9 ms·

10 people who don't matter (2006)

183 points by ssclafani 15y ago

leeHS 15y ago
Thanks for posting this. By far my favorite is the Facebook versus MySpace. It's amazing how quickly things change.
mmmmax 15y ago
Save some time and go all the way to the last person on the list, Mark Zuckerburg. http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/peoplewhodontmatter/frameset.exclude.html http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/peoplewhodontmatter/fr...
- gjenkin 15y ago
  “In entrepreneurship, timing is everything. So we'll give Zuckerberg credit for launching his online social directory for college students just as the social-networking craze was getting underway. He also built it right, quickly making Facebook one of the most popular social-networking sites on the Net. But there's also something to be said for knowing when to take the money and run. Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer, holding out instead for as much as $2 billion. Bad move. After selling itself to Rupert Murdoch's Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web's second most popular website. Facebook is growing too - but given that MySpace has quickly grown into the industry's 80-million-user gorilla, it's hard to imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran.”
  - wisty 15y ago
    Don't discount also-rans. Google was an also-ran. In 2000, Apple was an also-ran. Microsoft was (and arguably still is) the master of the successful also-ran.
waterlesscloud 15y ago
Reed Hastings and to some extent Linus Torvalds are a bit ironic as well.
- tptacek 15y ago
  The logic behind putting hastings on the list (that Netflix would be eclipsed by VOD) is funny. I think the hook for Torvalds being on the list was uncharacteristically insightful for Business 2.0, though.
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    Yeah, that's why I said "to some extent" for Torvalds. Their reasoning was sound, but he's still far more influential than that reasoning predicted.
- vynch 15y ago
  obviously these business 2.0 retards have no idea what git is!!!
tptacek 15y ago
OOF: In entrepreneurship, timing is everything. So we'll give Zuckerberg credit for launching his online social directory for college students just as the social-networking craze was getting underway. He also built it right, quickly making Facebook one of the most popular social-networking sites on the Net. But there's also something to be said for knowing when to take the money and run. Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer, holding out instead for as much as $2 billion. Bad move. After selling itself to Rupert Murdoch's Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web's second most popular website. Facebook is growing too - but given that MySpace has quickly grown into the industry's 80-million-user gorilla, it's hard to imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran. As I remember it, Facebook didn't have wireless either, and had less space than a nomad.
- Cushman 15y ago
  I don't get it— do these people hit more often than they miss? Why do we still listen to them?
  - jordan0day 15y ago
    Well, if you look at the rest of the list, Zuck's the only one who really stands out as a "they sure couldn't have got that more wrong".
    - Vivtek 15y ago
      Netflix.
      - redthrowaway 15y ago
        I'm not sure Torvalds should be there, either. Sure, Linux long ago outgrew the need for him as chief evangelizer, but when Linus speaks, the software world's ears perk up. He's still incredibly influential, if no longer the Atlas of the FOSS movement (with apologies to Dr. Stallman).
    - zoomzoom 15y ago
pseudonym 15y ago
The fact that Netflix is on the list amuses me as well. Although I love how they decided to call it both ways by putting Blu-Ray and HDDVD on there. It is a little weird to see companies that I literally don't remember on it. Vodaphone and Vonage both ring very, very, very faint bells in my mind.
- hugh3 15y ago
  Vodaphone and Vonage both ring very, very, very faint bells in my mind I'm afraid that's a problem with your mind, not with Vodafone. Wikipedia sez: Vodafone Group plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers (behind China Mobile), with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of November 2010. It operates networks in over 30 countries and has partner networks in over 40 additional countries. It owns 45% of Verizon Wireless, the largest mobile telecommunications company in the United States measured by subscribers.
- irrelative 15y ago
  FWIW, I'd argue they nailed putting both Blu-Ray and HDDVD on there.
pseudonym 15y ago
For additional giggles, under the related articles section: 50 people who matter. "Rank: 14 Brian McAndrews CEO, aQuantive Why He Matters: McAndrews is the most important adman on the Internet, and his innovations have played a big part in making the Web an effective marketing platform." Today? According to Google, "Quantive is now Microsoft Advertising." Talk about also-rans.
- pud 15y ago
  Microsoft bought aQuantive for $6 billion.
  - evilswan 15y ago
    That'll do nicely, sir.
meterplech 15y ago
I'm impressed with the list actually. It's hard to create something like this- in order to be interesting you have to pick people others would consider relevant. There are only two picks that are obviously wrong: Reed Hastings and Mark Zuckerberg. And, it's a testament to both of them that they succeeded in challenging circumstances. And, they did a great job picking Ballmer and Torvald. Their explanation of why Torvald is included (open-source as a movement has out-grown just his brilliance) is very prescient.
- SwellJoe 15y ago
  I consider Torvalds one of the big mistakes on the list. This predates the rise of git, which is more innovative (though possibly less revolutionary) than Linux. I wouldn't even write him off today, though it's hard to imagine what else he could touch that could be as world altering as Linux and git. Also, this was before Android, which is now the most important mobile OS. So, Torvalds' impact continues to resonate and grow. I agree with them that Linux has outgrown a single person...and so, they may have been somewhat right, had git not sprung almost fully formed from that massive brain of his.
  - jordan0day 15y ago
    My gut instinct to the inclusion of Torvalds was "No, that's totally wrong", but on further reflection I think it makes sense. Linux is much bigger than him now. The whole point of the list is "In the areas where these people are considered 'important', who could I totally piss off and not see too many negative ramifications?'" I just don't see Torvalds wielding the kind of power or influence to really make or break a person/business. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to besmirch Linus, I think he's pretty awesome. I'm just saying, after thinking about it some, I understand why he might be on this list. And I don't know that I would call git innovative, per se. git wasn't the first dvcs, and it's not substantially better than some other systems (mercurial, for example). git's prevalence today is purely because it won the popularity contest, plain and simple (being Linus project certainly helped!). On top of that, while git may be a big deal for developers, git's importance to the world at large is tiny -- frankly I'd argue that github is more important than git itself.
marcamillion 15y ago
Ahh..so this is what it looks like when you have egg on your face. Why do people keep doing this? Over and over again.
- SwellJoe 15y ago
  Seven out of ten isn't all that bad. Sure, they didn't realize what a force git would become, and Zuckerberg showed them a thing or two, and Hastings/Netflix turned out to be smarter than anyone gave them credit for. But, the rest of them...yeah, pretty good calls. Some of their 50 people who matter were stupid choices, however.
  - srl 15y ago
    > Seven out of ten isn't all that bad. Actually, it's pretty terrible - bear in mind that they could have picked ten (reasonably well-known) people at random, and chances are 8, 9, or all of them would be "has-beens" in four years.
    - SwellJoe 15y ago
      These aren't merely "reasonably well-known" people. They're people who changed the world in one way or another. Though, the people who had most changed the world back then, turned out to continue to change the world...their boldest choices turned out to be the most wrong. So, you might be right. Where they went bold, they got it wrong. Where they chose people obviously in decline (Ballmer, Schwartz, etc.), they turned out to be right...but it wasn't surprising to anyone (me included, as I remember reading this article when it was new).
staunch 15y ago
These lists are always bullshit, whether they're positive or negative. They're nothing more than a few random people's opinions assembled for the benefit of easy page views.
jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
The real point of this is: don't turn to CNN for your technology industry news.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- evilswan 15y ago
  Don't turn to CNN for your technology industry predictions. They're fine reporting facts, but predictions are hard for anyone!
SonicSoul 15y ago
this article is total BS (accept for Balmer of course) it's easy to say "timing is everything" after the fact, but Zuckeberg did an awesome job. as in, series of great and innovative moves .. not just good timing. and " Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer...Bad move" Facebook made 2 bil in 2010.. what am i missing here?
- whatusername 15y ago
  You missed the (2006)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
subnetvj 15y ago
ahhh !! just what it would feel like to have your foot in your mouth !!
mekoka 15y ago
I'd like to play devil's advocate for a moment. Many of us would have agreed on Zuckerberg and Netflix on this list back in 2006 and probably on Linus as well. Some of us would have even been pretty vocal in defending Blu-ray and/or HD-DVD. Maybe at this very moment someone is not convinced that Steve Ballmer should be on the list. The fact that 5 years later some events altered the course for some of these guys' projects doesn't negate on the arguments put forth to include them. We already know what Hastings and Zuckerberg did to stay relevant. Torvald's inclusion is explained as being by design. That is, Linus himself is designing the growth of his baby toward as much self-sufficiency as possible. Lucky for us there was the Bitkeeper debacle and he had to pull his ass out to give us Git. Right now the kernel is at version 3.0, most distros out there (including Ubuntu) still uses something like 2.6.xx and people are nonetheless very happy. I'd say, seen from a purely Linux angle, it would make Linus a lot less relevant. Now, something that would've made CNN look much better 5 years after posting this, would have been to moderate their zeal by excluding stuff like "But as respected as they might be for their past achievements, their best days are behind them", especially when covering the ever changing tech business.
- norswap 15y ago
  It has been said many times, but Linux 3.0 is just really 2.6.xx+1 with a change in version numbering.
  - apetresc 15y ago
    Exactly. Not to mention 3.0 has been out for less than a month. Are you really acting as if the fact that major distributions haven't switched yet is a point against it?
thought_alarm 15y ago
Well, folks, when you're right 52% of the time, you're wrong 48% of the time.
dredmorbius 15y ago
Sparing the pain of paging through the list one javascript link at a time: 1 Steve Ballmer, Microsoft 2 Jeffrey Citron, Vonage 3 Reed Hastings, Netflix 4 Ken Kutaragi, Sony 5 Warren Lieberfarb, HD-DVD promotion group 6 Rob Malda, Slashdot 7 Aurun Sarin, Vodafone 8 Jon Schwartz, Sun Systems 9 Linus Torvalds, Linux 10 Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
- jeez 15y ago
  i was just about to do the same! :)
  - dredmorbius 15y ago
    I might've let it alone if the Firefox AutoPager extension had worked on it, but no. I fucking hate that linkbait shit.
    - eric-hu 15y ago
      Do they do this so they can show ads on multiple pages? I couldn't tell since I'm always browsing with an adblocker on
      - dredmorbius 15y ago
        That and simply inflating pageviews / counts / visits and user time-on-site, all of which are typical performance metrics used by websites.
- reduxredacted 15y ago
  Thanks. I picked up a nasty bit of malware from an imbedded advertising on cnn.com and have since not only blocked them via adblock+, but I mark them as untrusted in NoScript. As a result, none of the links worked. I will say, it's almost impressive that CmdrTaco (Rob Malda) ended up as #6. Having been unable to read the article the list almost implies people who have had serious influence in the past. I'd be honored to be on it (especially if, in 2006, I was named Mark Zuckerberg). edit: clarify the advertising problem. It wasn't a link.
malkia 15y ago
Steve Jobs might've been in this list if the article was written 10 or more so years earlier.... And look what happened instead!
njharman 15y ago
> its[Netflix] raison d'etre itself - the DVD Ha! Anyone who believes DVD is what Netflix is still about is either so far out of touch they should be banned from spreading their ignorance publicly or are on the payroll of the the dead but don't believe it yet media industry who still hopes "the Internet" will just go away.
- latch 15y ago
  you realize this was posted in 2006, right (which is the point)?
  - njharman 15y ago
    Nope, author(s) weren't worth paying attention to then either.
buster 15y ago
Haha: " After selling itself to Rupert Murdoch's Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web's second most popular website. Facebook is growing too - but given that MySpace has quickly grown into the industry's 80-million-user gorilla, it's hard to imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran."
zackattack 15y ago
Anyone want to deconstruct this article. These are 10 people who "you can safely snub at conferences". But by doing so you are also submitting to CNN's authority.
wtracy 15y ago
Not that it matters in all the noise here, but here's my comments on their picks: Steve Ballmer: He got where he is entirely by riding on Bill Gate's coattails. He did and still does belong on this list. Jeffrey Citron: Obviously a correct call now. I don't know enough to say whether I could have called this one correctly at the time. Reed Hastings: Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but it seems like from the very minute on-demand media became really feasible, Netflix was dragging Hollywood along kicking and screaming. I'd say he should never have been on this list. Ken Kutaragi: You can argue now about whether or not he has been influential in the last five years, but I know that at the time I definitely would have agreed with CNN on this one. Warren Lieberfarb: CNN and I would have agreed and we would have both been correct. Rob Malda: CNN called this one correctly. I probably would have disagreed with them at the time, and I would have been wrong. Arun Sarin: Same as with Citron--obviously correct in hindsight, but I couldn't have called it one way or the other at the time. Jonathon Shwartz: Obviously, in hindsight CNN called it correctly. At the time, though, I had really high hopes for Jonathan Shwartz. Regardless of how talented he may be, he was put in an almost impossible situation as CEO of Sun--too much damage had already been done. Linus Torvalds: First, a personal disclosure--I am a huge Torvalds fanboy, and would certainly have disagreed with CNN on this one. That said, you could now make a good case that CNN got this one right. In the last five years, Linus really hasn't done anything big from a business perspective. Absolutely he has been busy creating software that people use and care about (Git and continuing Linux development). However, none of has recent activity has had a major economic impact. (Can you name an industry that's been disrupted by Git?) Even the major things that Linux has done in the last five years (Android, for example) happened without being driven by Linus. I'm going to say I was wrong and CNN was right on this one. Mark Zuckerberg: Obviously wrong in hindsight. I'm not sure whether I could have done any better, though. In 2004 I definitely would have accepted the notion that Facebook was unlikely to be worth more than Myspace. I'm not sure whether I would have still thought that in 2006.
- Empact 15y ago
  > Can you name an industry that's been disrupted by Git? Well, it's certainly decreased the significance of commercial and closed-source development tools & support. It's also made the market for programer talent more transparent and meritocratic, thus potentially increasing compensation for talented developers. One would expect this to lead to shifts in the employment from other sectors into programming. Doesn't that count as disruptive? Sure he didn't make a bundle in the process, but he did make the world a better place.
arepb 15y ago
I can only imagine the dickbag who came up with this idea at the editorial meeting.
anon5 15y ago
One name (Zuckerberg) tells how foolish anybody who predicts future can seem. And therefore tech journos almost always do. 'Idiots just shutup' I say to them! Another one (Torvalds) screams of insensitivity to the real impact created by some one. The journalist(s) deserves a whack in the back for this. There are many people who do something noteworthy, and then fade away, for various reasons. Calling them out, in a derogatory manner is bad. 'Idiots just go away. Look at your loser self, in the mirror, when creating a list like this' I say again.
- rwmj 15y ago
  Most of Zuckerberg's $13 billion net worth is based on an imaginary valuation of Facebook, apparently engineered by Goldmans. There's still plenty of opportunity for Facebook to disappear into obscurity, overshadowed by the next big thing, just like Myspace, Mixi, Friendster and Livejournal.
  - neilk 15y ago
    Will Facebook have lasting impact -- like you, I'm skeptical. Is Zuckerberg great on execution, and does he matter? Absolutely.
  - anon5 15y ago
    What you say can happen. Agree with you. My main peeve is with any such list in the first place - "actors who don't matter...", 'techie greats who don't matter' etc. etc. Makes me very angry, purely from basic human feelings POV. And its obviously a link bait - '10 people who don't matter...' easily attracts people on to read (or just page visit) '50 people who do matter...'.
  - cpeterso 15y ago
    I wonder how much Zuckerberg's actual, cash-in-bank worth is. Can he, as an individual, sell some portion of his pre-IPO shares for cash?
BasDirks 15y ago
The Business 2.0 Magazine staff are missing from the list. Also: stop trying so hard to come up with justifications for idiotic choices like Mark, Linus, etc.
evilswan 15y ago
Tough job making any prediction like this. They were right about Aurin Sarin and Sony - but for the wrong reasons.
nirvana 15y ago
My favorite in the "not-getting-it" department from this list is Reed Hastings of NETflix. Way back in 2003, I remember being struck by how brilliant the name NETflix was. If I'd had the idea for DVDsByMail, I would have opened DVDsByMail.com Hastings was smart enough to call the company NETflix, which works fine for DVDs by mail, but really shines as the name of a streaming media company. So, I find it hilarious to see people writing him off presuming he didn't have a streaming media plan. It is in the name! Also, Linus shouldn't matter. I've met him. He's a decent guy, and that he "doesn't matter" in the way Steve Jobs does matter, is a good thing. Linux should be bigger than him... at some point if your platform is dependent on you that's a weakness in the platform.
michaeldhopkins 15y ago
To be fair to the writers of this article, M. Zuckerberg took the criticism of himself seriously and worked hard to become a great executive -- the news affected reality. One could argue that if all the press about Facebook (and Zuckerberg)at the time was positive, Facebook might not be as successful today.
megaman821 15y ago
I can't believe in 80+ comments no one has defended Ballmer. They basically predicted his imminent retirement but in reality Windows 7 was released and became the best-selling of version of Windows ever. Also, it looks as if he has locked in his CEO position of Microsoft for years to come. You don't have to be a Microsoft fan-boy to point out this article was wrong in their future prediction of Steve Ballmer.
- nostromo 15y ago
  I think they were very correct. It's five years later, the market cap is the same (and shrunk if you account for inflation), Apple is over 100 billion dollars bigger by market cap, Microsoft was several years too late to offer an alternative to iOS and Android, Bing is still hugely unprofitable, etc., etc.
  - nate_meurer 15y ago
    And Balmer is also probably the reason Microsoft is losing Ray Ozzie, who by all rights should have been Gates' successor. IMHO Ballmer was never supposed to be CEO, except maybe on a temporary basis. MS needs a technologist at the helm.
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  Given that the userbase of personal computing devices (not necessarily PCs or laptops) is still growing and will be for a while, the point at which Microsoft offers an operating system that isn't the "best selling version ever" will be a disaster for the company. Truth is: it's very difficult to buy large classes of equipment without buying Windows due to OEM relationships, same as it's ever been. I've got Win7 that came with my current Thinkpad, but I've booted it maybe two or three times, getting as far as logging in. Otherwise it's strictly been Debian. Haven't even bothered setting up Win7 under VirtualBox yet. I don't know that Ballmer's been a disaster for Microsoft, or if it's just running down the Christensen "innovator's dilemma" curve, but the company's best days are behind it. In ten years I see it as a legacy provider of business servers to late-adopting companies, ossified industrial giants, some government sectors, and, principally, gaming and entertainment. Possibly merged with Sony.
winsbe01 15y ago
this just proves how fast things can change in our industry. don't be afraid of the criticism, because you never know what will happen in 5 years.
pilgrim689 15y ago
This is a trite and insulting article. Saying an individual "doesn't matter"? There are very respectable people in that list, and they've all reached a very successful point in their careers. They definitely all have a lot of power to do good in the tech world, and try really hard to do so. Maybe it's just a semantics thing...but I find saying someone "doesn't matter" is way over the top.
xilun0 15y ago
who reads CNN Money anyway?
dkrich 15y ago
I think Ballmer at number one makes the list. Anybody trying to make a statement at any point in time about which tech products will be relevant in the future will be hard-pressed to hit better than 50%. Microsoft repeatedly throws good money after bad, chasing the latest fad but never getting any of them completely right or, more importantly, creating any game-changing innovations to speak of. They saw Sony making the PS3 and decided they had to build a competing product and threw away billions in the process. They saw Google, and assumed they needed to build the same search engine to remain relevant. I can't believe that Ballmer has managed to stick around as long as he has, but if I were a Microsoft employee or shareholder, I would want his head to roll.
alanh 15y ago
“Ironically, the whole [Blu-Ray/HD-DVD] debate may well be pointless. There's little evidence that consumers are eager to upgrade their existing DVD collections, and by the time the latest format war is settled, most of us will simply download movies in our living rooms instead of hoarding them on little plastic discs.” The above was a pretty accurate call, minus the surrender of the HD-DVD camp — and I love how Netflix, far from becoming irrelevant, became one of the top players in the streaming movie camp!
- aidenn0 15y ago
  I think the jury is still out on netflix. They are king of the hill today, but there's lots of companies with deep pockets that want to change that.
heydenberk 15y ago
It's likely anyone who makes a "10 people who don't matter list" will look like an idiot in 5 years, because there's little insight to be gained from trying to understand the tech scene as a series of people who "don't matter" -- a poorly-defined category of people whose "best days are behind them." And the inclusion of Torvalds is bizarre, regardless of whether he "matters." Everyone else on this list is a founder or an executive, working in worlds with entirely different definitions of success.

183 points by ssclafani 15y ago

leeHS 15y ago

Thanks for posting this. By far my favorite is the Facebook versus MySpace. It's amazing how quickly things change.

Save some time and go all the way to the last person on the list, Mark Zuckerburg. http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/peoplewhodontmatter/frameset.exclude.html http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/biz2/peoplewhodontmatter/fr...

gjenkin 15y ago
“In entrepreneurship, timing is everything. So we'll give Zuckerberg credit for launching his online social directory for college students just as the social-networking craze was getting underway. He also built it right, quickly making Facebook one of the most popular social-networking sites on the Net. But there's also something to be said for knowing when to take the money and run. Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer, holding out instead for as much as $2 billion. Bad move. After selling itself to Rupert Murdoch's Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web's second most popular website. Facebook is growing too - but given that MySpace has quickly grown into the industry's 80-million-user gorilla, it's hard to imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran.”
- wisty 15y ago
  Don't discount also-rans. Google was an also-ran. In 2000, Apple was an also-ran. Microsoft was (and arguably still is) the master of the successful also-ran.

waterlesscloud 15y ago

Reed Hastings and to some extent Linus Torvalds are a bit ironic as well.

tptacek 15y ago
The logic behind putting hastings on the list (that Netflix would be eclipsed by VOD) is funny. I think the hook for Torvalds being on the list was uncharacteristically insightful for Business 2.0, though.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  Yeah, that's why I said "to some extent" for Torvalds. Their reasoning was sound, but he's still far more influential than that reasoning predicted.
vynch 15y ago
obviously these business 2.0 retards have no idea what git is!!!

tptacek 15y ago

OOF: In entrepreneurship, timing is everything. So we'll give Zuckerberg credit for launching his online social directory for college students just as the social-networking craze was getting underway. He also built it right, quickly making Facebook one of the most popular social-networking sites on the Net. But there's also something to be said for knowing when to take the money and run. Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer, holding out instead for as much as $2 billion. Bad move. After selling itself to Rupert Murdoch's Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web's second most popular website. Facebook is growing too - but given that MySpace has quickly grown into the industry's 80-million-user gorilla, it's hard to imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran. As I remember it, Facebook didn't have wireless either, and had less space than a nomad.

Cushman 15y ago
I don't get it— do these people hit more often than they miss? Why do we still listen to them?
- jordan0day 15y ago
  Well, if you look at the rest of the list, Zuck's the only one who really stands out as a "they sure couldn't have got that more wrong".
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    Netflix.
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      I'm not sure Torvalds should be there, either. Sure, Linux long ago outgrew the need for him as chief evangelizer, but when Linus speaks, the software world's ears perk up. He's still incredibly influential, if no longer the Atlas of the FOSS movement (with apologies to Dr. Stallman).
  - zoomzoom 15y ago

pseudonym 15y ago

The fact that Netflix is on the list amuses me as well. Although I love how they decided to call it both ways by putting Blu-Ray and HDDVD on there. It is a little weird to see companies that I literally don't remember on it. Vodaphone and Vonage both ring very, very, very faint bells in my mind.

hugh3 15y ago
Vodaphone and Vonage both ring very, very, very faint bells in my mind I'm afraid that's a problem with your mind, not with Vodafone. Wikipedia sez: Vodafone Group plc is a global telecommunications company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest mobile telecommunications company measured by revenues and the world's second-largest measured by subscribers (behind China Mobile), with around 341 million proportionate subscribers as of November 2010. It operates networks in over 30 countries and has partner networks in over 40 additional countries. It owns 45% of Verizon Wireless, the largest mobile telecommunications company in the United States measured by subscribers.
irrelative 15y ago
FWIW, I'd argue they nailed putting both Blu-Ray and HDDVD on there.

pseudonym 15y ago

For additional giggles, under the related articles section: 50 people who matter. "Rank: 14 Brian McAndrews CEO, aQuantive Why He Matters: McAndrews is the most important adman on the Internet, and his innovations have played a big part in making the Web an effective marketing platform." Today? According to Google, "Quantive is now Microsoft Advertising." Talk about also-rans.

pud 15y ago
Microsoft bought aQuantive for $6 billion.
- evilswan 15y ago
  That'll do nicely, sir.

meterplech 15y ago

I'm impressed with the list actually. It's hard to create something like this- in order to be interesting you have to pick people others would consider relevant. There are only two picks that are obviously wrong: Reed Hastings and Mark Zuckerberg. And, it's a testament to both of them that they succeeded in challenging circumstances. And, they did a great job picking Ballmer and Torvald. Their explanation of why Torvald is included (open-source as a movement has out-grown just his brilliance) is very prescient.

SwellJoe 15y ago
I consider Torvalds one of the big mistakes on the list. This predates the rise of git, which is more innovative (though possibly less revolutionary) than Linux. I wouldn't even write him off today, though it's hard to imagine what else he could touch that could be as world altering as Linux and git. Also, this was before Android, which is now the most important mobile OS. So, Torvalds' impact continues to resonate and grow. I agree with them that Linux has outgrown a single person...and so, they may have been somewhat right, had git not sprung almost fully formed from that massive brain of his.
- jordan0day 15y ago
  My gut instinct to the inclusion of Torvalds was "No, that's totally wrong", but on further reflection I think it makes sense. Linux is much bigger than him now. The whole point of the list is "In the areas where these people are considered 'important', who could I totally piss off and not see too many negative ramifications?'" I just don't see Torvalds wielding the kind of power or influence to really make or break a person/business. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to besmirch Linus, I think he's pretty awesome. I'm just saying, after thinking about it some, I understand why he might be on this list. And I don't know that I would call git innovative, per se. git wasn't the first dvcs, and it's not substantially better than some other systems (mercurial, for example). git's prevalence today is purely because it won the popularity contest, plain and simple (being Linus project certainly helped!). On top of that, while git may be a big deal for developers, git's importance to the world at large is tiny -- frankly I'd argue that github is more important than git itself.

marcamillion 15y ago

Ahh..so this is what it looks like when you have egg on your face. Why do people keep doing this? Over and over again.

SwellJoe 15y ago
Seven out of ten isn't all that bad. Sure, they didn't realize what a force git would become, and Zuckerberg showed them a thing or two, and Hastings/Netflix turned out to be smarter than anyone gave them credit for. But, the rest of them...yeah, pretty good calls. Some of their 50 people who matter were stupid choices, however.
- srl 15y ago
  > Seven out of ten isn't all that bad. Actually, it's pretty terrible - bear in mind that they could have picked ten (reasonably well-known) people at random, and chances are 8, 9, or all of them would be "has-beens" in four years.
  - SwellJoe 15y ago
    These aren't merely "reasonably well-known" people. They're people who changed the world in one way or another. Though, the people who had most changed the world back then, turned out to continue to change the world...their boldest choices turned out to be the most wrong. So, you might be right. Where they went bold, they got it wrong. Where they chose people obviously in decline (Ballmer, Schwartz, etc.), they turned out to be right...but it wasn't surprising to anyone (me included, as I remember reading this article when it was new).

staunch 15y ago

These lists are always bullshit, whether they're positive or negative. They're nothing more than a few random people's opinions assembled for the benefit of easy page views.

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago

The real point of this is: don't turn to CNN for your technology industry news.

deleted 15y ago
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evilswan 15y ago
Don't turn to CNN for your technology industry predictions. They're fine reporting facts, but predictions are hard for anyone!

SonicSoul 15y ago

this article is total BS (accept for Balmer of course) it's easy to say "timing is everything" after the fact, but Zuckeberg did an awesome job. as in, series of great and innovative moves .. not just good timing. and " Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer...Bad move" Facebook made 2 bil in 2010.. what am i missing here?

whatusername 15y ago
You missed the (2006)

deleted 15y ago

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subnetvj 15y ago

ahhh !! just what it would feel like to have your foot in your mouth !!

mekoka 15y ago

I'd like to play devil's advocate for a moment. Many of us would have agreed on Zuckerberg and Netflix on this list back in 2006 and probably on Linus as well. Some of us would have even been pretty vocal in defending Blu-ray and/or HD-DVD. Maybe at this very moment someone is not convinced that Steve Ballmer should be on the list. The fact that 5 years later some events altered the course for some of these guys' projects doesn't negate on the arguments put forth to include them. We already know what Hastings and Zuckerberg did to stay relevant. Torvald's inclusion is explained as being by design. That is, Linus himself is designing the growth of his baby toward as much self-sufficiency as possible. Lucky for us there was the Bitkeeper debacle and he had to pull his ass out to give us Git. Right now the kernel is at version 3.0, most distros out there (including Ubuntu) still uses something like 2.6.xx and people are nonetheless very happy. I'd say, seen from a purely Linux angle, it would make Linus a lot less relevant. Now, something that would've made CNN look much better 5 years after posting this, would have been to moderate their zeal by excluding stuff like "But as respected as they might be for their past achievements, their best days are behind them", especially when covering the ever changing tech business.

norswap 15y ago
It has been said many times, but Linux 3.0 is just really 2.6.xx+1 with a change in version numbering.
- apetresc 15y ago
  Exactly. Not to mention 3.0 has been out for less than a month. Are you really acting as if the fact that major distributions haven't switched yet is a point against it?

thought_alarm 15y ago

Well, folks, when you're right 52% of the time, you're wrong 48% of the time.

dredmorbius 15y ago

Sparing the pain of paging through the list one javascript link at a time: 1 Steve Ballmer, Microsoft 2 Jeffrey Citron, Vonage 3 Reed Hastings, Netflix 4 Ken Kutaragi, Sony 5 Warren Lieberfarb, HD-DVD promotion group 6 Rob Malda, Slashdot 7 Aurun Sarin, Vodafone 8 Jon Schwartz, Sun Systems 9 Linus Torvalds, Linux 10 Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

jeez 15y ago
i was just about to do the same! :)
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  I might've let it alone if the Firefox AutoPager extension had worked on it, but no. I fucking hate that linkbait shit.
  - eric-hu 15y ago
    Do they do this so they can show ads on multiple pages? I couldn't tell since I'm always browsing with an adblocker on
    - dredmorbius 15y ago
      That and simply inflating pageviews / counts / visits and user time-on-site, all of which are typical performance metrics used by websites.
reduxredacted 15y ago
Thanks. I picked up a nasty bit of malware from an imbedded advertising on cnn.com and have since not only blocked them via adblock+, but I mark them as untrusted in NoScript. As a result, none of the links worked. I will say, it's almost impressive that CmdrTaco (Rob Malda) ended up as #6. Having been unable to read the article the list almost implies people who have had serious influence in the past. I'd be honored to be on it (especially if, in 2006, I was named Mark Zuckerberg). edit: clarify the advertising problem. It wasn't a link.

malkia 15y ago

Steve Jobs might've been in this list if the article was written 10 or more so years earlier.... And look what happened instead!

njharman 15y ago

> its[Netflix] raison d'etre itself - the DVD Ha! Anyone who believes DVD is what Netflix is still about is either so far out of touch they should be banned from spreading their ignorance publicly or are on the payroll of the the dead but don't believe it yet media industry who still hopes "the Internet" will just go away.

latch 15y ago
you realize this was posted in 2006, right (which is the point)?
- njharman 15y ago
  Nope, author(s) weren't worth paying attention to then either.

buster 15y ago

Haha: " After selling itself to Rupert Murdoch's Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web's second most popular website. Facebook is growing too - but given that MySpace has quickly grown into the industry's 80-million-user gorilla, it's hard to imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran."

zackattack 15y ago

Anyone want to deconstruct this article. These are 10 people who "you can safely snub at conferences". But by doing so you are also submitting to CNN's authority.

wtracy 15y ago

Not that it matters in all the noise here, but here's my comments on their picks: Steve Ballmer: He got where he is entirely by riding on Bill Gate's coattails. He did and still does belong on this list. Jeffrey Citron: Obviously a correct call now. I don't know enough to say whether I could have called this one correctly at the time. Reed Hastings: Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but it seems like from the very minute on-demand media became really feasible, Netflix was dragging Hollywood along kicking and screaming. I'd say he should never have been on this list. Ken Kutaragi: You can argue now about whether or not he has been influential in the last five years, but I know that at the time I definitely would have agreed with CNN on this one. Warren Lieberfarb: CNN and I would have agreed and we would have both been correct. Rob Malda: CNN called this one correctly. I probably would have disagreed with them at the time, and I would have been wrong. Arun Sarin: Same as with Citron--obviously correct in hindsight, but I couldn't have called it one way or the other at the time. Jonathon Shwartz: Obviously, in hindsight CNN called it correctly. At the time, though, I had really high hopes for Jonathan Shwartz. Regardless of how talented he may be, he was put in an almost impossible situation as CEO of Sun--too much damage had already been done. Linus Torvalds: First, a personal disclosure--I am a huge Torvalds fanboy, and would certainly have disagreed with CNN on this one. That said, you could now make a good case that CNN got this one right. In the last five years, Linus really hasn't done anything big from a business perspective. Absolutely he has been busy creating software that people use and care about (Git and continuing Linux development). However, none of has recent activity has had a major economic impact. (Can you name an industry that's been disrupted by Git?) Even the major things that Linux has done in the last five years (Android, for example) happened without being driven by Linus. I'm going to say I was wrong and CNN was right on this one. Mark Zuckerberg: Obviously wrong in hindsight. I'm not sure whether I could have done any better, though. In 2004 I definitely would have accepted the notion that Facebook was unlikely to be worth more than Myspace. I'm not sure whether I would have still thought that in 2006.

Empact 15y ago
> Can you name an industry that's been disrupted by Git? Well, it's certainly decreased the significance of commercial and closed-source development tools & support. It's also made the market for programer talent more transparent and meritocratic, thus potentially increasing compensation for talented developers. One would expect this to lead to shifts in the employment from other sectors into programming. Doesn't that count as disruptive? Sure he didn't make a bundle in the process, but he did make the world a better place.

arepb 15y ago

I can only imagine the dickbag who came up with this idea at the editorial meeting.

anon5 15y ago

One name (Zuckerberg) tells how foolish anybody who predicts future can seem. And therefore tech journos almost always do. 'Idiots just shutup' I say to them! Another one (Torvalds) screams of insensitivity to the real impact created by some one. The journalist(s) deserves a whack in the back for this. There are many people who do something noteworthy, and then fade away, for various reasons. Calling them out, in a derogatory manner is bad. 'Idiots just go away. Look at your loser self, in the mirror, when creating a list like this' I say again.

rwmj 15y ago
Most of Zuckerberg's $13 billion net worth is based on an imaginary valuation of Facebook, apparently engineered by Goldmans. There's still plenty of opportunity for Facebook to disappear into obscurity, overshadowed by the next big thing, just like Myspace, Mixi, Friendster and Livejournal.
- neilk 15y ago
  Will Facebook have lasting impact -- like you, I'm skeptical. Is Zuckerberg great on execution, and does he matter? Absolutely.
- anon5 15y ago
  What you say can happen. Agree with you. My main peeve is with any such list in the first place - "actors who don't matter...", 'techie greats who don't matter' etc. etc. Makes me very angry, purely from basic human feelings POV. And its obviously a link bait - '10 people who don't matter...' easily attracts people on to read (or just page visit) '50 people who do matter...'.
- cpeterso 15y ago
  I wonder how much Zuckerberg's actual, cash-in-bank worth is. Can he, as an individual, sell some portion of his pre-IPO shares for cash?

BasDirks 15y ago

The Business 2.0 Magazine staff are missing from the list. Also: stop trying so hard to come up with justifications for idiotic choices like Mark, Linus, etc.

evilswan 15y ago

Tough job making any prediction like this. They were right about Aurin Sarin and Sony - but for the wrong reasons.

nirvana 15y ago

My favorite in the "not-getting-it" department from this list is Reed Hastings of NETflix. Way back in 2003, I remember being struck by how brilliant the name NETflix was. If I'd had the idea for DVDsByMail, I would have opened DVDsByMail.com Hastings was smart enough to call the company NETflix, which works fine for DVDs by mail, but really shines as the name of a streaming media company. So, I find it hilarious to see people writing him off presuming he didn't have a streaming media plan. It is in the name! Also, Linus shouldn't matter. I've met him. He's a decent guy, and that he "doesn't matter" in the way Steve Jobs does matter, is a good thing. Linux should be bigger than him... at some point if your platform is dependent on you that's a weakness in the platform.

michaeldhopkins 15y ago

To be fair to the writers of this article, M. Zuckerberg took the criticism of himself seriously and worked hard to become a great executive -- the news affected reality. One could argue that if all the press about Facebook (and Zuckerberg)at the time was positive, Facebook might not be as successful today.

megaman821 15y ago

I can't believe in 80+ comments no one has defended Ballmer. They basically predicted his imminent retirement but in reality Windows 7 was released and became the best-selling of version of Windows ever. Also, it looks as if he has locked in his CEO position of Microsoft for years to come. You don't have to be a Microsoft fan-boy to point out this article was wrong in their future prediction of Steve Ballmer.

nostromo 15y ago
I think they were very correct. It's five years later, the market cap is the same (and shrunk if you account for inflation), Apple is over 100 billion dollars bigger by market cap, Microsoft was several years too late to offer an alternative to iOS and Android, Bing is still hugely unprofitable, etc., etc.
- nate_meurer 15y ago
  And Balmer is also probably the reason Microsoft is losing Ray Ozzie, who by all rights should have been Gates' successor. IMHO Ballmer was never supposed to be CEO, except maybe on a temporary basis. MS needs a technologist at the helm.
dredmorbius 15y ago
Given that the userbase of personal computing devices (not necessarily PCs or laptops) is still growing and will be for a while, the point at which Microsoft offers an operating system that isn't the "best selling version ever" will be a disaster for the company. Truth is: it's very difficult to buy large classes of equipment without buying Windows due to OEM relationships, same as it's ever been. I've got Win7 that came with my current Thinkpad, but I've booted it maybe two or three times, getting as far as logging in. Otherwise it's strictly been Debian. Haven't even bothered setting up Win7 under VirtualBox yet. I don't know that Ballmer's been a disaster for Microsoft, or if it's just running down the Christensen "innovator's dilemma" curve, but the company's best days are behind it. In ten years I see it as a legacy provider of business servers to late-adopting companies, ossified industrial giants, some government sectors, and, principally, gaming and entertainment. Possibly merged with Sony.

winsbe01 15y ago

this just proves how fast things can change in our industry. don't be afraid of the criticism, because you never know what will happen in 5 years.

pilgrim689 15y ago

This is a trite and insulting article. Saying an individual "doesn't matter"? There are very respectable people in that list, and they've all reached a very successful point in their careers. They definitely all have a lot of power to do good in the tech world, and try really hard to do so. Maybe it's just a semantics thing...but I find saying someone "doesn't matter" is way over the top.

xilun0 15y ago

who reads CNN Money anyway?

dkrich 15y ago

I think Ballmer at number one makes the list. Anybody trying to make a statement at any point in time about which tech products will be relevant in the future will be hard-pressed to hit better than 50%. Microsoft repeatedly throws good money after bad, chasing the latest fad but never getting any of them completely right or, more importantly, creating any game-changing innovations to speak of. They saw Sony making the PS3 and decided they had to build a competing product and threw away billions in the process. They saw Google, and assumed they needed to build the same search engine to remain relevant. I can't believe that Ballmer has managed to stick around as long as he has, but if I were a Microsoft employee or shareholder, I would want his head to roll.

alanh 15y ago

“Ironically, the whole [Blu-Ray/HD-DVD] debate may well be pointless. There's little evidence that consumers are eager to upgrade their existing DVD collections, and by the time the latest format war is settled, most of us will simply download movies in our living rooms instead of hoarding them on little plastic discs.” The above was a pretty accurate call, minus the surrender of the HD-DVD camp — and I love how Netflix, far from becoming irrelevant, became one of the top players in the streaming movie camp!

aidenn0 15y ago
I think the jury is still out on netflix. They are king of the hill today, but there's lots of companies with deep pockets that want to change that.

heydenberk 15y ago

It's likely anyone who makes a "10 people who don't matter list" will look like an idiot in 5 years, because there's little insight to be gained from trying to understand the tech scene as a series of people who "don't matter" -- a poorly-defined category of people whose "best days are behind them." And the inclusion of Torvalds is bizarre, regardless of whether he "matters." Everyone else on this list is a founder or an executive, working in worlds with entirely different definitions of success.