Forbes Releases List Of 250 Greatest Innovators, Ranks Elon Musk No.1, See Full List

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Forbes has ranked tech billionaire Elon Musk as America’s top living innovator on its new list of 250 greatest innovators.

The list was shared on Thursday as part of a yearlong series linked to America’s 250th birthday celebration.

According to Forbes, the ranking focuses on people who do not just invent, but also build businesses that bring ideas to market and reshape industries.

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The magazine said its beat reporters first nominated nearly 1,000 candidates before a panel of judges scored them using criteria such as creativity, breadth, engagement, disruption and commercial impact.

It added that the panel included investor Jim Breyer, tech journalist Kara Swisher and innovation expert Rita McGrath.

Forbes also said it used artificial intelligence tools, including ChatGPT and Gemini, to rank nominees using the same criteria, before its editors produced the final list.

The publication noted that more than one-third of the people on the ranking are women and people of colour, adding that many of the innovators became Americans through immigration.

See the full list below.

Rank Name Age Bio
No. 1 Elon Musk 54 Tesla. SpaceX. Neuralink. xAI. The Boring Company. Musk is the only person in history to have founded (or grown from nearly nothing) five companies, each with multibillion-dollar valuations, each in a different industry.

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No. 2 Jeff Bezos 61 Completely upended America’s $7.4 trillion retail industry, then pioneered cloud computing with Amazon Web Services. Now he’s helping NASA return to the moon at Blue Origin and building AI manufacturing systems at Prometheus.

No. 3 Bill Gates 70 Not content with kickstarting the personal computing revolution and making Microsoft the dominant player in workplace software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), at age 50 Gates reinvented himself as a generous and data-driven philanthropist who helped eradicate polio from India.

No. 4 George Lucas 81 One of the founding fathers of the modern blockbuster, Lucas also revolutionized movie merchandising, unleashing a never-ending tsunami of Star Wars action figures and Indiana Jones lunch boxes. Through his special effects house Industrial Light & Magic and THX sound outfit, he sold his tools to other moviemakers.

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No. 5 Jensen Huang 62 For years, Nvidia built graphics chips that made computer games pretty and fast. Huang transformed that niche business into the $187 billion (trailing 12-month revenue) beating heart of the AI economy thanks to an early bet on parallel computing.

No. 6 Sam Altman 40 Read our exclusive profile.

No. 7 Phil Knight 87 The Nike cofounder revolutionized the design and production of running shoes, but more importantly, he built the world’s best marketing machine, powered by the planet’s best athletes.

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No. 8 Martine Rothblatt 71 The creator of SiriusXM satellite radio. Rothblatt’s biotech-focused second act is even more impressive: United Therapeutics, which she founded in 1996, made medicines that helped save her daughter’s life, and is now developing genetically modified pig organs for human transplant.

No. 9 Ted Turner 87 In the 1980s, Turner built cable’s first “superstation,” Atlanta’s TBS, on a foundation of Braves baseball and pro wrestling. Then he invented the 24-hour news cycle with CNN before making classic movies cool again with TCM.

No. 10 Vinod Khosla 70 Sun Microsystems, which Khosla cofounded, was an early pioneer in network computing. He then became a legendary venture capitalist with early bets on risky, complicated tech that produced giants such as Square, DoorDash and OpenAI.

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No. 11 Larry Page 52 Google’s founding CEO co-wrote the search algorithm that changed everything.

No. 12 Sergey Brin 52 The other Google cofounder’s now back at Alphabet, driving the company’s AI strategy.

No. 13 Reed Hastings 65 Haven’t seen a video store recently? Thank Netflix.

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No. 14 Marc Andreessen 54 The Netscape cofounder went on to build Silicon Valley’s biggest VC firm.

No. 15 Larry Ellison 81 Oracle’s empire of databases, a Hawaiian island and now financing his son’s media megalomania.

No. 16 Judy Faulkner 82 Hand-coded what grew into the dominant electronic health records system.

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No. 17 Jim Sinegal 90 Pioneered warehouse club retail (and cheap hot dogs) at Costco.

No. 18 Michael Bloomberg 83 Transformed Wall Street data into essential terminals for traders and later a media empire.

No. 19 Michael Milken 79 Developed the market for high-yield “junk” bonds, powering the 1980s LBO craze.

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No. 20 Diane Greene 70 Her company built virtual computers, paving the path to the cloud.

No. 21 Andrew Viterbi 90 Qualcomm cofounder wrote the algorithm that makes your phone work.

No. 22 Brian Chesky 44 Upended the $270 billion American hotel industry with Airbnb.

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No. 23 Judy Estrin 71 Bridged different network types, putting the “inter” in internet.

No. 24 Thomas Peterffy 81 Computerized Wall Street with automated trades.

No. 25 Fred Moll 73 The father of the robotic surgery industry.

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No. 26 Henry Samueli 71 The Broadcom founder invented the chips that enabled fast broadband internet.

No. 27 Bob Metcalfe 79 Invented ethernet and founded 3Com to commercialize it.

No. 28 Marc Benioff 61 Pioneered “software-as-a-service” at Salesforce.

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No. 29 Steven Spielberg 79 Jaws. E.T. Saving Private Ryan. Jurassic Park. DreamWorks.

No. 30 Howard Schultz 72 Created modern coffeehouse culture with Starbucks.

No. 31 Henry Kravis 82 LBO king unsettled clubby Wall Street; infamous for 1988 RJR Nabisco megadeal.

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No. 32 Noubar Afeyan 63 His factory for life science startups has launched more than 100 companies, including Moderna.

No. 33 Palmer Luckey 33 Commercialized virtual reality with Oculus, then pivoted to military AI.

No. 34 Harry Stine 84 If you’re eating soy, it’s probably from one of his seeds.

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No. 35 Warren Buffett 95 The guru of value investing.

No. 36 Rupert Murdoch 94 Sports, tabloids, political polarization, power.

No. 37 Mark Zuckerberg 41 Arguably, his biggest innovation isn’t Facebook, it’s growth hacking.

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No. 38 George Roberts 82 The “R” in LBO pioneer KKR also helped create venture philanthropy.

No. 39 Robert Langer 77 Scientific cofounder of more than 40 biotechs, including Covid vaccine maker Moderna.

No. 40 Ken Griffin 57 His tech-powered firm Citadel executes 25% of U.S. stock trades.

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No. 41 Leroy Hood 87 Turned biology into data science by inventing automated DNA sequencing.

No. 42 Charles Schwab 88 Discount brokerage prophet who democratized retail investing.

No. 43 Ed Catmull 80 Pixar cofounder who built the tech and philosophy that made Toy Story possible.

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No. 44 Rodney Brooks 71 Inspired by ants, he made the Roomba.

No. 45 Carl June 72 Discovered how to reprogram immune cells to kill cancer.

No. 46 Rich Fairbank 75 Data-driven custom credit.

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No. 47 Jim Clark 81 3D graphics, Netscape’s adult in the room and WebMD.

No. 48 Phillip Sharp 81 Biogen cofounder’s “cut-and-paste” genes enabled modern medicines.

No. 49 Peter Thiel 58 Silicon Valley’s philosopher king was Facebook’s first outside investor and cofounded PayPal, Palantir, Founder’s Fund; rewards the brightest for skipping college.

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No. 50 Steve Wozniak 75 Apple’s other Steve, his engineering genius underpinned the company’s early success.

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No. 51 Paul Mockapetris 77 Wrote the software that made “.com” possible.

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No. 52 Dennis Slamon 77 Fought industry skepticism to develop the first targeted cancer drug.

No. 53 Hamdi Ulukaya 53 His Chobani brand industrialized Greek yogurt.

No. 54 Arthur Blank 83 Home improvement marries a depot retail warehouse.

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No. 55 Tom Mueller 64 Invented SpaceX’s engines; his own startup is aiming for the moon.

No. 56 H. Michael Shepard 76 Bioengineered treatments for multiple cancers and autoimmune disorders.

No. 57 Martin Cooper 97 Invented cellphones, smart antennas and the wireless business model.

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No. 58 David Shaw 74 High frequency trader brought supercomputing to Wall Street and then Big Pharma.

No. 59 Michael Dell 60 Cut out the middleman in PC sales.

No. 60 Leonard Kleinrock 91 His “packet-switching” math makes the internet possible.

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No. 61 Craig Venter 79 Beat big government at sequencing the human genome.

No. 62 Lewis Ranieri 79 Transformed how housing is financed with mortgage-backed securities.

No. 63 JB Straubel 50 Built batteries that made EVs practical; now recycles them.

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No. 64 Jeff Yass 67 Created a Wall Street trading giant with game theory and poker winnings.

No. 65 Robert Weinberg 83 Redefined cancer medicine by proving its genetic origin.

No. 66 Dean Kamen 74 Prolific inventor: wearable chemotherapy pumps, prosthetic arms, the Segway.

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No. 67 Marvin Caruthers 85 Amgen cofounder launched the biotech industry with DNA synthesis invention.

No. 68 Reid Hoffman 58 Try finding a job without a LinkedIn profile.

No. 69 Chuck Hull 86 Invented 3D printing and brought it to market.

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No. 70 Therese Tucker 64 Built BlackLine, the industry standard for automating corporate accounting.

No. 71 Vlad Tenev 38 Robinhood’s no minimum, no-fee trading brought trading to the masses and created meme stocks.

No. 72 Fred Luddy 71 Built the default platform for automating IT processes with ServiceNow.

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No. 73 Paul Graham 61 Y Combinator industrialized Silicon Valley seed funding.

No. 74 Min Kao 77 Garmin cofounder created the consumer GPS ecosystem.

No. 75 George Church 71 Harvard professor and biotech pioneer cofounded 50-plus companies spanning gene therapy to de-extinction.

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No. 76 Alexander Karp 58 Big data for big brother.

No. 77 Max Levchin 50 PayPal and Affirm changed how we pay for things online.

No. 78 Feng Zhang 44 Gene-editing pioneer making new medicines and rapid diagnostic tools.

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No. 79 James Goodnight 82 His SAS standardized data science before it even existed.

No. 80 Jan Koum 49 WhatsApp cofounder revolutionized phone messaging.

No. 81 Larry Fink 73 Built BlackRock into world’s largest investment firm by automating risk management.

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No. 82 David Geffen 82 Without him, there’s no Nirvana, Eagles or Shrek.

No. 83 Peggy Cherng 78 Her engineering skills made Panda Express a fast-food powerhouse.

No. 84 Jennifer Doudna 61 Won the Nobel Prize for Crispr gene editing and cofounded nearly a dozen biotechs.

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No. 85 Charles Ergen 72 Satellite television for everyone with Dish; now pivoting to 5G.

No. 86 Tom Monaghan 88 Domino’s made 30-minute dinner delivery realistic for the majority of Americans.

No. 87 Sandy Lerner 70 Made today’s internet possible by commercializing the first router.

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No. 88 David Baker 63 Transformed biotechnology from art to engineering with programmable proteins.

No. 89 George Kurtz 55 CrowdStrike overturned the traditional antivirus software to become industry standard cybersecurity.

No. 90 Leonard Adleman 80 RSA secured online payments; now he’s building computers with DNA.

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No. 91 Fei-Fei Li 49 Gave AI machine vision.

No. 92 Robert Johnson 78 Cofounded (and sold) Black Entertainment Television; now commands a vast multi-industry operation.

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No. 93 Jack Dorsey 49 Reimagined social media with Twitter and e-commerce with Square.

No. 94 Stephen Schwarzman 78 Blackstone transformed the global economy by industrializing private equity.

No. 95 John Mackey 72 Took organic food out of the farmer’s market with Whole Foods.

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No. 96 Oprah Winfrey 71 Built her media empire on a foundation of self-improvement.

No. 97 Dario Amodei 43 Architect of safety-focused AI for enterprise customers at Anthropic.

No. 98 Kevin Systrom 42 Instagram founder did it for the ’gram.

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No. 99 Eric Swanson 65 Invented the retina scanning technology used by modern eye doctors.

No. 100 Madonna Ciccone 67 Pop culture’s ultimate reinventor also defined ’90s sound with Maverick Records.

No. 101 Adrian Krainer 67 He fixed “typos” in DNA, enabling new kinds of medicine.

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No. 102 John Morris 77 Made buying fishing gear a destination experience with Bass Pro.

No. 103 Lorne Michaels 81 Turned his sketch comedy institution into a Hollywood talent factory.

No. 104 James Allison 77 Figured out how to unleash the immune system against cancer.

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No. 105 Temple Grandin 78 Improved the efficiency and humanity of livestock handling systems.

No. 106 Jeffery Kelly 65 His company FoldRx cured disease by untangling faulty proteins.

No. 107 Ray Kurzweil 77 Taught computers how to read.

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No. 108 Napoleone Ferrara 69 Unlocked a single mechanism enabling treatments for cancer and blindness.

No. 109 Patrick Brown 70 Industrialized genetics with DNA microarrays and made Impossible burgers.

No. 110 Kam Ghaffarian 67 In 2024, landed the first American spacecraft on the moon since 1972.

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No. 111 James Fujimoto 68 Invented the laser technology behind Lasik and virtual biopsies.

No. 112 Carolyn Bertozzi 59 Unlocked chemistry grounding her 12-plus companies’ next-generation cancer treatments.

No. 113 Brian Druker 70 Designed a platform to build drugs targeting cancer-causing proteins.

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No. 114 Jeffrey Friedman 71 Discovered weight-regulating hormone leptin, ushering in a new medical era.

No. 115 Frances Arnold 69 Invented the bioengineering that’s upending the petroleum-based chemicals industry.

No. 116 Thomas Frist Jr. 87 Built the modern hospital era by leveraging economies of scale.

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No. 117 Jack Dangermond 80 Created the GIS technology behind all modern maps.

No. 118 Arthur Rock 99 Silicon Valley’s O.G. venture capitalist funded Apple, Intel, Xerox.

No. 119 Pierre Omidyar 58 Digitized the garage sale with eBay.

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No. 120 David Duffield 85 Workday’s software powers the world’s HR departments.

No. 121 Harold Hamm 80 Used fracking to make America the world’s top oil producer.

No. 122 Gabe Newell 63 Did to PC games what Netflix did to DVDs.

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No. 123 Sandy Weill 92 Built the first “supermarket for finance” with Citigroup.

No. 124 Jerry Yang 57 Founded Yahoo, then made early bets on giants like Alibaba.

No. 125 Tim Sweeney 55 Created the coding engine behind modern video games. And Fortnite.

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No. 126 Bill Gross 81 Transformed institutional bond investing from Grandma’s safe, buy-and-hold bet into an actively managed asset class and built the world’s largest bond fund.

No. 127 Suma Krishnan 60 Created the first topical gene therapy for skin diseases.

No. 128 Jay Chaudhry 67 Scaled the zero-trust architecture underpinning modern cybersecurity.

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No. 129 Eric Fossum 68 Invented the tech that made the selfie possible.

No. 130 David Baszucki 63 Founded Roblox, which lets kids make video games and money.

No. 131 Daniel Gilbert 64 Democratized the mortgage industry with online Quicken loans.

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No. 132 Patrick Soon-Shiong 73 Invented better drug delivery and founded a biotech empire.

No. 133 Dan Shugar 62 Created software that enables solar panels to follow the sun.

No. 134 Brad Jacobs 69 Did the math that drives the modern trucking industry.

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No. 135 Eric Yuan 55 Zoom calls. ’Nuff said.

No. 136 Walter Gilbert 93 Engineered the crucial DNA tools behind pharma giant Biogen.

No. 137 Stanley Lapidus 76 His screening enables you to avoid colonoscopies.

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No. 138 Michael Welsh 77 Decoded cystic fibrosis and genetically engineered minipigs for pharma research.

No. 139 Craig Mello 65 Developed drugs that can “silence” disease-causing genes.

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No. 140 Mark Cuban 67 The shark first built the streaming pioneer Broadcast.com; now he makes affordable drugs.

No. 141 Israel Englander 77 Leveraged the “wisdom of crowds” with a multi-team hedge fund.

No. 142 Jony Ive 58 Designed the iPod and the iPhone. Now trying the same for AI.

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No. 143 Craig Newmark 73 Craigslist.

No. 144 Eric Smidt 66 Access to professional-grade tools at Harbor Freight.

No. 145 Tony Xu 41 Thanks to DoorDash, nearly every restaurant now delivers.

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No. 146 William Kaelin 68 Discovered how cancer cells “breathe” and how to choke them.

No. 147 Dustin Moskovitz 41 Designed Facebook’s early tech and built workplace powerhouse Asana.

No. 148 Robert Pera 47 Built enterprise telecom giant Ubiquiti Networks without a sales department.

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No. 149 Tony Fadell 56 Designed the iPod’s wheel and invented Nest’s smart thermostat.

No. 150 Brian Armstrong 42 Coinbase, his one-stop exchange, mainstreamed crypto.

No. 151 John Tu 84 Co-invented modern RAM computer memory and still runs Kingston from a cubicle.

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No. 152 David Sun 74 Co-invented modern RAM and still walks Kingston’s factory floor.

No. 153 Barry Diller 83 Invented made-for-TV movies. Created Fox network. Runs Expedia.

No. 154 Xiaowei Zhuang 53 Commercialized visualization tools used to map and cure disease.

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No. 155 Neha Narkhede 41 Built data infrastructure for an AI-enabled internet.

No. 156 Carl Icahn 89 Shook up complacent companies with hostile takeovers and shareholder activism.

No. 157 Bill Franke 88 Made flying affordable by unbundling airfare from comforts like leg room.

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No. 158 Mitchell Hashimoto 36 Developed the standard tools programmers use on the cloud.

No. 159 Timothy Springer 77 Discovered immune “keys” to fight disease and cofounded Moderna.

No. 160 Daphne Koller 57 Founded education giant Coursera and AI drug discoverer Insitro.

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No. 161 Sangeeta Bhatia 57 Brought microchip tech to biology for safer drug discovery.

No. 162 Mitch Kapor 75 Designed Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software, then made early bets on Uber and Asana.

No. 163 Sheila Johnson 76 Cofounded Black Entertainment Television, built its programming strategy, then pivoted to hotels.

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No. 164 Yann LeCun 65 Gave computers “eyes” and, with his new venture, common sense.

No. 165 Andrew Ng 49 Built unsupervised machine learning at Google, democratized education with Coursera.

No. 166 Zach Perret 38 Laid the plumbing connecting fintechs to traditional banks with Plaid.

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No. 167 Nina Vaca 54 Pinnacle transformed IT staffing with custom tech and a global reach.

No. 168 Drew Weissman 66 Nobel for mRNA vaccines; now tackling autoimmune disorders.

No. 169 Katalin Karikó 71 Nobel for mRNA vaccines; now applying them to heart disease and more.

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No. 170 Jay Adelson 55 Built data center giant Equinix after pioneering social media at Digg.

No. 171 Len Bosack 73 The Cisco cofounder is now focused on next-generation networking.

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No. 172 Jeff Hawkins 68 Without Hawkins there’s no Palm Pilot, Blackberry or iPhone.

No. 173 Lonnie Johnson 76 NASA engineer turned Super Soaker inventor turned green energy pioneer.

No. 174 Jed McCaleb 51 Created the first bitcoin exchange. Now he’s building space stations.

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No. 175 Andrew Weinreich 57 Patented the first social network; then made self-improvement apps.

No. 176 Whitney Wolfe Herd 36 Revolutionized dating apps twice with Tinder and then Bumble.

No. 177 Aman Narang 43 Reinvented the restaurant check with Toast.

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No. 178 Fred Ramsdell 65 Discovered genetic “switch” that cures certain autoimmune disorders.

No. 179 Thomas Südhof 70 His Nobel-winning brain discoveries underpin several multibillion-dollar biotechs including Reata Pharmaceuticals.

No. 180 Adam Foroughi 45 Designed AppLovin, the AI-powered adtech giant behind the app economy.

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No. 181 Brian Kobilka 70 His cellular maps enable drugs to be designed, not discovered.

No. 182 David Walt 72 Built the scientific foundation of $23 billion sequencing giant Illumina.

No. 183 Baiju Bhatt 41 Robinhood cofounder is now working on space-based solar power.

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No. 184 Steve Cohen 69 New York Mets owner and data-driven, multi-manager hedge fund pioneer.

No. 185 Howard Marks 79 Transformed risky debt investing into a market-stabilizing and lucrative proposition.

No. 186 Brian Acton 53 At WhatsApp, then Signal, he brought secure messaging to everyone.

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No. 187 Yet-Ming Chiang 67 MIT prof making heavy industry greener from energy to cement.

No. 188 Peter Diamandis 64 The commercial space pioneer is catalyzing innovation with XPrize.

No. 189 Ray Ozzie 70 Pioneered digital collaboration. Built Microsoft’s cloud. Leads IoT utility Blues.

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No. 190 Shonda Rhimes 56 TV queen behind Scandal, Bridgerton and Grey’s Anatomy turned her hits into a multiplatform production powerhouse.

No. 191 James Park 49 Revolutionized exercise with Fitbit.

No. 192 Ralph Lauren 86 A fashion empire of aspirational, patriotic branding.

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No. 193 Lewis Cantley 76 Fights cancer by starving tumors.

No. 194 Kate Ryder 42 Founded Maven Clinic, the telehealth giant dedicated to women’s health.

No. 195 David Booth 80 Turned the efficient market hypothesis into a practical investing tool.

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No. 196 Edwin Chen 38 Bootstrapped Surge AI, which recruits human experts to train AI models.

No. 197 Kevin Plank 53 The Under Armour founder changed the fabric of athletic wear.

No. 198 RJ Scaringe 43 With Rivian, he added the rugged adventure category for EVs.

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No. 199 Sara Blakely 54 Invented Spanx and made it a household name.

No. 200 Alexandr Wang 29 Built machine learning infrastructure at Scale; now leads Meta’s AI.

No. 201 Bran Ferren 73 Provides “innovation as a service” for giants including GM and Boeing.

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No. 202 Shan Sinha 47 The architect of cloud collaboration now builds health care safety devices.

No. 203 Robert Lefkowitz 82 Cofounded Septerna to turn his Nobel-winning research into medicine.

No. 204 Jack Szostak 73 Pioneered biotech for heart disease treatments.

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No. 205 Katrina Lake 43 The Stitch Fix founder brought personal styling to the masses.

No. 206 John Schiller 73 Helped create HPV vaccines, causing cervical cancer rates to plummet.

No. 207 Moungi Bawendi 64 Supersharp modern TVs and medical images depend on his “quantum dots.”

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No. 208 Billie Jean King 82 Catalyzed women’s professional sports with the Women’s Tennis Association.

No. 209 Shahid Khan 75 Constructed a multi-industry empire on his one-piece car bumper.

No. 210 Yvon Chouinard 87 Invented a new corporate structure ensuring Patagonia protects the environment.

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No. 211 Kay Koplovitz 80 Architect of the modern cable station business model with USA Network.

No. 212 Hamid Moghadam 69 Saw the e-commerce boom coming and built its logistics infrastructure.
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No. 213 Daniela Amodei 38 The business-minded cofounder behind safety-focused AI giant Anthropic.

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No. 214 Michael Sabel 59 His construction strategy made America the dominant natural gas exporter.

No. 215 David Steward 74 Transformed tech supply chain management.

No. 216 Evan Spiegel 35 Innovation spawns imitation; Snap’s competitors all have features it pioneered.

No. 217 Luis von Ahn 47 He proved you’re not a robot; now gamifies language at Duolingo.

No. 218 Kris Jenner 70 The “momager” metamorphosed reality TV fame into a business empire to the benefit of internet influencers everywhere.

No. 219 Thai Lee 67 Undercut her IT competitors by operating without costly warehouses.

No. 220 Dan Bricklin 74 Invented the electronic spreadsheet.

No. 221 Paul Judge 48 He fought cyberfraud in robocalls and email. Today it’s deepfakes.

No. 222 John Carmack 55 Built the early 3D graphics software that underlies most modern video games.

No. 223 Jerry Jones 83 Dallas Cowboys owner brought free-market principles to the NFL business model.

No. 224 Mira Murati 37 Former OpenAI CTO’s company builds tools for collaborative AI development.

No. 225 Jimmy Chen 38 Digitizing America’s social safety n

No. 226 Tyler Perry 56 Transformed the movie studio model with his unified production strategy.

No. 227 Doris Fisher 94 Founded The Gap and spun it into a specialty retail empire.

No. 228 Chad Hurley 48 YouTube’s founding CEO is now trying to gamify sports media.

No. 229 Rick Kittles 59 Tracing genetic ancestry years before 23andMe.

No. 230 Naval Ravikant 51 The people’s venture capital with AngelList.

No. 231 Hugh McColl 90 Before him, most banks operated only in single states.

No. 232 Cathie Wood 70 Pioneered fully transparent, actively managed ETFs focused on disruptive tech.

No. 233 Jim Koch 76 Popularized craft beer with Samuel Adams.

No. 234 Lynn Jurich 46 Solar-energy-as-a-service.

No. 235 Shiv Rao 46 AI pioneer building virtual helpers to rescue doctors from paperwork.

No. 236 Chris Larsen 65 Blockchain for bank transactions with Ripple.

No. 237 Donna Dubinsky 71 Laid the foundation for the smartphone.

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No. 238 Shivani Siroya 43 Disrupted lending by using smartphone data to better determine creditworthiness.

No. 239 Janice Bryant Howroyd 73 Redefined staffing with data.

No. 240 Peter Lynch 81 Some actively managed mutual funds can beat the market.

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No. 241 Limor Fried 46 Empowered a generation of “makers” with her open-source hardware.

No. 242 Roberta Williams 72 Introduced narrative storytelling to video games with Sierra On-Line.

No. 243 Michael Rosbash 81 Decoded the biological clock to revolutionize sleep and precision medicine.

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No. 244 Caterina Fake 56 Kicked off Web 2.0 with Flickr; now promotes ethical tech.

No. 245 Calvin Klein 83 Turned jeans and underwear into high fashion.

No. 246 Lisa Lindahl 77 The inventor of the sports bra opened up women’s athletic apparel.

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No. 247 Ryan Petersen 44 Created a digital operating system for global logistics with Flexport.

No. 248 Robert Rodriguez 57 His digital “one-man-band” film production style revolutionized indie movies.

No. 249 Marian Croak 70 Developed the digital infrastructure to make internet voice and video calls possible.

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No. 250 Taylor Swift 36 Became a billionaire solely from music with Rockefeller-style vertical integration.

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