Introducing The Information’s 50 Most Influential People in Tech

Money, technical savvy and disruptive ideas all matter within the technology industry. But the most seismic force is influence. Those who have it build, fund and steer the companies that alter the world—again and again. Those without it can only rise so far.

So who’s got that clout? You’ll find the answer by poring over our new list: the 50 Most Influential People in Tech. It isn’t just a snapshot of influence today. Coming up with such a list would be a relatively simple exercise. Rather, we’re providing a roster of the people we believe will have the most influence over the next decade, a more complex task that The Information is uniquely well positioned to pull off.

Some of the names on the list are easy to recognize: Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Dario Amodei and Sam Altman all appear, among others. But we made a concerted effort to spotlight the up-and-coming founders, rising investors and other under-the-radar figures who are also best positioned to shape the next 10 years in tech. That cast includes Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, Broadcom President Charlie Kawwas and Hyperliquid founder Jeff Yan.

The list partly reflects our own judgment on where technology is headed over the next decade. For example, our inclusion of Tekedra Mawakana, co-CEO of Waymo, represents our belief in the proliferation of self-driving cars, while including Daniel Nadler at OpenEvidence represents our view that hyperspecialized AI will upend entire industries.

For greater transparency on our process, we’re providing a feature on the list that we’re calling the Debate Meter. This measures how much deliberation went into each name: For example, Sam Altman was an immediate yes because of his influence at OpenAI, while Yang Zhilin, founder of Moonshot AI, prompted more debate due to questions about the Chinese AI lab’s staying power.

(Join us for a live conversation about how we created the list later today at 3 p.m. Eastern time.)

To assemble the list, we relied on The Information’s deep base knowledge, underpinned by the hundreds of conversations with sources we have each week—along with the wisdom and insight of our staff, who collectively have spent decades studying the industry and learning who really calls the shots. Importantly, the list involved no entry applications or PR whisper campaigns: If someone has to cajole for a place on a list like this one, they don’t belong on it.

We did have a healthy debate about what makes someone influential—a tricky matter. We often turned back to a simple question: Who are the people anyone in the tech industry would pick up the phone for?

Influence is different from power. Power is a blunt cudgel, often wielded for short-term gain. Influence is a more delicate tool that can potentially produce more enduring effects. Someone with influence puts forward new ideas that broadly shape the industry. Peers listen to people with influence and try to copy them. They command the respect of even the biggest egos. They develop tribes and followings, compounding their networks.

Our first draft of the list contained more than 150 names. Many of the ones we cut we deemed powerful but not influential. We assessed some as at the apex of their influence today; we couldn’t picture them maintaining it for another decade. We decided to leave out bankers and lawyers. Ultimately, they carry out their clients’ wishes and typically don’t set the agenda, a key marker of influence. We also thought about including a variety of media personalities but discarded nearly all of them. While they may contribute to the conversation in tech, almost none of them actually alter its course. Dwarkesh Patel, host of “Dwarkesh Podcast,” did make the list because of how he shapes the conversation in tech.

You may think we’re overestimating some people’s influence and underestimating others. We’d love to hear your point of view in the comments. More than anything, though, we hope you’d agree that the list presents an insider’s view of the tech industry you couldn’t find anywhere else.