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

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.