Larry Ellison, executive chairman and CTO, Oracle
In September Larry Ellison shocked the tech world when he stripped the CEO title from his business card and made himself CTO, and executive chairman, instead.
The fabulously wealthy Ellison, worth about $46 billion, took a modest pay cut with the title change, too. He'll earn $67 million next year.
But make no mistake, at age 70, he's still the most powerful person of the company he co-founded in 1977 and led as CEO for 37 years. And he's still one of the industry's major visionaries, with a unique sense of where tech has been and where it's going. He's been there for all of it.
Ellison is a self-made man, known for enjoying his money. He spends extravagantly on real estate, airplanes, islands, sailing. Both of his kids, Megan and David, are powerful Hollywood movie producers, too.