The Most Powerful Person In Tech At Every Age

Marissa Mayer's son

What makes him powerful: The son of the CEO of Yahoo may only be an infant, but his very existence is influencing some of the company's policies, like how much workers are paid on maternity (or paternity) leave.

One of the highest-paid YouTube stars

What makes him powerful: At just seven years old, Evan is the 20th-highest-paid YouTube star, earning up to an estimated $1.32 million annually after YouTube's 45% cut. With over 476,000 subscribers and 443 million total views, Evan, who vlogs under the auspices of EvanTubeHD, reviews toys and video games for viewers. His channel has a dedicated ad-sales team, which puts the proceeds from the channel into investment and savings accounts for Evan and his sister.

Creator of 99-cent iPhone app Toaster Pop

What makes him powerful: Now that he's successfully created his own app, Zamary wants to be the world's youngest investor. The app, Toaster Pop, is a game that lets users put a variety of spreads on pieces of toast. He pitched the idea to investors, hired a developer, and filed for an LLC, all by himself.

Creator of Kangaroo Cup

What makes her powerful: Born noticed that her grandfather, who has Parkinson's Disease, was having trouble drinking out of regular glasses, so she decided to design an unbreakable, spill-proof cup called Kangaroo Cup. Born raised $62,053 from a Kickstarter campaign, breaking her $25,000 goal.

Daughter of Bill and Melinda Gates

What makes her powerful: The Gates' youngest child will get her hands on a reported $10 million in inheritance from the richest person alive. Her dad Bill has said he will donate the rest to charity.

But while she's living under his roof, which covers a 66,000-square-foot futuristic mansion in Medina, Washington, she's playing by her parents' rules. No cell phone until age 13, and no Apple products, ever.

Created a mechanism to prevent cyberbullying

What makes her powerful: Prabhu was a finalist in Google's Global Science Fair for her project that combats cyberbullying. She created Rethink, an internet popup that detects hurtful language in online comments and prompts the potential poster of the hurtful comment to think about whether they actually want to post it. She found that that adolescents were over 93% less willing to post a mean message when asked to rethink it.

Founder of Botangle

What makes him powerful: Finman made $100,000 after investing a $1,000 gift from his grandmother in Bitcoin, and he then used it to launch his own startup called Botangle. The education startup connects learners with experts in an online learning community.

Developed a way to make a pollution-neutralizing paint

What makes him powerful: Another of Google's finalists from its Global Science Fair, Burrow has figured out a way to clean up pollution with "sunscreen and pencils." Burrow's project combines the materials in sunscreen and pencils (graphene oxide and titanium dioxide) to improve commercial paints. The paint would help get rid of pollutants when used on the outside of buildings.

Another powerful 16-year-old: Tanay Tandon, who created an app for skimming documents.

Founder and CEO of RexComputing

What makes him powerful: Sohmers dropped out of high school in the eleventh grade to join Peter Thiel's controversial startup accelerator, the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship. Now he's unveiled a super fast computer through his startup RexComputing.

Founder of Summly

What makes him powerful: Yahoo purchased D'Aloisio's news aggregation website Summly for $33 million when he was just 17 years old. At the International Consumer Electronics Show this year, he unveiled a brand new mobile app called Yahoo News Digest.

CEO of discount travel site Cheap Travel Hunter

What makes him powerful: Bina started his own company when he was just 16. Three years later, Cheap Travel Hunter employs 20 people and is the 2,412nd largest site in its category.

Famous YouTube tech reviewer

What makes him powerful: According to former Google VP Vic Gundotra, Brownlee is "the best technology reviewer on the planet right now." His YouTube channel MKBHD has more than 1.5 million subscribers and nearly 130 million total views on his 640-plus videos.

Another powerful 16-year-old: William LeGate, a 2013 Thiel fellow, created two apps called Ponder and Synapps.

Inventor of Oculus Rift

What makes him powerful: Luckey is the founder of Oculus VR, a startup that makes virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift. His products were so impressive they caught the attention of Mark Zuckerberg, and Luckey's company was recently acquired by Facebook for $2 billion. Oculus VR doesn't make a consumer product yet, but its headset for video game developers has changed the way many people experience video games altogether.

Founder of Egomnia

What makes him powerful: Known as the "Italian Mark Zuckerberg," Achilli is making waves in the European tech scene. He founded the LinkedIn-meets-Facebook social network Egomnia during his first year in college. Egomnia has more than 250,000 users and 700 companies accessing the site to find potential hires.

Other powerful 22-year-olds: Alex Banayan is the world's youngest VC; and Lucas Duplan has raised over $30 million for his secretive startup, Clinkle, a comprehensive mobile payments app.

Founder and CEO of Kiip

What makes him powerful: Wong is one of the youngest people to ever receive venture capital. He did so for his mobile advertising network, Kiip, which rewards consumers for engaging with ads. He skipped four grades in school, and graduated college when he was 18.

CEO of Snapchat

What makes him powerful: As the creator of an app with 100 million users around the world, Spiegel is a dominant force in tech. Snapchat recently raised $20 million at a $10 billion valuation, and it also announced plans to integrate advertising by November.

Co-founder of Coinbase

What makes him powerful: Ehrsam is one of the cofounders of Coinbase, a digital wallet for Bitcoin, which has raised $31.7 million in funding from prominent investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, and Ribbit Capital. Ehrsam previously worked as a trader at Goldman Sachs.

Another powerful 25-year-old: Fadel Adib developed a technology that uses WiFi to see through walls.

Founder and general partner of Romulus Capital

What makes him powerful: As a senior at MIT, Gupta founded Romulus Capital to help foster younger startups and the innovation coming from the area's students. The VC has raised $50 million and invested in 20 companies. One of his investments, Crocodoc, was acquired by Box.

Founder of Pebble

What makes him powerful: Migicovsky's smartwatch is one of the most-watched wearable tech brand, after starting as a Kickstarter project a few years ago. Pebble has raised $25.7 million in funding and has 35 employees. There are more than 300,000 Pebble watches on wrists all over the world, with more than 500 apps specifically made for the watch.

CEO of Tumblr

What makes him powerful: Karp's unnaturally accelerated success with Tumblr completely negates the fact that he didn't even finish traditional high school. Yahoo paid $1.1 billion in cash for his company last year, and Karp remains CEO. Karp ranked No. 2 on Business Insider's 2013 Silicon Alley 100 list.

Founder of Quora

What makes him powerful: After serving as Facebook's first CTO, D'Angelo decided to start the question and answer social platform Quora, which has since raised about $80 million at a near-billion dollar valuation. It employs more than 90 people, and users are posting three times as many answers on the platform now than they did at the beginning of the year.

Another powerful 29-year-old: Aaron Levie founded the file-sharing site Dropbox competitor, Box.

CEO of Facebook

What makes him powerful: He's built the largest social network ever, with over 1 billion users, and from WhatsApp to Oculus VR, Zuckerberg has overseen a number of huge Facebook acquisitions in the past year. His current net worth is $33.4 billion, making him one of just three people who have more billions under their belt than years lived.

Another powerful 30-year-old: Kevin Systrom is one of the co-founders of Instagram... which also happens to be owned by Facebook.

Founder of Pinterest

What makes him powerful: Silbermann left Google to found a company, and after a few false starts landed on the picture collection social platform Pinterest. Last year alone, Pinterest raised a total of $425 million. Its latest $225 million round gives the social sharing site a $3.8 billion valuation.

Another powerful 31-year-old: Drew Houston founded file-sharing site Dropbox.

CEO of Thrillist Media Group, and managing director at Lerer Ventures

What makes him powerful: Lerer and his $60 million fund have invested in companies such as The Huffington Post, OMGPOP, Warby Parker, BuzzFeed, GroupMe, and Venmo. Lerer also started and runs his own national media company, Thrillist Media Group.

Disclosure: Lerer Ventures is an investor in Business Insider.

Founder of Groupon and Detour

What makes him powerful: Though Mason is no longer at Groupon, he is already onto his next project, Detour, which creates GPS-based audio walking tours for different neighborhoods. And we're not too worried about Mason — he left Groupon worth more than $400 million.

Former partner at Founders Fund

What makes him powerful: Parker spent eight years as a partner at Peter Thiel's Founders Fund before leaving earlier this year. As the co-founder of Napster and founding president of Facebook, Parker has a successful track record in entrepreneurship. He's an investor and board director for Spotify, with an estimated net worth of $2.7 billion.

Co-founder and chief customer officer of IndieGogo

What makes her powerful: Ringelmann co-founded the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo in 2008 to democratize investing. The site has since launched more than 200,000 campaigns and has received $56.5 million in funding.

Co-founder and CEO of Square

What makes him powerful: With Twitter going public and Square reaching a payment volume of $20 billion, Jack Dorsey undoubtedly had a huge year. Dorsey was Twitter's CEO from 2006 to 2008. His stake in Twitter alone would have made him a billionaire, although he was one already. Since his involvement in Square and Twitter apparently isn't enough to keep him busy, Dorsey joined Disney's board in December.

Co-founder and CEO of Uber

What makes him powerful: Kalanick has become one of the brightest new stars of Silicon Valley this year thanks to Uber, his on-demand car service app. Uber has become one of the most well-known and talked-about car services in the space, with Kalanick at its helm. It's been getting into some trouble with Lyft recently, but it's backed by $1.5 billion of funding, valued at $18.2 billion, and doubling revenue every six months.

CEO of Yahoo

What makes her powerful: This former Googler is proof you can teach old dogs — like aging Internet giant Yahoo — new tricks. In her two years since taking the reins, she got a redesign to go through, put mobile first (and meant it), and acquired an insane number of companies. Called a "destroyer of startups," Mayer has ransacked Silicon Valley to cobble together a younger, hipper team at Yahoo.

Another powerful 39-year-old: Nicholas Woodman founded GoPro and is now worth $3.8 billion.

Founder and CEO of BuzzFeed

What makes him powerful: Peretti has built BuzzFeed up as one of the most talked-about digital publications. BuzzFeed has a $850 million valuation, reaches 150 million unique users a month, and is now even working on a game studio. The publication is also trying to beef up its business vertical with some new hires.

Co-founders of Google

What makes them powerful: Brin and Page are the geniuses behind Google. Brin is responsible for trying to decide which ideas Google will pursue, overseeing Google X's "moon shots," and the hush-hush long-term projects that try to tackle big problems — think Google Glass, driverless cars, smart contacts for diabetics, and flying wind turbines that generate power. Page leads as the CEO of Google, and makes sure the company is still dominating in search and ads.

CEO of AOL

What makes him powerful: Armstrong has been CEO of AOL since 2009. During his tenure he has made video more of a priority for the company, while trying to beef up its ad business. Armstrong got in a little bit of a pickle with a controversial quote about lowering retirement benefits, but he's still leading AOL to strong earnings.

Another powerful 42-year-old: Twitter co-founder Evan Williams founded the blogging platform Medium, which has raised $25 million.

CEO of Tesla and Space X

What makes him powerful: Arguably the greatest inventor alive, Elon Musk steered three revolutionary companies to monstrous success, while his own fortune more than tripled in the last year. Tesla's on a fast and furious quest to disrupt the auto industry, with plans underway to build a massive Gigafactory, which will work on developing better and more efficient batteries to power Tesla cars. SpaceX launched the first commercial satellite into orbit and is under agreement with NASA to resupply the International Space Station. Musk, who made his fortune co-founding PayPal, was the inspiration for Tony Stark in "Iron Man."

Another powerful 43-year-old: Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz and founder of Netscape, is one of the buzziest names in entrepreneurship and tech today.

CEO of LinkedIn

What makes him powerful: LinkedIn continues to surpass Wall Street expectations with user growth, revenues, and profits. Weiner, who joined the company when it was struggling in the shadow of Facebook, deserves credit for spurring innovation and disciplined execution.

LinkedIn's market value has passed $28 billion and it currently employs more than 5,000 people. Worldwide, LinkedIn has more than 300 million members.

COO of Facebook

What makes her powerful: Sheryl Sandberg is credited with bringing adult supervision to Facebook as its COO. One former Facebook employee said that thanks to Sandberg, Facebook went from a frat house to a real company. Sandberg is also one of the world's first self-made billionaire women. Her book "Lean In" sold nearly 150,000 copies in its first week. Previously, Sandberg worked at the World Bank, and at Google as a "Business Unit General Manager" before joining Facebook.

Another powerful 45-year-old: Robin Lee is the CEO of Baidu, China's top search engine. He's one of the richest people in tech, with a net worth of $12.1 billion.

CEO of YouTube

What makes her powerful: Susan Wojcicki has been around at Google for a while: She was Google employee number 16, and her Menlo Park garage served as the company's office for a time. She's been an executive at Google for a while, covering Google's ad business. And when Google Maps and commerce boss Jeff Huber stepped down, Wojcicki took over commerce. Early in 2014, she was also tapped to become head of YouTube.

Other powerful 46-year-olds: Cynthia Breazeal, the director of MIT Media Lab's Personal Robots Group, is one of the most important people in robotics. Most famously, she created a 2.5-foot-tall robot whose cameras and sensors allow it to "mimic human expression, interact with limited objects, and track objects."

Senior VP of Design at Apple

What makes him powerful: It wasn't until Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996 that Ive was promoted to senior VP of Industrial Design, and with this promotion came Ive's now-signature design of Apple products like the iPod, iPad, MacBook Pro, and iPhone.

Another powerful 47-year-old: Colin Angle is the CEO of iRobot, the company responsible for the robotic vacuum Roomba. But iRobot is also a defense contractor, and is interested in building robots for national security purposes, too.

Partner at Sequoia Capital

What makes him powerful: Jim Goetz joined Sequoia Capital in 2004 to focus on startups in the mobile and enterprise space. When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion, Goetz was pretty happy... because Sequoia was the only investor in WhatsApp, and Goetz led the deal.

Founder and chairman of Alibaba

What makes him powerful: Jack Ma oversees e-commerce giant Alibaba, one of China's most popular websites. He's China's richest person, with a net worth of $21.8 billion. Alibaba will IPO in the U.S. in September, likely making Ma's net worth skyrocket. Ma oversees over 24,000 employees — more than Yahoo and Facebook combined.

Another powerful 49-year-old: Michael Dell is the founder and CEO of Dell. He has an estimated net worth of $18.8 billion.

CEO and chairman of Amazon.com

What makes him powerful: Bezos left his job at hedge fund firm D.E. Shaw to start Amazon, which became one of the few startups that didn't get wiped out by the dot-com bust, and which now sells nearly $80 billion worth of goods per year. Today, Bezos is worth roughly $30 billion. He bought The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013, and is also the founder of Blue Origin, a company that's developing technology to let humans travel in space.

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider.

CEO of Twitter

What makes him powerful: Costolo took over as Twitter's CEO while Evan Williams was on paternity leave in October 2010. Previously, Costolo has been the company's COO, a Google employee, and President Obama's appointee for the U.S. National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. Dick Costolo's net worth is approximately $430 million.

Other powerful 51-year-olds: Steve Kaufer, the CEO of TripAdvisor, who made $39 million in 2013, is one of the highest-paid tech CEOs; Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is another highly paid tech CEO, who made $15.7 million in 2013 — $3.7 million more than the year before.

Angel investor and founder of the Mail.ru Group and DST Global

What makes him powerful: Russian tycoon Yuri Milner founded investment firm Digital Sky Technologies, which is now called Mail.ru Group and DST Global. Through his investment firms, Milner has invested in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, and Alibaba. Worth an estimated $1.9 billion, Milner has a background in science, and has helped fund a new award for scientists that rewards curing disease and extending human life.

CEO of Apple

What makes him powerful: Cook has an estimated net worth of $400 million, and is cited as the highest paid CEO in the world. He's made great strides since succeeding Steve Jobs; in 2013, Cook hired Lisa Jackson, previously the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, to help Apple use more renewable energy resources, and announced the release of the iPhone 6.

Another powerful 53-year-old: Reed Hastings, CEO and co-founder of Netflix, saw his company's profits more than double in July 2014 to $71 million.

CEO of Intel

What makes him powerful: Brian Krzanich took over as Intel's CEO in May 2013, after Paul Otellini announced his resignation. By the end of 2014 Kraznich plans to sell 40 million tablets with Intel processors — a leap up from the 10 million sold in 2013.

Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

What makes her powerful: Mary Meeker is a Wall Street analyst-turned-venture capitalist. She writes "The Internet Report," a detailed industry report for internet trends, which makes her one of the most respected experts in her field. At Kleiner Perkins she has been involved with the firm's investments in Twitter and Spotify, serves on the board for Square, Jack Dorsey's mobile payment company.

Another powerful 55-year-old: Arati Prabhakar is the head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a national security and technology organization.

Chairman and CEO of IBM

What makes her powerful: Rometty is the first woman to head up IBM, the world's biggest computer company by revenue. She's shaking things up, and has said she'll spend another $1 billion to put IBM's entire software portfolio into the cloud. She'll also spend $1 billion to turn IBM's super-smart Watson technology into a cloud service, and another $1.2 billion to build 15 new data centers across five continents.

Another powerful 57-year-old: Paul Ricci is the CEO of Nuance Communications, the company that developed the technology behind Apple's Siri.

Co-founder of Microsoft; co-chair of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

What makes him powerful: With a net worth of $81 billion, Bill Gates is among the richest people in the world, made famous by co-founding Microsoft and revolutionizing the personal computer. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world's wealthiest charitable organization, with assets valued at a reported $34.6 billion.

Another powerful 58-year-old: Meg Whitman is the CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She was one of Business Insider's highest-paid tech CEOs in 2013, taking home $17.6 million.

Executive chairman of Google

What makes him powerful: Larry Page and Sergey Brin were so impressed by Schmidt when they interviewed him that they immediately made him chairman. Schmidt became Google's CEO soon after, and while he's no longer in that role, he continues as executive chairman. He's the co-founder of venture capital firm Innovation Endeavors, which has invested in startups like Any.DO, Quixey, and Uber. Schmidt is worth an estimated $9.2 billion.

Another powerful 59-year-old: Vinod Khosla is the founder of investment firm Khosla Ventures, where he oversees the management of $1 billion of investor capital.

Chairman and CEO of Verizon

What makes him powerful: Lowell McAdam heads up one of the biggest telecommunication companies in the world, and he's one of the highest-paid CEOs in tech; in 2013, he took home $15.8 million. McAdam, who became Verizon's CEO in 2011 and its chairman in 2012, also claims he convinced Steve Jobs to make a 4G iPhone.

President and CEO of Citrix

What makes him powerful: Mark Templeton joined mobility management and cloud service company Citrix in 1995 as its vice president of marketing, before Citrix had its IPO. In 1998, he became the company's president, and in 2001 he was named CEO. As of 2012, the company had annual revenues of $2.59 billion. And Templeton has no plans to retire any time soon.

Special advisor to SV Angel

What makes him powerful: Nicknamed the "Godfather of Silicon Valley," Ron Conway has invested in more than 600 technology startups. Conway has invested in companies like Google, Facebook, PayPal, Pinterest, Twitter, Square, BuzzFeed, Dropbox, Foursquare, and Airbnb.

Venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

What makes him powerful: John Doerr has been a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins since 1980. In that time he's invested in some of the world's most influential entrepreneurs, including Google's Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt; and Amazon's Jeff Bezos. Doerr also led Kleiner Perkins's $150 million investment in Twitter in 2010. Doerr is worth an estimated $3.4 billion.

Co-founder of Apple

What makes him powerful: Steve Wozniak is best-known for co-founding Apple with Steve Jobs in 1976. Wozniak himself designed Apple I, the first Apple computer, and later Apple II, the first personal computer with color graphics. Since leaving Apple in the '80s, Wozniak has gone on to other ventures; in 2009 he joined data storage company Fusion-io, which was acquired by Sandisk in June 2014 for $1.1 billion.

Another powerful 64-year-old: Orna Berry is EMC's corporate vice president of growth and innovation. Berry was one of Business Insider's Most Influential Israelis In Tech.

Chairman and CEO of Cisco

What makes him powerful: John Chambers has been Cisco's CEO for almost 20 years. He's responsible for taking Cisco from annual revenues of $70 million to $46 billion. Previously, Chambers served as Vice President of U.S. Operations at Wang Laboratories.

Director of engineering at Google

What makes him powerful: Ray Kurzweil is considered to be one of the leading minds in the artificial intelligence field. Kurzweil is the co-founder of Singularity University, a renowned tech-based academic program and startup accelerator. He became famous for creating the first text-to-speech software. Forbes called him "the ultimate thinking machine." At Google, Kurzweil is working on creating a search system that understands your emotions.

Chairman and CEO of EMC

What makes him powerful: Joe Tucci is the CEO and chairman of data storage and cloud computing company EMC. In 2013, EMC had revenues of $23.2 billion and more than 62,000 employees globally. Prior to EMC, Tucci was chairman and CEO of Wang Laboratories Global, guiding the company out of bankruptcy.

Another powerful 67-year-old: Benny Landa, the founder of Landa Digital Printing, holds 800 patents worldwide and invented the world's first digital color printing press.

CEO of Qualys

What makes him powerful: After investing seed money in Qualys, an Internet security company, in 2001, Courtot came out of retirement to run the company. Qualys went public in 2012. Courtot is famous for leading companies to multimillion dollar sales.

Founder of Netscape

What makes him powerful: Clark is the billionaire founder of web browser Netscape. He's also helped to found movie special effects company Silicon Graphics, Healtheon (which later merged with WebMD, under Clark's direction), and myCFO.

One of Israel's first angel investors

What makes him powerful: Vardi was one of Israel's first angel investors and tech entrepreneurs. In 1996 he was the founding investor in Mirabilis — which created ICQ, the world's first instant messaging application, and which was acquired by AOL for almost $300 million in cash. Since then he's invested in or helped build companies that have all been acquired by tech giants or have gone public, including Answers.com, Foxytunes, and Gteko.

Founder of Apax Partners and Greycroft Partners

What makes him powerful: Alan Patricof founded both Apax Partners, a private equity firm, and Greycroft Partners, a venture capital firm. He's been involved in developing huge companies like Apple and AOL.

Founding investor of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

What makes him powerful: Hillman's wealth grew after investing in various real-estate, private equity, and venture-capital companies. He's played a major role in digital media companies like AOL, Google, and Citrix.

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