TIME magazine's 100 most influential people
Main article: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2066367,00.html
The purpose of this article is to test how wide my knowledge is of the news in the past year or years before.
I simply pulled the list from TIME.com, looked at it and typed a description of who I recognize, and why I think they were nominated...all without clicking on their names or googleing.
1. Joseph Stiglitz - World renowned American economist. He has either won a Nobel prize or is a strong candidate for one.
2. Reed Hastings - Netflix CEO. He found Netflix either in 1997 or 99. A forward thinker in the way consumers consume home media. Pioneered mailing of dvds to home and "no late fees". This reason along with the continual reduced monthly subscription rates both attracted 10 - 20 million subscribers. It also put Blockbuster out of business. Hastings named his company 'NET-flix' not 'RENT-flix' because from the every beginning he foresaw consumers "instantly watching" movies and tv shows through streaming. DVD rental was simply a means to that end.
3. Amy Poehler - American comedian. Became widely popular on Saturday Night Live, performing sketch comedy and reporting the news with comedy. She later branched out to doing feature films which include, Baby Mama with Tina Fey, and Hamlet 2 with Steve Coogan.
She can currently be seen on the successful NBC comedy, "Parks and Recreation."
4. Geoffrey Canada - founded the Harlem Academy. The goal was to bring young minds from low socio-economic status and prepare them for college. Canada's (graduate of Harvard) enthusiasm is so apparent for this calling of his that he has been profiled in magazines, on Oprah - numerous times, talk shows, and a popular documentary was made with him and his academy at the center. The documentary is called, "Waiting for Superman" directed by David Guggenheim.
5. Mark Zuckerberg - co-founder and CEO of Facebook.com - the social network that has had an impact in me, yours and all almost 600 million users all around the world. Facebook has permeated the entire internet in just a short period of time, since 2004. Zuckerberg, also attended Harvard, except did not graduate, donated $100 million to the New Jersey School System. This announcement was featured on Oprah in 2010 along with Geoffrey Canada and mayor of New Jersey, Cory Booker. A very critical acclaimed movie was made about the founding of facebook called "The Social Network" which earned the academy award for best screenplay. The movie also grossed over $100 million.
Many high-profile guests have visited Facebook head-quarters in Palo Alto, CA, including President Barack Obama who recently held a town hall meeting.
Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire, and Facebook is valued at about $50 billion.
6. Jilian Assange - controversial founder of Wikileaks - Assange was in the news pretty much throughout the whole of 2010. Wikileaks is a website that allows the anonymous submission of secret government details to be viewed openly, which does not make the U.S. government very happy.
7. Lamido Sanusi - Nigerian CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) governor. He was appointed the governor of the CBN at the height of the world economic collapse around June 2009. He immediately took drastic steps - he consolidated banks, fired about 9 bank executives and hopefully began steps to reducing corruption in the country.
8. Colin Firth - actor. British actor who has never made a bad performance (my opinion) finally got his due when he won the Oscar for "The King's Speech" he also won the BAFTA for the same role. He also made an acclaimed performance in A Single Man directed by Tom Ford.
9. Joe Biden - Vice President of the United States. Besides that, I really don't know why he is on this list.
10. Cory Booker - Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He has been very particular about the state of education in his city.
11. Michelle Obama - wife of President Barack Obama aka. First Lady of the U.S. - She was very particular about child obesity and the kind of food that children eat in schools.
12. Tom Ford - Fashion Designer and Director. Only directed one film and did an excellent job at it...A Single Man, with Colin Firth.
13. Nicholas Sarkozy - President of France.
14. Matthew Weiner - Creator of Emmy award winning tv show, Mad Men on AMC. Matthew Weiner also created The Sopranos which had a very long run on HBO (about 6-9 seasons). Interestingly, he pitched Mad Men to producers first but they turned that down. Only after the success and awards that The Sopranos had and won, was he able to make Mad Men.
15. Lisa Jackson - Michael Jackson's sister?
16. Justin Bieber - World wide singer/performer came into the limelight from posting youtube videos after being discovered by Usher. He has mezmerized young girls...and their moms, Beiber Fever. He has appeared an every talk show including Oprah, sang in the new "We are the world" video, and performed at every musical and movie award show.
17. Prince William and Kate Middleton - the are English. William in the royal family married Kate who he dated for about 8 years. They had a huge wedding in May 2011 which was broadcast live all over the world, including YouTube for the very first time.
18. Kim Jong Un - probably Kim Jong Il's son.
19. Oprah Winfrey - over 25 years of The Oprah Winfrey Show, enough said. She has interviewed everybody, presidents, royals, actors, regular people, Michael Jackson, and puppets. She ran the Oprah show under her production company, Harpo Productions (Oprah spelt backwards). She became the wealthiest African-American, a billionaire, Tom Cruise jumped on her couch, supported Obama and cried when he won. On January 1, 2011, she started her own network called OWN, in partnership with Discovery Networks. She has an XM satellite show, and has spawned tv and XM careers of Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and that guy that does home furnishings.
20. Larry Page - co-founder of Google, Inc. Page, along with co-founder Sergei Brin, worked on their Stanford project that hoped to index the entire web and make it search very easy and effective. After Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google recently stepped down after nearly a decade of running the company, Larry Page stepped up. Let's see where he takes Google with other prominent competition from companies like, Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, Apple and Amazon.
21. David Cameron - Britain's prime minister.
22. John Lasseter - founded Pixar animation studios along with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmul around 1994. With him as the head of Pixar, the company is about 11 for 11. All movies have been very very successful, most have taken academy awards for best animated film year after year, while some have even made it to the best film category.
Films
Toy Story
Toy Story 2
A Bug's Life
Monster's Inc.
Finding Nemo
The Incredibles
Cars
Wall-E
Up
Toy Tory 3
Upcoming Films
Newt
Cars 2
After Walt Disney Studios acquired Pixar, John Lasseter became head of Disney Animation. He is now both in charge of movies that Pixar makes, and the others that Disney makes.
23. Mukesh Ambani - Indian Billionaire, among the world's wealthiest few. He is the guy that has that 27 story house in India.
24. Bruno Mars - Singer
25. General David Petraeus - He is the leader of the U.S. Armed Forces, the guy that led U.S. troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and stuff.
26. Matt Damon and Gary White - Matt Damon is a Harvard trained actor, he lost many pounds to be in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan". He played Ryan. He co-wrote the screenplay of "Good Will Hunting" with his close friend Ben Affleck which won each of them Oscars.
I'm guessing the reason he in on the TIME 100 most influential people is because of Water.org The organization that looks to provide water for the those that do not have easy access. Water.org posted a challenge for teams of students in universities to come of with creative ways of solving water problems. Scholarships was provided to the winners.
27. Sting - singer, who likes to do good things around the world, I guess.
28. Michelle Rhee - Washington DC School Superintendent. When she came into office, she fired bad teachers. She was also featured in the acclaimed documentary, "Waiting for superman"
29. Mark Whalberg - actor. Recently did a good job in "The Fighter". Heard he had to "fight" to get the movie made. Not sure why he's on the list though.
30. Arianna Huffington - Created the Huffington Post. This popular blog, quickly became a source of real news, to compete with newspapers such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New York Post and The New Yorker. Arianna a workaholic holds about 3 or 4 cell phones at any one time. She is a vocal proponent of better education. aol bought the huffington post for $315 million recently, Arianna banks some big dough!
31. Barack Obama - President of The United States. Won Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, and donated the million dollars to charity because he felt he had not yet earned it. Did something big in Health Care. He onced played basket ball for leisure got injured on his eye and got 12 stitches.
32. Scott Rudin - film producer. He produced the award winning and financially successful movie, "The Social Network."
33. John Boehner - prominent member of the Republican party of the U.S.
33 out of 100. 1/3rd not bad.
Oops, skipped over...
Hillary Clinton - U.S. Secretary of State. She campained hard for the presidency. She may not have won, but she holds a very strong position in the White House. She travels overseas a lot to speak with world leaders. She had that worried look in the photo while Barack Obama et al watched as US Navy Seals raided Osama Bin Laden's compound
