zuckerberg taking the number one spot for the second year in a row. Facebook has gone beyond being a fun, whimsical website to being the fabric of a new Internet culture, with wide ranging impacts on social, political, and economic developments, from the protests and toppled regimes in the Middle East to a new e-commerce model: f-commerce. And now with a mystical IPO on the 2012 horizon—the IPO that dreams are made of—and a valuation of some $50-$100 billion, Zuckerberg is sure to be in the top spot for years to come.
Coming in at number two: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have moved into the spot previously occupied by Apple’s Steve Jobs. Last year, Page and Brin shared the number three spot with then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Coming in third is Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, followed by newly crowned Apple CEO Tim Cook and SVP of industrial design Jonathan Ive in the number four spot.
Jack Dorsey of Square and Twitter fame snagged the number five spot, followed by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz at number six. Lady Gaga, who has effectively reinvented pop culture and is known for her social savviness, made an appearance on the list for the second year in a row at number nine, following Netflix’s Reed Hastings at number seven and Pixar’s John Lasseter at number eight.
Twitter’s Dick Costolo and Zynga’s Mark Pincus narrowly missed the top ten this year, coming in at number eleven and twelve, respectively. Some other notable mentions: Reid Hoffman at number 18, DST’s Yuri Milner at number 23, Robin Li of Baidu at number 25, followed by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg at number 26 and Groupon’s Andrew Mason at number 27.
Tesla’s Elon Musk also made the list, as did fellow PayPal founder Peter Thiel, along with Gilt Groupe’s Kevin Ryan (who recently chatted with Vator’s Bambi Francisco).
So who got bumped from the list this year? Apple’s Steve Jobs, following his recent resignation from the position of CEO (though it seems a little premature to assume he won’t still be a highly influential figure in the coming months). And an obvious one: Rupert Murdoch, who held the number four spot last year but is nowhere to be seen on the list this year, likely due to the recent phone hacking scandal at News Corp.’s News of the World tabloid.
Other movers and shakers who made the top ten last year but were nowhere to be seen on the list this year include: New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and Twitter’s Evan Williams and Biz Stone. Sorry, guys. Better luck next year.
Image source: VanityFair.com
