The 2010 Next EstablishmentPeter Newcomb and Adrienne Gaffneyreport on the achievements of thosewho might find their way onto thenext New Establishment list.
THE NEW ESTABLISHMENT 2010
The Vanity Fair 100
Many of the moguls on
V.F.’
s annual list of the 100 most influential have rebounded froma disastrous 2009, but the hoodie-and mock-turtleneck-wearing top two never even sloweddown.
OCTOBER 2010
Two years ago, when Facebook recruited its 100-millionth user, a celebratory toga party was thrown by C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg, a classics buff who is prone to spontaneously reciting Homeric verses from memory. Since then the stunningly successful Web site hasquintupled its size to a staggering half-billion participants worldwide, and that slender 26- year-old cloaked in the hoodie—
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like aColossus!
This year
Vanity Fair
anoints Zuck as our new Caesar. He rules from theimperial capital of Palo Alto, California, the Rome of our nascent millennium. In this, the16th annual ranking of the 100 mostinfluential people of the Information Age,
V.F.
hasalso heaped some new honors on that other princeof Palo Alto, Steve Jobs, now that his Apple is wortheven more than those great conquerors Google andMicrosoft. Time and again Jobs has ascended thestage to reveal what he would majestically proclaimto be yet another revolutionary device that wouldtransform media and communications—and every time he has been remarkably prescient.
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed that he is grown sogreat?
He’s a vegan!
» Go the 100
—By Alan Deutschman, Peter Newcomb, Richard Siklos, Duff McDonald, and Jessica Flint. Research and reporting by Adrienne Gaffney.
MARK ZUCKERBERG
FACEBOOK
WORLD-DOMINATION WATCH:
The wildly
OIL SPILL WALL STREET HOLLYWOOD’S TOP 40 MEDIA BRYAN BURROUGH MICHAEL LEWIS BETHANY MCLEAN MICHAEL WOLFF
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popular social-networking Web site, valued ataround $25 billion, added its 500-millionth memberthis summer, and those “friends” share more than30 billion pieces of information a month. Facebook runs more banner advertisements than any other Web site (176 billion a quarter) and drives more U.S. visitor traffic to some sites than even Google.Revenues this year could reach $2 billion.
THE PRICE OF MOGULDOM:
In June, at
TheWall Street Journal’
s D8 conference, as columnists Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher interrogated him about privacy issues, Zuckerbergappeared uncomfortable, sweated profusely, and even—gasp!—took off his signature black hoodie.
Photograph by Brian Solis.
STEVE JOBS
APPLE
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST:
Having savedthe music business and conquered the smartphonemarket, Jobs is now looking to salvage thepublishing industry—and forever alter the world of mobile computing—with the iPad. Released amid aParousian frenzy, the one-and-a-half-poundcomputer tablet sold one million units in just 28days, a milestone that took the now ubiquitous iPodnearly two years to reach. With sales of iPhonesexpected to top $20 billion this year, up from $630million in 2007, it’s no wonder that Apple blew pastGoogle and Microsoft to become the most valuabletech company on the planet.
UNLIKELY FOE:
Consumer Reports,
which, even after Jobs finally addressed theiPhone 4’s antenna issues, refuses to recommend the phone.
Photograph by Matt Yohe.
SERGEY BRIN, LARRY PAGE, and ERICSCHMIDT
GOOGLE
SWORN ENEMY:
Steve Jobs, who characterizedGoogle’s motto, “Don’t be evil,” as bullshit. Jobsreportedly felt betrayed by his erstwhile allies fortheir muscling in on the lucrative mobile-devices business, which the geekocracy now believes is thefuture of computing. Critics predicted that Google’s Android phones might eclipse the iPhone by 2012.It’s war between the two companies now, asurprising shift from not long ago, when Schmidt saton Apple’s board, Brin and Page looked to Jobs as amentor and role model, and Brin and Jobs wouldtake walks together in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
ROAD NOT TAKEN:
Ken Auletta revealed in
Googled
that the trio discussed buying
The New York Times.
Photograph by Patrick McMullan Co. (Brin, Page) and Charles Haynes (Schmidt).
RUPERT MURDOCH
NEWS CORPORATION
BUSINESS AS USUAL:
The 79-year-old media
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mogul is at his best when waging war with those heperceives to be his rivals (
The New York Times
,Time Warner Cable, Google). His latest adversary:online news aggregators that steal (his word)content from his far-flung media outlets. Last yearhe threatened to remove all News Corp. contentfrom Google’s search engine (an apparent bluff),and then announced that if people wished to readsome of his papers online they would have to pay aprice. It’s a battle he is unlikely to win, but it’shelping turn Murdoch into something of a print- world savior.
HOLLYWOOD RELATIONS:
Thanks to director James Cameron’s
Avatar,
the Foxfilm division posted a record quarterly profit of $497 million.
Photograph by Patrick McMullan Co.
JEFF BEZOS
AMAZON
HIGH POINTS:
Bezos’s pioneering Kindle hascaptured about 60 percent of the U.S. e-readermarket, though now it’s being challenged by Apple’s way-cool iPad and Google’s soon-to-open online bookstore. Amazon now sells more digital booksthan hardcover ones.
THORN IN HIS SIDE:
John Sargent, the C.E.O.of Macmillan, one of the Big Six book publishers,opposed Amazon’s effort to impose a top price of $9.99 for e-books, which would have undercut themuch higher prices (and profit margins) for paperones. As punishment Bezos dropped Macmillan’s titles, but later relented and agreed to sellthem for “needlessly high” prices.
Photograph by James Duncan Davidson.
BERNARD ARNAULT
LVMH
WHEN CASH IS KING:
Europe’s richest mannearly doubled his net worth, to $27.5 billion,according to
Forbes
, as Arnault guided his luxury empire through the worst of the global downturnand surfaced strongly in early 2010.
PERSISTENT RUMOR:
Arnault is said to beinterested in buying the Hermès Group, the famedFrench leather-and-fashion house, but the dynasticfamily isn’t interested in selling.
Photograph by Patrick McMullan Co.
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG
MAYOR, NEW YORK CITY; BLOOMBERG L.P.
STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST:
Though themayor occasionally gets swept up in small fights(smokers, soda drinkers, food vendors), New York isin as good a shape as it has ever been. Bloomberghas reduced crime, improved public education, andinstituted a number of large-scale civic initiativesthat are as ambitious as any big city’s in the country.
GOOD HELP IS HARD TO FIND:
This summer,
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