(FORTUNE Magazine) – Dot-com euphoria reached a new level this year when Hollywood decided that stock traders were every bit as sexy as doctors, lawyers, or gay, tubby, naked survivors. The movies offered us Boiler Room; TV came up with The $treet. These dramas aren't nearly as compelling as real life: The Nasdaq is depressed, economists speak freely of a recession, and the life span of a CEO resembles that of a fruit fly. (Savvy investors know that Hollywood last lionized traders in Wall Street, which came out about the time of the 1987 crash. Coincidence?)

For your--and the Academy's--consideration, we present our nominations for the hottest business stories and people of 2001. Perhaps Carly's Angels (see box) will entertain and prove prescient.

Mike Armstrong and Bernie Ebbers

AT&T chief Armstrong, 62, and WorldCom CEO Ebbers, 59, have the same problem: Both run telecom companies with struggling consumer long-distance operations that are dragging down the companies' stock prices. And both have come up with the same solution: tracking stocks containing these and other slow-growth businesses. (One trend of 2000 that we won't miss.) So far, investors have been unimpressed with the telecom titans' plans--near the end of 2000 both companies were trading close to 52-week lows. Wall Street wags now suggest that AT&T and WorldCom could be acquired by an international carrier or a Baby Bell. Sure, shareholders would finally get something for their patience, but oh, the indignity!

Larry Lindsey

This 46-year-old, Harvard-educated economist has been George W. Bush's go-to guy for advice on tax cuts and Social Security reform (he is another holdover from Poppy's Administration). And now that Bush is President-elect, Lindsey, who staffed Bush's 2000 campaign, will continue to have Bush's ear as a top economic advisor in the West Wing. The former governor of the Federal Reserve Board will also have a public role. He is one of the few people the President-elect trusts to represent his views to others, as he did during a recent presentation to House Republicans.

Ravi Suria

Just when equity analysts had us convinced that eyeballs were a legitimate measure of a business' worth, along comes Suria, a 30-year-old Lehman Brothers convertible-bond expert. In June 2000 his by-the-balance-sheet--what's that again?--report on Amazon.com's credit situation shocked the market ("extremely weak and deteriorating," he said). The call made him the Mary Meeker for the new new economy.

Since then Amazon.com's stock has sunk by half as skepticism about its moneymaking ability has spread even among its former cheerleaders. (Hey, Mary! Who's foolish now?) With so many dot-coms dead or dying, investors aren't likely to ignore the numbers--or those who study them, like Suria--again.

Jurgen Schrempp

There will be no Christmas celebration at Chrysler since DaimlerChrysler chairman Jurgen Schrempp, in Grinch-like move, fired the CEO and enraged the employees by letting it be known that he never considered them equal partners in the merger. Next year won't be any cheerier as Schrempp and his deputies will beat up Chrysler parts suppliers to extract price concessions and butt heads with dealers to wean them from profit-sapping sales incentives. There's nothing the supremely confident Schrempp, 56, likes better than a good fight, but he'll have to be on guard. DaimlerChrysler's sinking stock price may make his German supervisory board mad enough to knock him out of the ring.

Ken Chenault

After nearly two years of waiting in the wings as CEO-designate of American Express, Chenault will move into the top job at Amex on Jan. 1, taking the place of retiring Chairman and CEO Harvey Golub. The transition was vintage Chenault--quiet, graceful, and ahead of schedule. And it comes at a time when the company is pushing hard to improve results in its financial services business, expand use of its signature cards, and gain a bigger presence overseas.

For the 49-year-old Chenault, the move marks a huge personal, as well as professional, step. As one of only three African Americans to head a Fortune 500 company (Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae and A. Barry Rand of Avis are the others), Chenault's rise is another sign that boardroom barriers are finally coming down, even in the clubby, old-school world of Wall Street. Membership, as they say, has its privileges.

James McNerney and Robert Nardelli

Don't call them losers: McNerney, 51, and Nardelli, 52, didn't win the race for Jack Welch's job (see "Changing of the Guard"), but within days two high-profile companies scooped them out of GE. McNerney will run 3M (as of Jan. 1), and Nardelli is already Home Depot's boss. Keep an eye on both companies' stock prices. They leaped on news of the fresh CEOs, but investors may be expecting too much in a slowing economy. Watch also the extent to which these chiefs General Electrify their new domains; they were brought in to make changes. Lastly, if you're a glutton for punishment, take a look at their contracts, which aren't yet public but will have to be soon (you'll probably find them first at thecorporatelibrary.com). Word is they're huge. Suddenly these guys sound like winners.

Debby Hopkins

Hopkins is the No. 2 at Lucent, but as CFO she has the toughest job: orchestrating the mother of all corporate turnarounds. The stock is down 75% this year, and sales have slid. Worse yet, the company has lowered earnings projections for three consecutive quarters and now faces some gnarly accounting issues. (An aside: Lucent wins our award for euphemism of the year: "Revenue recognition issue." Debby, is this flourish your handiwork?)

As Hopkins, 46, takes on more operational duties at Lucent, she'll get the credit--or blame--for the company's performance. Analysts warn against underestimating her: Hopkins performed miracles for her former employer, Boeing. The bad news for the ambitious Hopkins is that even if she succeeds, she doesn't have a shot at Lucent's top job this time around.

Vince McMahon

There's only one man who can (or will) announce that he wants a divorce in front of a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden. He's McMahon, 55, the chairman of the NYSE-listed World Wrestling Federation--and a star of such WWF fare as UPN's wildly successful SmackDown! (The divorce is part of the act. We think.) In February 2001, McMahon's most ambitious, audacious creation yet, the XFL--a no-holds-barred football league--will play its first game. McMahon is also co-producing Manhunt, a hybrid of wrestling and Survivor for UPN. Diehard fans and horrified critics alike are watching these projects closely to see if McMahon can expand the WWF's empire beyond wrestling.

David Wetherell

Wetherell's CMGI is the prototypical Web firm. No company surged faster when all boats were rising: It launched Lycos, sold GeoCities, then bought AltaVista. But as the dot-com tide waned, so did CMGI's stock. Founder and CEO Wetherell, 46, will succeed in 2001 if he can merely keep this boat afloat.

Bob Pittman

The man with the most challenging job in media in the year ahead is Pittman, 46, co-chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner--assuming the companies' merger goes through.

Pittman, who will report to CEO Gerald Levin, will need to prove that the dominant AOL online service, with 26 million subscribers, can be used to propel Time Warner's mature businesses, including magazine publishing, cable networks, cable systems, TV and movie production, and music. In all, he'll have responsibility for 65% of the company's revenues; his domain could grow quickly if his co-COO Dick Parsons takes a job in the Bush Administration as rumored. (For more, see "AOL's Grand Unified Theory of the Media Cosmos.")

Jean-Marie Messier

Meanwhile, over in Europe, Frenchman Messier is trying to pull off a similarly ambitious feat--creating a new media empire from the rubble of a Parisian water and sewage conglomerate. Already the baby-faced Gallic superexecutive merged his Vivendi with Canal+ and Seagram (for its Universal movie and music business, not the booze) to create Vivendi Universal, while sticking Vivendi's old-economy assets into Vivendi Environnement. Now Messier, 44, has to sell off the sewage and convince Hollywood and Wall Street that he oughta be in pictures.

Mickey Drexler

The 56-year-old Gap CEO faces a familiar task--righting the Gap yet again. The chain's attempts to attract the Teen People crowd, like, totally misfired. (Anybody need a macrame halter top?) Key executives bolted, same-store sales contracted an estimated 4.5%, and the stock dropped 44%.

Drexler's supporters consider him a merchandising wizard, capable of Merlin-like feats. He'll need all sorts of mystical powers to pull off this turnaround; he faces rising interest rates and decreased consumer spending. Hey, magic boy, you might want to put off that planned 20% increase in store square footage.

Marc Andreessen

At times it seems as if people have forgotten about Andreessen, 29, the wunderkind who unleashed the Netscape browser in 1996. But he'll be hard to ignore in 2001. Andreessen has the audacity to bring public Loudcloud, his new Internet outsourcing company. This in a market that's a minefield for Internet stocks. Will the offering fly? Backers Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley seem to think Andreessen has the talent to go two for two.

Jorma Ollila

The past year was a horrible one for almost everybody in the telecom business. Except Ollila's Nokia. While rivals Motorola and Ericsson struggled, the Finnish mobile-phone giant ate up market share and delivered outsized profit gains. But the company's amazing recent performance (earnings per share were up 58% in the first nine months of 2000) had more to do with efficient manufacturing and brilliant marketing than with great new gizmos. Now Ollila, 50, needs to invent the mobile Internet products that wireless warriors can't live without. He'd better be fast: The Japanese, who are riding the huge success of i-mode, have become the experts in that department.

Rick Wagoner

General Motors CEO Wagoner, 47, finally stepped out from Chairman Jack Smith's shadow at the end of 2000, cutting jobs, reducing production capacity, and axing Oldsmobile. Olds had been sick for years, and with business conditions worsening, those were relatively easy decisions to make for an ex-bean counter like Wagoner. Now he has to demonstrate that he is a strong enough leader to kick butt and make the tough calls--like revamping product development and spicing up his management team with capable outsiders. Hiring Ford's ex-CFO John Devine is a good start.

CONTRIBUTORS: Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, Eryn Brown, Tim Carvell, Geoffrey Colvin, Julie Creswell, J.T. Farley, Justin Fox, Marc Gunther, Janet Guyon, David Kirkpatrick, Bethany McLean, Stephanie N. Mehta, Shelley Neumeier, Daniel Roth, Nelson D. Schwartz, Alex Taylor III, Alynda Wheat. FEEDBACK: first@fortunemail.com.