Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential People: Only a Handful with Tech Background

Yesterday the Newsweek magazine introduced its traditional list of top 50 most influential and powerful people in the world. Of course the majority of the people on the list are politicians with the US presidential elections determining how the list looks like a lot. First of all, very quickly Barack Obama turned into the most powerful person in the world – even though he is not even the acting President of the US yet and still has a few weeks before the inauguration. The list also includes a number of people from his future administration who will determine the politics of the US in the coming years so they are supposed to be influential enough to make their appearance on this list already.

But of course I myself mostly wanted to know who were the people from the technology and internet industry who also made it to the list to somehow lower the concentration of politicians and tycoons among the most powerful 50. Sure, we do have multiple internet celebrities and worshipped personalities but are they actually recognized by publications like Newsweek? Are there people in technology who actually influence daily lives of billions of people populating this planet? The answer to this question is both positive and negative as there are some people from technology and internet companies who made the list but they are not really numerous and you will certainly not see any new names from startups or the blogosphere – all of them are representatives of established businesses that have huge following already and are backed with billions of cash. So here they are:

Eric Schmidt (#28)

It is no wonder that Google CEO is on the list as if there is one internet company that influences lives of people worldwide, it is Google without any doubts at all. Google determines where people will find the information they are looking for, it helps companies sell their products to people searching for them online and it also provides financial backing to the endless number of small internet businesses as well via its Adsense advertising network. And Google definitely looks like the company that intends to maintain its leadership in the years to come.

Steve Jobs (#34)

Yes, this is certainly the most enigmatic and the most worshipped personality of all in the tech community. Whenever Steve Jobs makes any new announcement – be it a new gadget like iPhone, the slimmest notebook or significant changes to its widely-loved laptops – many people will listen, including both press people who will cover every announcement extensively and regular geeks who will listen first and buy almost immediately second. But while Newsweek describes Steve Jobs as “next to irreplaceable”, rumors in the tech community are that he is preparing to leave the company to a successor and finally leave at one point now that his company is probably able to generate enough buzz even without Steve Jobs announcing news himself. But the influence of Apple itself on millions of fans around the world is immense already and will probably remain – with or without Steve.

Jeff Bezos (#40)

Amazon CEO and his company certainly have a lot to say when it comes to determining what people will buy and where they will do it as Amazon is still the place where many will stop first to search for a product to buy and check its price before making the buying decision. So it is no surprise the purchase itself will often happen on Amazon as well. What’s more, in the recession times when people are engaged in hunting for better deals more than ever, Amazon will probably still remain one of the preferred destinations for us to buy things without spending hours in the malls tempted to buy lots of further goods you never had budget for.

There is also one person whose name will probably always be connected to technology anyway but on the list he only appears with his wife named “The Philanthropists” – Bill Gates shares the positions 22-23 with his wife Melinda Gates because of their charitable activities and not because of his background in technology business as Microsoft founder. And this is exactly how I think we should think of him now as he hardly determines how the tech world evolves but influences a lot how wisely the money he now has after all his achievements in technology will be used to provide help where it is mostly needed. But we should not forget where the money comes to finance the foundation activity came from anyway.

Strictly speaking, Rupert Murdoch (#39) should not be considered as a tech personality either but I think the fact that he owns MySpace, one of the two most popular social networks in the world probably justifies my decision to put him in our tech excerpt from the 50 most powerful list. After all, MySpace still rules the world for many teenagers and still ensures popularity for hundreds of music bands worldwide – even if the geek community has long abandoned the network for more tech-savvy Facebook.

So here they are – the personalities everyone knows already in the technology and no new names from the web 2.0 community – not even people like Tim O’Reilly. They are all the people running huge businesses in tech and determining how the technology will evolve in the future – with their own R&D efforts and with their acquisitions. But I guess it is only logical: you really should be able to demonstrate significant achievements if you want to be considered as one of the most powerful people in the world. But if you don’t, you still can be a celebrity in a smaller world of technology where we constantly publish our very own lists of “most influential” people that must be good enough for the majority of us working here.

You can watch the videos featuring some of the personalities on the list along with Newsweek editors explaining their choice but you won’t find anything about the tech personalities listed here. Reading the full article will require a subscription but you can find the preview along with the full list of 50 most influential people available without subscription as well. The magazine issue will be published on January 5^th so look forward to it.