The 50 Who Matter Now

In our second annual ranking, Business 2.0 has compiled an unabashedly subjective list of people, products, trends, and ideas that are transforming the world of business.

By Business 2.0 staff
Rupert Murdoch
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Rupert Murdoch
CEO, News Corp.

Rank: 6

Why he matters: Never bet on what Murdoch will do next. His 2005 purchase of MySpace for $580 million was widely mocked -- until traffic kept increasing and Google shelled out nearly three times as much to buy YouTube.

Now Murdoch is trying to buy Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, for $5 billion. A foolish play when everything seems to be migrating to the Web? As we said, betting on Murdoch's next move is risky business. But betting on his long-term success often pays off.

Adelson
Calacanis
Bianchini
Iacobucci, Raburn
Graham
You
Williams
Musk
Melton
O'Reilly
Edmond
Zell
Huffington
Fake Steve Jobs
Walsh
Draft
Zuckerberg
Branson
Nooyi
Ambani bros.
Phillips
Negroponte
Hundt
Friis, Zennstrom
Cogan
Rosedale
Fadell
Kao
Arrington
Stephenson
Miyamoto
Eberhard
Agile software
Li
Diller
Chizen
Hurd
Wales
Bezos
McAndrews
Watanabe
Chambers
Schwarzenegger
Decker
Murdoch
Jacobs
Moritz
Private equity
Jobs
Google trio
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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.

Contact Us Closed Captioning Manage Cookies+ Site Map

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.