Vanity Fair Top 100 – a cheat sheet for the fashionable rich and powerful

For the past 16 years, Vanity Fair has published an annual list of the “100 most influential people of the Information Age”. Here’s our little cheat – the list only – as well as some observations.

Our few useless observations:

• The list is very US-centric. It’s an American magazine, so perhaps this is to be expected. At least it doesn’t claim to be the “world’s” most influential people. It isn’t.
• Where are the women? Lady Gaga is the first female entry at 23 and following her there are another 13 women. Only eight, however, manage to make it in as a solo name; the other six are all listed with men. Is it really 2010?
• Is it really 2010? The overwhelming domination of this list by rich white men makes it a depressing read. It’s all the usual suspects. We were hoping for a little surprise, but none emerged.
• We understand it’s all about the “Information Age” but we are failing to understand what luxury fashion has to do with it? Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford, John Galliano, Burberry – they’re all listed. I mean, I don’t know how much influence you think these brands have over you, but over me? Nil. Perhaps it’s just a list for Vanity Fair’s core readers.
• Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Angelina and Brad. Really?
• This is actually a very narrow view of the world. In categories, 37 are from the film/TV/entertainment industry; 15 from the media; 13 from  banking/finance; 13 from luxury fashion; 14 from internet/technology and four from the arts or cultural industries.

Having said all that, we love a list and it’s worth reading, if only to know who the fashionable rich and powerful people think the rich and powerful people are. Um, maybe these people really do run the world?

The 100 most influential people of the Information Age

1. Mark Zuckerberg; Facebook

2. Steve Jobs; Apple

3. Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt; Google

4. Rupert Murdoch; News Corporation

5. Jeff Bezos; Amazon

6. Bernard Arnault; Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton

7. Michael Bloomberg; New York City Mayor, Bloomberg L.P

8. Larry Ellison; Oracle

9. Evan William and Biz Stone; Twitter

10. John Malone; Liberty Media

11. Warren Buffett; Berkshire Hathaway

12. Brad Bird, Pete Doctor, John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton; Pixar, Disney

13. Jeff Bewkes; Time Warner

14. Bob Iger; Disney

15. Larry Fink; Blackrock

16. Ralph Lauren; Polo Raph Lauren

17. Francois-Henri Pinault; PPR (Gucci Group)

18. Jonathan Ive; Apple

19. Mickey Drexler; J. Crew

20. Johnny Depp; Actor

21. Brian Roberts; Comcast

22. Jeffrey Katzenberg; Dreamworks Animation

23. Lady Gaga; Singer

24. Ronald Perelmen; MacAndrews & Forbes

25. Tom Hanks; Actor Producer Director

26. Bill Keller; New York Times

27. Robert Thomson; Wall Street Journal

28. Dan Doctoroff; Bloomberg L.P.

29. Jon Stewart; The Daily Show

30. Jamie Dimon; J.P. Morgan Chase

31. Carlos Slim Helú; América Móvil

32. George Bodenheimer; ESPN, ABC Sports

33. Richard Plepler, Sue Naegle and Michael Lombardo; HBO

34. Oprah Winfrey; Harpo Productions

35. Bono; Singer, Humanitarian

36. James Cameron; Lightstorm Entertainment

37. Sheryl Sandberg; Facebook

38. Steve Burke; Comcast

39. Karl Lagerfeld; Chanel, Fendi, Karl Lagerfeld SAS

40. Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenburg; IAC, DVF

41. Ryan Kavanaugh; Relativity Media

42. Arianna Huffington; The Huffington Post

43. Matthew Weiner, Janie Bryant and Amy Wells; Mad Men

44. Mark Pincus; Zygna

45. Ted Forstmann; IMG Worldwide

46. Steve Ballmer; Microsoft

47. Sean Parker; Internet entrepreneur

48. Jason Kilar; Hulu

49. Lorne Michaels; Saturday Night Live

50. J.J. Abrams; Writer, Director, Producer

51. Chris Meledandri; Illumination Entertainment

52. Tyler Perry; Director, Producer, Actor, Writer

53. Mike Allen; Politico

54. Gretchen Morgenson; New York Times

55. Ryan Murphy; Glee

56. Miuccia Prada; Prada

57. Diego Della Valle; Tod’s

58. Jay-Z; Roc Nation

59. Howard Stringer; Sony Corp

60. Jann Wenner; Wenner Media (Rolling Stone)

61. Angela Ahrendts and Christopher Bailey; Burberry

62. Charlie Rose; Charlie Rose

63. Tom Freston; Firefly3

64. Leslie Moonves; CBS

65. David Zaslav; Discovery Communications

66. George Clooney; Actor, Writer, Director, Producer, Activist

67. Philippe Dauman; Viacom

68. Judd Apatow; Writer, Director, Producer

69. Bill Gross; Pimco

70. Gao Xiqing; China Investment Corporation

71. Vinod Khosler; Khosler Ventures

72. Brian Grazer and Ron Howard; Imagine Entertainment

73. Tadashi Yanai; UNIQLO

74. Jeff Skoll; Participant Media

75. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt; Actors, Humanitarians

76. David Tepper; Appaloosa Management

77. Frank Rich; New York Times

78. Matt Blank; Showtime

79. Vivi Nevo; NV Investments

80. Marissa Mayer; Google

81. Seth MacFarlane; Writer

82. Michael Moritz; Sequoia Capital

83. Marc Jacobs; Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton

84. William McDonough; Architect

85. Craig Venter; Synthetic Genomics

86. Larry Gagosian; Gagosian Gallery

87. Andrew Wylie; The Wylie Agency

88. Rich Gelfond; IMAX

89. Chris Anderson; TED Conference

90. Reed Hastings; Netflix

91. John Galliano; Dior

92. Harvey and Bob Weinstein; The Weinstein Company

93. Nikki Finke; Deadline Hollywood

94. Jean Pigozzi; Investor, Art Collector

95. Chris Albrecht; Starz Media

96. Tom Ford; Fashion Designer, Filmmaker

97. Ron Conway; SV Angel

98. Wang Chuanfu; BYD

99. Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger; Summit Entertainment

100. Lloyd Blankfein; Goldman Sachs

Read more:

Vanity Fair, The Vanity Fair 100, October 2010

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