Today, Fortune Magazine released the top 40 most powerful and influential people around the world under 40. Those in technology virtually owned this list.
More than half the men and women on Fortune’s Top 40 list are in the technical field. Of the top ten, seven are involved in technology. Of the top twenty, thirteen of them were tech leaders. But the rankings were a bit surprising. I was expecting Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey to take the top spot. But there was a tie for #1: Uber’s Travis Kalanick and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky. It’s been explained these men top this list because of the revolutionary and controversial effect Uber and Airbnb are having on the world. With Uber, you can flag a taxi cab on your smartphone and a lot of cabbies don’t like that. With Airbnb, you can book house guest rooms and weekly hotels as well as some mainsteam hotels, changing the way many people vacation. Mark Zuckerberg placed second on the list. Surprisingly, Jack Dorsey only placed eleven. Almost everyone uses Twitter these days, so I’m a little shocked at that one. Whats App co-founder Jan Koum made number 5. Instagram’s Kevin Systrom’s made #8 and porfolio manager Jesse Cohn rounded out the top ten.
Women made their presence known. Thirteen made the top 40 list. The highest ranked is Yahoo’s Marissa Meyer. Despite the challenges and turbulence still surrounding Yahoo, Fortune Magazine ranked her the sixth most influential person under age 40. Snapchat COO Emily White is ranked 14 and Twitter General Counselor Vijaya Gadde placed number 28. Though almost half the Fortune under 40 list was made up of non-whites, not all the news of diversity was good news. Only two were African-American, Urban Compass founder Robert Reffkin (#29) and Walker and Co. founder Tristan Walker (#35). Unfortunately, I found no Latinos on this list. Diversity is an issue the technology community have been wrestling with for a while now, and it seems they have a ways to go. What do you think of the Fortune Magazine top 40 under 40?