{"id":48700,"date":"2013-10-31T15:58:26","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T13:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=48700"},"modified":"2013-10-31T16:00:32","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T14:00:32","slug":"techs-most-powerful-personalities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/48700\/techs-most-powerful-personalities\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech&#8217;s most powerful personalities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Forbes has listed its pick of the most powerful people in the world for 2013, with big names in tech dotted all over the list of 72 personalities.<\/p>\n<p>Every year, Forbes compiles its list of the most powerful people in the world following the guidelines of four criteria:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Must have power over a lot of people;<\/li>\n<li>Must have control over large financial resources;<\/li>\n<li>Are powerful figures in many spheres\/sectors;<\/li>\n<li>Must actively make use of their power.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Each candidate was looked at in their own personal contexts, and the final choices were decided by an average score derived from rankings made by senior Forbes editors.<\/p>\n<p>While the top positions of the rankings are mostly filled by heads of state and financial leaders, many big players in the tech and telecommunications industry also featured.<\/p>\n<p>In it&#8217;s 2013 rankings, Forbes listed Russian president Vladimir Putin as the world&#8217;s most powerful man, taking the prime position from US president Barack Obama, who slipped to second place, ahead of Chinese general secretary of the communist party, Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Forbes power list top 5<\/h3>\n<div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\" width=\"100%\" border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>#<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Name<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Role<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Country\/Institution<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<td>Vladimir Putin<\/td>\n<td>President<\/td>\n<td>Russia<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2<\/td>\n<td>Barack Obama<\/td>\n<td>President<\/td>\n<td>USA<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>3<\/td>\n<td>Xi Jinping<\/td>\n<td>General Secretary<\/td>\n<td>China<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>4<\/td>\n<td>Pope Francis<\/td>\n<td>Pope<\/td>\n<td>Roman Catholic Church<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>5<\/td>\n<td>Angela Merkel<\/td>\n<td>Chancellor<\/td>\n<td>Germany<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Looking at tech<\/h3>\n<p>Once again, the top tech power player is former Microsoft CEO and founder, Bill Gates.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, Gates managed to trump tech power leader number two &#8211; Carlos Helu Slim &#8211; as the world&#8217;s richest man, amassing a fortune of $72 billion. Aside from his immense wealth he is also a powerful force in philanthropy, co-chairing the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Gates was listed as the fourth most powerful person in the world in 2012, but slipped two spots in the 2013 rankings to sixth.<\/p>\n<p>Gates is the only major tech player featured in the top 10 list, overall, but Mexican telecom player, Carlos Slim Helu of Am\u00e9rica M\u00f3vil norrowly missed out &#8211; ranking 12th overall &#8211; though he remains the second most powerful tech and telecoms figure, according to Forbes.<\/p>\n<p>The list also saw new tech power players rank, including Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos (15th), who drew media attention by buying The Washington Post newspaper for $250 milllion of his own cash, making him the 3rd most powerful man in tech.<\/p>\n<p>Google co-founder, Sergey Brin and CEO, Larry Page, tie for 4th place (17th overall) &#8211; as directors of the world&#8217;s biggest search and Internet company &#8211; while Facebook&#8217;s Mark Zuckerberg (24th overall) fell to the 7th most powerful figure in tech, below Apple CEO, Tim Cook (19th overall).<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_44026\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Elon-Musk.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-44026\" class=\"size-full wp-image-44026\" alt=\"Elon Musk\" src=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Elon-Musk.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Elon-Musk.png 600w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Elon-Musk-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-44026\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elon Musk<\/p><\/div>\n<p>South African-born Tesla Motors and SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk, is also present in the rankings &#8211; riding his electric car, space freight, Hyperloop and 007 submarine dreams to 47th on the overall most powerful list (up from 66th in 2012).<\/p>\n<p>Newcomers, Samsung Group head, Lee Kun-Hee (41st), Virginia Rometty, CEO of IBM (56th), Oracle&#8217;s Larry Ellison (58th) and founder of China&#8217;s search giant, Baidu&#8217;s Robin Li (61st) also round off tech&#8217;s most powerful people.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">The most powerful people in Tech<\/h3>\n<div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\" width=\"100%\" border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Tech #<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Overall #<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>2012<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Name<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Title<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Place<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<td>6<\/td>\n<td>4<\/td>\n<td>Bill Gates<\/td>\n<td>Co-Chair<\/td>\n<td>Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2<\/td>\n<td>12<\/td>\n<td>11<\/td>\n<td>Carlos Slim Helu<\/td>\n<td>Honorary Chairman<\/td>\n<td>Am\u00e9rica M\u00f3vil<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>3<\/td>\n<td>15<\/td>\n<td>&#8211;<\/td>\n<td>Jeff Bezos<\/td>\n<td>Founder, CEO<\/td>\n<td>Amazon<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>4<\/td>\n<td>17<\/td>\n<td>20<\/td>\n<td>Sergey Brin<\/td>\n<td>Co-founder, Director Of Special Projects<\/td>\n<td>Google<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>4<\/td>\n<td>17<\/td>\n<td>20<\/td>\n<td>Larry Page<\/td>\n<td>CEO<\/td>\n<td>Google<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>6<\/td>\n<td>19<\/td>\n<td>35<\/td>\n<td>Timothy Cook<\/td>\n<td>CEO<\/td>\n<td>Apple<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>7<\/td>\n<td>24<\/td>\n<td>25<\/td>\n<td>Mark Zuckerberg<\/td>\n<td>Co-founder, Chairman and CEO<\/td>\n<td>Facebook<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>8<\/td>\n<td>25<\/td>\n<td>24<\/td>\n<td>Jeffrey Immelt<\/td>\n<td>CEO<\/td>\n<td>General Electric<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>9<\/td>\n<td>41<\/td>\n<td>&#8211;<\/td>\n<td>Lee Kun-Hee<\/td>\n<td>CEO<\/td>\n<td>Samsung Group<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>10<\/td>\n<td>45<\/td>\n<td>53<\/td>\n<td>Masayoshi Son<\/td>\n<td>CEO<\/td>\n<td>Softbank<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>11<\/td>\n<td>47<\/td>\n<td>66<\/td>\n<td>Elon Musk<\/td>\n<td>Founder, CEO<\/td>\n<td>SpaceX<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>12<\/td>\n<td>48<\/td>\n<td>55<\/td>\n<td>Terry Gou<\/td>\n<td>CEO<\/td>\n<td>Hon Hai Precision<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>13<\/td>\n<td>56<\/td>\n<td>&#8211;<\/td>\n<td>Virginia Rometty<\/td>\n<td>CEO<\/td>\n<td>IBM<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>14<\/td>\n<td>58<\/td>\n<td>&#8211;<\/td>\n<td>Larry Ellison<\/td>\n<td>CEO<\/td>\n<td>Oracle<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>15<\/td>\n<td>61<\/td>\n<td>&#8211;<\/td>\n<td>Robin Li<\/td>\n<td>CEO<\/td>\n<td>Baidu<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<p>You can find the full list of <a title=\"Forbes most powerful people in the world\" href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/powerful-people\/\" target=\"_blank\">Forbes&#8217; 72 most powerful people in the world<\/a> here.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on power lists<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"Forbes lists Africa\u2019s power players\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/10779\/forbes-lists-africas-power-players\/\"><strong>Forbes lists Africa\u2019s power players<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Richest IT people in South Africa\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/22288\/richest-it-people-in-south-africa\/\"><strong>Richest IT people in South Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"South Africa\u2019s richest people\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/21775\/south-africas-richest-people\/\">South Africa\u2019s richest people<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/10779\/forbes-lists-africas-power-players\/\"><strong>Forbes lists Africa\u2019s power players<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/7464\/forbes-lists-1226-billionaires-around-the-globe\/\"><strong>Forbes lists 1,226 billionaires around the globe<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forbes has listed its pick of the most powerful people in the world for 2013, with big names in tech dotted all over the list of 72 personalities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":28014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[657,4596,51,5516,4791,1851,1857,2662,45,1896,231,53,26,4792,753,6443,2823,2273,1898,1244,4789,169,4790,2361,4373,2660,3969,4788],"class_list":["post-48700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-amazon","tag-america-movil","tag-apple","tag-baidu","tag-bill-melinda-gates-foundation","tag-bill-gates","tag-carlos-slim-helu","tag-elon-musk","tag-facebook","tag-forbes","tag-general-electric","tag-google","tag-headline","tag-hon-hai-precision","tag-ibm","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-jeffrey-immelt","tag-larry-page","tag-list","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-masayoshi-son","tag-microsoft","tag-reid-hoffman","tag-sergey-brin","tag-softbank","tag-spacex","tag-terry-gou","tag-timothy-cook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48700"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48724,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48700\/revisions\/48724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}