The 100 People Who Are Changing America

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It would be a luxury if the function of the list we present here were simply to shake ourselves out of complacency. But, unfortunately, we are far beyond that. With the election of Barack Obama and the deep hole that his predecessor left for him to dig his way out of, change is no longer a dreamy notion but a reality — and a responsibility. We've ranked 100 artists and leaders, policymakers, writers, thinkers, scientists and provocateurs who are fighting every day to show us what is possible — whether it's engineering a new electrical grid, reinventing the way movies are made or challenging us to let go of our illusions and face the brave new world that stands before us. This list is not necessarily about power in the old-fashioned sense but about the power of ideas, the power of innovation, the power of making people think and making them move.

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WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: At 19, the biggest star in country and teen pop has managed to keep her head on straight — no drinking, no smoking, no limousine peekaboo — without seeming like a prude. Swift has given country music a new audience: teen girls who identify with her wholesome persona as much as her music.

TWEET: "Rehearsals today with Miley. We ate an entire pizza in about five minutes."

SEE THE CHANGE: Taylor Swift on MySpace

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Photo: Caulfield/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Schiff, a physician-scientist at Weill Cornell, led a team of doctors who transformed a minimally conscious patient by stimulating his brain with implanted electrodes. After six years in a near-coma, the patient was able to speak, eat and express emotions.

SKEPTICS SAY: The case was based on a single patient; Schiff is now beginning to try the procedure in 11 others.

NEXT FIGHT: Evolving new rehabilitation approaches for traumatic brain injury, which could help soldiers with severe head trauma from combat zones like Iraq.

SEE THE CHANGE: Weill Cornell

Photo: Weill Cornell Art and Photography

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The expectations for public education in America. The ex-CEO of Chicago's public schools has the resources — $100 billion in stimulus funds — to turn the crisis in our schools into opportunity. Duncan is committed to removing obstacles to innovation — including bad teachers — and intercepting at-risk kids before kindergarten.

FRIENDS SAY: "He just wants to find and scale the ideas that work, period," says Wendy Kopp, CEO of Teach for America.

NEXT FIGHT: Working with the politically powerful teachers' unions to match pay to classroom performance.

SEE THE CHANGE: U.S. Department of Education

Photo: Ernst/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The nature of the campaign poster. His iconic HOPE posters for the Obama campaign were the latest step in a career that began with stickers reading "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" in 1989, when Fairey was at the Rhode Island School of Design.

FRIENDS SAY: "Shepard's rewriting the rules of where the art world begins and ends," says Lance Armstrong.

NEXT FIGHT: To remain relevant as a provocateur — he has collaborated with Public Enemy and contributes heavily to Mexico's revolutionary Zapatista movement — while sipping from the corporate cup.

SEE THE CHANGE: Obey Giant

Photo: Barnard/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Disco and punk flirted with each other in the early Eighties, but it took Murphy's work as a producer (with his crew DFA) and an artist (with LCD Soundsystem) to make the two genres fully get it on. Now, indie kids are wearing out their Chuck Taylors on the dance floor — and acts from Hot Chip to the revived Daft Punk owe him a hit of E.

FRIENDS SAY: "He takes that quality disco shit to the mainstream," says producer Diplo.

SIGNATURE MOVE: Plays killer cowbell solos in LCD's insanely great live shows.

SEE THE CHANGE: LCD Soundsystem's Official Site and DFA Records

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Photo: Horowitz/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The cliché of the aloof academic. To write his book Gang Leader for a Day, Venkatesh, a native of Madras, India, who's now a sociologist at Columbia, embedded himself with Chicago's Black Kings for seven years.

FRIENDS SAY: "He never seems to realize how extraordinary his knowledge is, and how atypical," says Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics.

NEXT MOVE: While the Gang Leader movie is in production, Venkatesh is at work on his own documentary on scholars and artists at risk and continuing a project on sex work in New York and Chicago.

SEE THE CHANGE: Sudhir Venkatesh's Official Site

Photo: Lovekin/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: He built TPM's brand by hound-dogging the U.S. attorneys firing scandal, which led to the resignation of Alberto Gonzales. He's now asking the $180 billion question: Whose bad bets is the American taxpayer covering by pumping billions into AIG?

FRIENDS SAY: "[He] will win a Pulitzer someday," said Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Z?niga.

KEY QUOTE: "Bondholders have a gun to the head of the world economy. It's a real gun. And it may be loaded."

SEE THE CHANGE: Talking Points Memo

Photo: JD Lasica

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Jackson, co-founder and president of the Land Institute in Kansas, believes the way we feed the world is unsustainable. He and his colleagues are working to transform staples like wheat, sunflowers and sorghum into perennial crops, eliminating the need for plowing and replanting, and minimizing the use of fertilizers. If he's successful, farms might be transformed from industrial factories into natural ecosystems.

NEXT FIGHT: Getting the Obama people to think differently about agriculture.

KEY QUOTE: "We live off of what comes out of the soil, not what's in the bank."

SEE THE CHANGE: The Land Insitute

Photo: Upaya.org

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: He's a global director shaking Western prejudices in film. He created a terrifying vision of a post-global-warming, post-economic-crisis future in the thriller Children of Men, but he's shown a playful side, undertaking the third Harry Potter installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling said it was a favorite).

FRIENDS SAY: "Children of Men is arguably as well-directed a picture as there's ever been," says Sean Penn.

KEY QUOTE: "Guantánamo is not that different from Azkaban. There are Dementors over there, too."

Photo: Carr/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The science of punditry. Blogging at FiveThirtyEight.com, Silver shocked the political class with his uncanny election predictions. He accurately predicted the general-election outcome in 49 states, and every Senate race, counting Franken in Minnesota.

PREDICTION: The legalization of marijuana sometime after 2023 — "We'll see some other once-unthinkable things like legalized gay marriage first," Silver writes.

FRIENDS SAY: "He earned his place among the elite political analysts the only way that counts — by getting it right," says Markos Moulitsas Zúniga.

SEE THE CHANGE: FiveThirtyEight.com

Photo: Robert Gauldin

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The 42-year-old Oxford-educated financial journalist starts fires with Gawker, his media-gossip site, but it's his pronouncements about the state of the Web — such as a decline of 40 percent in ad spending — that have proven so frighteningly accurate and made him the oracle of online publishing.

NEXT FIGHT: Surviving the recession. So far, he's been ruthlessly successful: Denton has been slashing his Gawker Media sites to the bone and upping their profits.

KEY QUOTE: "Our role is as editors of the huge volume of brain fart that's injected into the Web every minute."

SEE THE CHANGE: Gawker

Photo: Matt Haughey

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Jones fuses social justice, economic prosperity and climate change into potent political fuel. He wants to see urban areas partake of both green jobs and their ecological benefits. In 2007, he told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "If you say these four words, you'll keep the Democratic majority in the House for the next 20 years: Clean Energy Jobs Bill."

FRIENDS SAY: "He has a great heart, a brilliant mind and a mission," says Al Gore. "The solutions to the climate crisis are also the solutions to the economic crisis."

KEY QUOTE : "There are either going to be a whole lot more green jobs, or we're going to have a dead planet."

SEE THE CHANGE: Van Jones' Official Site

Photo: Courtesy of the House Committee on Education and Labor

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Romm, a former official at the Department of Energy, loves to take on global-warming foes on his blog, Climate Progress. A fellow at the Center for American Progress, he attacks dinosaurs like George Will and the false promise of carbon offsets ("rip-offsets," he calls them) with equal aplomb.

FRIENDS SAY: "Joe combines two qualities you don't often find together," says David Roberts, a blogger at Grist. "A deep knowledge of technology, policy and science along with genuine moral passion."

NEXT FIGHT: Calling bullshit on anyone who tries to derail carbon legislation.

SEE THE CHANGE: Climate Progress

Photo: Center for American Progress

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The elitism and waste of design. Starck virtually invented concepts like the "boutique hotel" with his interior designs, and his low-cost line of products for Target has become ubiquitous.

SUDDEN DEPARTURE: The French legend said he planned to retire from the industry by 2010, announcing, "Everything I have created is absolutely unnecessary."

NEW GREEN BEGINNINGS: In partnership with the industrial company Pramac, Starck designed a home wind turbine that he claims can supply up to 80 percent of a home's energy needs for around $1,000.

SEE THE CHANGE: Philippe Starck Official Site

Photo: Lovekin/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Last fall, Musk's breathtakingly ambitious space-exploration company, SpaceX, successfully launched its first rocket into orbit. Musk's other startup, Tesla Motors, the maker of $109,000 all-electric sports cars, is having a tougher time, recently lobbying for $350 million from the federal government to keep the Tesla Model S afloat.

NEXT FIGHT: Launching the Model S, a $60,000 all-electric sedan.

ENEMIES SAY: "He's a terrible CEO," says Martin Eberhard, Tesla's founding CEO.

KEY QUOTE: "I've never had a failure, and I'm not going to add one now."

SEE THE CHANGE: SpaceX

Photo: Guastella/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: With a relentless drive to succeed that recalls that of the oilman in his There Will Be Blood, the 38-year-old Anderson has built one of the most diverse and impressive résumés in film, from the porn-tastic Boogie Nights to the ambient Punch-Drunk Love.

SIDE JOB: Directed wife Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen in a play he co-wrote last summer in Los Angeles.

KEY QUOTE: "I'll rebel against powers and principalities, all the time. Always, I will."

Photo: DeGuire/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: This game-design god has simulated cities (SimCity), people (The Sims) and worlds (Spore), but what he's really doing is spawning artificial existence.

FRIENDS SAY: Playing a demo of Spore, Robin Williams said, "I'm putting together a creature that would make Darwin say, 'Hey, I'm not taking acid ever again!'"

ENEMIES SAY: "I hate it so far," sociologist William Bainbridge said of Spore. "It seems like a cutesy children's game."

NEXT MOVE: Crossing over to TV; there's been talk of a Sims show for years.

SEE THE CHANGE: SimCity, The Sims and Spore

Photo: Buckner/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: In a sedate field, Joachim is pushing for a radical green rethink of the American city in the 21st century. An architect and urban planner at Brooklyn's nonprofit Terreform 1, Joachim wants to open up cluttered streets by creating a soft, stackable City Car that would be shared like a Zipcar.

NEXT MOVE: Exploring inter-skyscraper blimp ferries and weaving energy-efficient houses into existing trees.

KEY QUOTE: "I give a voice for people and things that can't necessarily speak for themselves, like trees and wildlife. Or the residents of Harlem."

SEE THE CHANGE: Terreform 1

Photo: Dan O'Connor

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: Since Sloan founded Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in 2003, CREW has exposed the Bush White House's decision to delete millions of e-mails and the failure to collect nearly $1 billion of international aid after Katrina. She's now battling the Fed to disclose who got $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed loans.

SIGNATURE MOVE: In January, CREW forced the Secret Service to disclose visitor logs to the White House that Cheney and Co. had tried to keep secret.

NEXT FIGHT: Holding the Obama administration to its own high ethical standards.

SEE THE CHANGE: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics

Photo: Courtesy of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Former Sopranos writer Weiner's Mad Men is set in a whiskey-soaked advertising office in the 1960s, but it's the most innovative show on television, a meticulous study of capitalist manners in a fragile (Cuba, missiles, JFK) America.

FUN FACT: Worked as a producer on Andy Richter Controls the Universe.

KEY QUOTE: Weiner chose Madison Avenue as a subject because "it's a great way to talk about the image we have of ourselves, versus who we really are. And admen were the rock stars of that era — creative, cocky, anti-authority."

SEE THE CHANGE: Mad Men's Official Site

Photo: Tran/FilmMagic

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: As rock started to slip away from its roots, White launched a movement to bring it all back home, making bluesy, retro-rock sound ultramodern. Now it's safe for new bands — from Kings of Leon to Fleet Foxes — to admit they love the Stones, Dylan and Zep.

BUSY SCHEDULE: White has enough creative juice to fuel three fully functioning bands (the White Stripes, the Raconteurs and the just-announced Dead Weather).

KEY QUOTE: "I have three dads: my biological father, God and Bob Dylan."

SEE THE CHANGE: White Stripes' Official Site, The Raconteurs' Official Site and Dead Weather's Official Site

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Photo: Dowling/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The endlessly restless Young has taken on a surprising new project: transforming his '59 Lincoln convertible into a hybrid running on electricity and hydrogen.

SIGNATURE MOVE: His album, Fork in the Road, is all about the car, the LincVolt.

NEXT FIGHT: Winning the $10 million X PRIZE competition with the LincVolt.

KEY QUOTE: "When I see the huge amount of money the government has given to Ford and GM to research vehicles, and see what they have come up with — it just doesn't add up," Young told RS. "You don't have to have billions to be Ford."

SEE THE CHANGE: Neil Young's Official Site

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Photo: Jennings/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: With his growing Momofuku empire, the former religion student is revolutionizing haute cuisine — refusing to deal with phone reservations, white tablecloths or vegetarians. His decadent merger of French technique with Asian comfort food, plus insane amounts of pork, make him the Keith Richards of food.

WEAK SPOT: His temper. His business partner calls the holes he punches into his kitchen's walls "Korean termites."

CHANG ON HIS CLIENTELE: "I don't want shithead bankers and the friends of dickhead traders."

SEE THE CHANGE: Momofuku

Photo: Francesco Tonelli courtesy of Momofuku

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The 40-year-old Israeli entrepreneur has attracted $200 million in first-round financing — the fifth-largest amount in history — for his company, dedicated to creating a "smart" network of electric-car-charging stations that do everything from charge cars when they're not being driven, to custom-program their radio stations.

FRIENDS SAY: "In our view," says venture capitalist Alan Salzman, "Shai is the path to the inevitable."

NEXT FIGHT: Israel, Denmark and California have already signed up; Agassi is in talks with at least 20 other countries.

SEE THE CHANGE: Better Place

Photo: Silverman/Getty

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: An infectious-disease specialist, El-Sadr pioneered a model for the prevention, care and treatment of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, centered on working with families and their social networks rather than just dispensing medicines. As director of the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs at Columbia University, she now oversees 600 sites in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

FRIENDS SAY: "Wafaa is the closest I'll ever come to knowing a saint," says Donald Abrams of the University of California, San Francisco medical school.

SEE THE CHANGE: International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment

Photo: Kike Calvo

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: American (if not global) style. He may be a shameless attention magpie who bores easily, but he also has an exhaustive drive to rattle the conventions of fashion. His pitch-perfect ear for coolness and celebrity idolatry — did you think Lil' Kim could sell handbags? — lets him sell $30 boots to teens and still impress the chic-est critics.

FRIENDS SAY: "This guy's my idol," Kanye West told RS. "I want to be just like him."

KEY QUOTE: "When I was younger, all the kids I thought were cool smoked cigarettes, my favorite rock stars were heroin addicts — what looked cool was very dark."

SEE THE CHANGE: Marc Jacobs' Official Site

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Photo: Morigi/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The director of the Move Beyond Coal campaign, Nilles is Big Coal's worst nightmare: an aggressive, strategic lawyer who knows how to monkey-wrench the industry. Behind Nilles' efforts, the Sierra Club claims to have stopped plans for 24 new coal plants in the U.S. last year.

FRIENDS SAY: "Bruce is running the most successful campaign the environmental movement has seen in more than a decade," says Michael Brune, executive director of Rainforest Action Network.

KEY QUOTE: "There's no such thing as 'clean coal.'"

SEE THE CHANGE: Move Beyond Coal

Photo: Kira Stackhouse

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: As the head designer at Epic Games, Bleszinski shows a flair for ultraviolent shoot-'em-ups like Unreal Tournament and Gears of War that captivated gamers with its breakthrough realistic terror. GoW is now on tap as a feature — and possible franchise.

FRIENDS SAY: GamePro calls Bleszinski "the closest thing to a rock star the game industry has today."

ENEMIES SAY: "CliffyB is such a fag," posted one anonymous gamer online.

KEY QUOTE: "If I had a nickel for every time I was called a fag on the Internet, I could retire."

Photo: Miller/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Combining graffiti art with a culture-jamming sensibility — painting a hole on a West Bank security wall, illicitly hanging a "Mona Lisa" with a smiley face in the Louvre — the man who is reportedly named Robin or Robert Banks has made art dangerous again. He remains stubbornly anonymous despite his infamy.

FRIENDS SAY: "The streets are boring," artist Damien Hirst has said. "So anyone like Banksy who makes them entertaining and treats people like people instead of consumers is brilliant."

KEY QUOTE: "You know what hip-hop has done with the word 'nigger'? I'm trying to do that with the word 'vandalism': bring it back."

SEE THE CHANGE: Banksy's Official Site

Photo: AFP/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: After sequencing his human genome and mapping the ocean's biodiversity, the relentless Venter continues to push the frontiers of science with his creation, from scratch, of the first synthetic genome.

NEXT MOVE: Designing organisms in the lab, including biological robots to produce chemicals and next-generation biofuels.

FRIENDS SAY: "Of course he's antagonistic," said Alfonso Romo Garza, the Mexican billionaire who invested $15 million in Venter's work. "But I love controversial people, because those are the people who change the world."

SEE THE CHANGE: J. Craig Venter Institute

Photo: Celotto/Getty

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Gossip Girl and The OC godfather Schwartz lets his teen characters drink, use drugs and sleep with each other, and they don't wind up apologizing on the couch to their parents or engaging in petty moralizing.

RATINGS GAME: Gossip Girl's numbers aren't great, but thanks to its Web presence and iTunes, it gets more notice than shows with quadruple its audience.

NEXT: The Web-only show Rockville, CA.

KEY QUOTE: "We don't preach our positions of morality. But at the end of the day, most of the characters are good people struggling to make decisions in the world."

SEE THE CHANGE: Gossip Girl's Official Site and Rockville, CA's Official Site

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Photo: Gries/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Our understanding of what we eat. Nobody connects the dots between big agriculture, the obesity epidemic and climate change better than the author of In Defense of Food. If you care about what agribusiness is doing to our bodies and our world, you need to pay attention to his work.

FRIENDS SAY: "He's a visionary," says New York Times food writer Mark Bittman. "Anyone who is involved in food in a serious way is in his debt."

NEXT TASK: Gathering recipes for a cross-cultural compendium of how to eat healthily.

SEE THE CHANGE: Michael Pollan's Official Site

Photo: Alia Malley

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: As the head of Pixar, Lasseter helmed smashes like Toy Story, Finding Nemo and the art-house-quality WALL-E. Now also in charge of Disney Animation Studios, he'll be designing rides at the theme parks and bringing a filmmaker's (rather than an executive's) brio to the sagging company.

SIGNATURE MOVE: He wasn't afraid to take on the mouse. "Disney had got away from quality," he said. "Their currency seemed to be doing things to make a buck."

KEY QUOTE: "True emotion is what we strive for. . . . No amount of great animation will save a bad story."

SEE THE CHANGE: Pixar's Official Site

Photo: Harrison/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: By pumping new life into mothballed forms — from the kitschy spy-thriller Alias to the castaway drama Lost — Abrams relentlessly pushes boundaries and audiences. Now, for the movies this May he is tackling Star Trek — the nerd third rail.

SIGNATURE MOVE: Secrecy around Star Trek is intense: Abrams is trying to keep fans in the dark about everything from the wardrobe to the look of the Enterprise.

KEY QUOTE: "In telling stories, there are the things the audience thinks are important, and then there are the things that are actually important."

SEE THE CHANGE: Star Trek: Official Movie Site

Photo: Rodriguez/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: How democracy plays out over the Internet. Rospars, 27, got his start as a Web organizer for the Howard Dean campaign, then leveraged Obama's 13-million-member e-mail list not only for the cash, but to put activists to work in every precinct in America.

FRIENDS SAY: "A new era of politics empowered by the people exists in no small measure because of Joe's efforts," says Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi.

NEXT MOVE: He continues to shape the efforts of Organizing for America — the evolution of the Obama campaign — as it begins to call on Obama's activist army.

SEE THE CHANGE: Organizing for America and Blue State Digital

Photo: B.G. Johnson

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: With viral videos like "Jizz in My Pants," "Lazy Sunday" and "Dick in a Box," the 30-year-old Samberg is the Belushi of YouTube. Samberg's found a universe of like-minded geek adherents who think that him punching people in the face while they eat is comedy gold.

DRAWBACK: Conventional breakthroughs have eluded him (the movie Hot Rod was a dud, and he's yet to break out on SNL).

KEY QUOTE: "I like things that are immature and offbeat and bizarre. And stupid. Stupid is the highest compliment a person can pay to me."

SEE THE CHANGE: Andy Samberg's Official Site

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Photo: Merritt/FilmMagic

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The Voice of God anchorman model. In his serious persona, he doesn't lose connection with the human toll of what he's reporting. And he gets his hands dirty, reporting from war zones and from the front lines of the climate crisis in his Planet in Peril series.

FRIENDS SAY: "Under his elegant and cool exterior, there is real passion and moral outrage," says Arianna Huffington.

KEY QUOTE: "The notion of traditional anchor is fading away, the all-knowing, all-seeing person who speaks from on high. I don't think the audiences really buy that anymore. . . . I know I don't buy it."

SEE THE CHANGE: Anderson Cooper 360° Official Site

Photo: Courtesy of CNN

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The future of medicine. Hood is a molecular biologist, technologist and entrepreneur who helped decode the human genome. Now he's working to give physicians tools to diagnose and treat disease even before any symptoms appear.

NEXT MOVE: For doctors' offices, his team is developing a device that can read a patient's blood sample within minutes to identify proteins that are produced when the body is sick.

MARK OF INFLUENCE: He just closed a $100 million deal with the government of Luxembourg to advance his work.

Photo: Dale DeGabriele

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Slumdog Millionaire was a worldwide smash, crushing prejudices that Western audiences wouldn't respond to a film featuring people who didn't look like them. A truly global director, Boyle brought the Mumbai ghetto to life as strikingly as he did his Scottish junkies in Trainspotting.

ENEMIES SAY: Salman Rushdie slammed Slumdog as having a "patently ridiculous conceit . . . the film beggars belief."

KEY QUOTE: "I don't want people to sit there and objectively watch the film. I want them to experience it as something that's under their skin."

Photo: Cohen/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Making the environment a post-partisan issue. A fierce proponent of bullet trains and solar and wind projects, he is now working to implement aggressive climate regulations and curbs on auto emissions.

ROADBLOCK: California is broke.

FRIENDS SAY: "Arnold is the undisputed world-champion green governor," says Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

KEY QUOTE: "I don't look at this as if the world is coming to an end. I see it as a great opportunity to clean up our mess."

SEE THE CHANGE: Arnold Schwarzenegger's Official Site

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Photo: Gallup/Getty

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Ronen's company, Boxee, makes Internet video look good on your TV — which means that plugging your computer into your television and tossing your cable subscription becomes a lot more appealing.

PROOF THAT HE'S FOR REAL: The big cable companies are scared to death, and ostensibly muscled the video site Hulu into not working with Boxee last month.

NEXT FIGHT: A set-top box. Ronen says he's looking to "grow beyond the computer."

KEY QUOTE: "We're going to make the big screen in your living room do things it hasn't done before."

SEE THE CHANGE: Boxee

Photo: Sacha Lecca

WHAT HE'S CHANGING:Twelve years after he revolutionized the possibilities of CGI to make Titanic, Cameron is finally returning with a new feature film — and this time, he's pushing the boundaries of what's possible with 3-D, making it truly immersive rather than just having characters throw pingpong balls at the audience. Avatar, a humans vs. aliens epic, is due by the end of 2009.

FRIENDS SAY: "He's trying to present it as a game changer," said Iron Man director Jon Favreau. "It's the future."

KEY QUOTE: "One more layer of the suspension of disbelief will be removed."

Photo: Strzelecki/WireImage

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: The National Cancer Institute's Barker is leading the Cancer Genome Atlas, an ambitious research effort to pinpoint the genes and genetic changes involved in cancer. Co-directed by Mark Guyer, the project has already reported new mutations for a common form of brain cancer. Next up: ovarian cancer.

FRIENDS SAY: "The Cancer Genome Atlas will profoundly alter the way we diagnose, prevent and treat cancer," says Francis Collins, former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, which is also driving the project.

SEE THE CHANGE: The Cancer Genome Atlas

Photo: Courtesy of the National Cancer Institute

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Since his 1993 book Race Matters, the Princeton professor has been one of the most eloquent — and entertaining — public intellectuals, and he remains our wisest voice on race in the Age of Obama.

FRIENDS SAY: "I have learned to never be with Cornel without a pen," says Tavis Smiley, "because he is always saying something brilliant."

ENEMIES SAY: They just play a track from his hip-hop album.

KEY QUOTE: "I hope Obama is a progressive Lincoln. I aspire to be the Frederick Douglass to put pressure on him."

SEE THE CHANGE: Cornel West's Official Site

Photo: Ali/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute was tapped by Walmart to explore ways the company might cut costs and reduce waste using what Lovins calls negawatts. With its legendary strong-arm tactics, Walmart's decisions have the potential to transform entire industries.

SIGNATURE MOVE: Experimental green stores in Texas and Colorado feature wind-driven turbines and solar panels to provide necessary power.

NEXT MOVE: RMI will help get cities ready to meet Obama's goal of 1 million plug-in cars by 2015.

SEE THE CHANGE: Rocky Mountain Institute

Photo: Courtesy of Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: He's allowing Internet radio to direct fans to bands they may actually like. More than Last.fm or Rhapsody, Pandora has made a science out of introducing people to new music.

FIRST BATTLE: "Nobody would fund this idea in the beginning. When I showed [investors] a picture of people with headphones on, analyzing songs, 400 attributes per song, I usually got kicked out."

NEXT FIGHT: Fighting off efforts by music publishers to put Pandora out of business. The company scored a victory last year with its superpopular iPhone app.

SEE THE CHANGE: Pandora Radio

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Photo: Shearer/WireImage

WHAT THEY'RE CHANGING: These concert mavens turned a hot Tennessee field into the best festival in the country. Farman and Mayers — along with partners Kerry Black, Richard Goodstone and Ashley Capps — have pioneered the greening of large rock concerts, serving food with biodegradable forks and running generators on biodiesel fuel from local sources.

FRIENDS SAY: "Things like Bonnaroo give you the hope that you can do it the other way," said Thom Yorke of Radiohead.

SEE THE CHANGE: Bonnaroo's Official Site

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Photo: Danny Clinch

WHAT HE'S CHANGING:Most new viruses jump from animals to humans, so Wolfe, the director of Global Viral Forecasting Initiative, spends a lot of time with Cameroon bushmeat hunters, Malaysian bat hunters, and others who kill (and eat) wild primates. By studying the blood of hunters and prey, Wolfe hopes to build a global surveillance network to track new viruses.

CAVEAT: Wolfe will certainly find new viruses. The question is, will he find them in time?

FRIENDS SAY: "Nathan's work is paramount to preventing the next HIV from jumping species," says Mark Smolinski of Google.org, which has given Wolfe $5.5 million in funds.

KEY QUOTE: "Today, global disease control is in the Stone Age."

SEE THE CHANGE: The Global Viral Forecasting Initiative

Photo: Bill Holsinger-Robinson

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Since joining the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers at 18, James has electrified the league with not just his all-around talent — he leads the Cavs in points, rebounds and assists, and can defend against scorers like Kobe Bryant — but an exuberant personality that's made him a global brand. He's unselfish and unapologetic all at once.

FOUL: Cleveland's on edge that James will depart to New York in 2010, when he can opt out of his pact; he's irked fans by wearing a Yankees cap — to Indians games.

KEY QUOTE: "I love being the best. I just want to get better."

SEE THE CHANGE: LeBron James' NBA Stats Page

Photo: Martinez/Getty Images Sport

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: She's the rare star actress who forgoes formula hits for challenging roles in projects without a lot of commercial appeal — The Reader and Revolutionary Road both flopped, but Winslet has no regrets. Not coincidentally, she's also changing stereotypical expectations about female movie stars — that they're nothing but wispy bodies, surgically enhanced faces and gossipy tabloid relationships.

FRIENDS SAY: "God bless your real breasts," Oprah Winfrey said to Winslet recently.

KEY QUOTE: "I like exposing myself. There's not an awful lot that embarrasses me."

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Photo: Kravitz/FilmMagic

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING:The director of Google Maps and Google Earth has mapped out areas covering half the world's population and expects near total global coverage in less than five years.

FRIENDS SAY: "He's fulfilling the predictions that the Net would evolve into a mirror world," says EA's Will Wright.

ENEMIES SAY: "There is a serious tension here between free speech and privacy," says an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "They've done something that's irresponsible and rude."

KEY QUOTE: "The goal is to create a complete virtual reality of the world."

Photo: Courtesy of Google

SEE THE CHANGE: Google Maps/p>

WHAT HE'S CHANGING:The writer-turned-indie-publishing mogul has injected life into the moribund book industry with his McSweeney's empire.

SIGNATURE MOVE: Personally teaches kids at his 826 Valencia writing center.

NEXT MOVE: Co-wrote Spike Jonze's highly anticipated film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are.

KEY QUOTE: "It's an automatic [human] response, to think that things are getting worse. But when it concerns how we see young people, this kind of doomsaying is a goddamned dangerous kind of intellectual sloth."

Photo: Steve Rhodes

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Gnarls Barkley's mastermind isn't just breaking down boundaries between genres — from Gnarls to the Black Keys, his mix of hip-hop technology and classic-rock sonics is helping convince listeners that those barriers never existed in the first place.

FRIENDS SAY: "He has impeccable taste," said Gnarls singer Cee-Lo. "I aspire to impress him."

SECRET WEAPON: Despite his sampling skill, he mostly plays live instruments in the studio.

NEXT MOVE: He's recorded tracks in Rome for an Ennio Morricone tribute.

SEE THE CHANGE: Danger Mouse's Official Site

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Photo: Walter/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING:A veteran of SNL, Seinfeld and The Simpsons, he revamped the British show The Office and revitalized the sitcom. Now Daniels — with his uncomfortable pauses and abhorrence of pat punch lines — is launching Parks & Recreation with Amy Poehler.

SIGNATURE MOVE: Shoots much more material for each Office episode than they can use, encouraging his actors to improv.

KEY QUOTE: "Unless they're incredibly inventive, you can anticipate the rhythm of everything [in sitcoms]. And if you're anticipating everything, it's hard to be surprised and laugh at it."

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Photo: Brown Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: While other stars cower in the face of the Internet, the Nine Inch Nails leader has been more creative than anyone in embracing the post-CD era — he releases new music with the speed and ease of a blog post.

BIG MOVE: Parted ways with his longtime label, Interscope, in 2007 — and began a rapid-fire series of new releases, including an entire NIN album, The Slip, for free.

NEXT UP: He hints that Nine Inch Nails' upcoming tour with Jane's Addiction (whose new album he is producing) may mark the end of NIN — and presumably the beginning of a new musical phase.

SEE THE CHANGE: Nine Inch Nails Official Site

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Photo: Rob Sheridan

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WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: How to fight global warming. The 27-year-old executive director of Energy Action, a coalition of mostly campus-based environmental groups, Tolkan gets a lot of respect these days. In March, 12,000 people blasted into Washington, D.C., for PowerShift 2009, sponsored by Energy Action, which called it "the largest training and lobby day for climate change solutions in the history of the United States."

KEY QUOTE: "We have new leadership, but we expect them to implement that leadership. We expect and demand that climate legislation gets passed in 2009."

Photo: Fritz Myer

WHAT THEY'RE CHANGING: The record biz. By inventing Guitar Hero and Rock Band, these MIT college buddies made a new way to consume music.

FRIENDS SAY: "I'm loving Rock Band," Nirvana's Krist Novoselic blogged. "Instead of file-sharing, people are actually buying music again! HA!!!"

NEXT FIGHT: Their Beatles game, due later this year, may be Harmonix's biggest yet.

CHANCE OF SUCCESS: 90 percent. Harmonix and the Fab Four have perfect track records.

SEE THE CHANGE: Guitar Hero Official Site and Rock Band Official Site

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Photo: Miller/Getty (Rigopulos), Liz Lander (Egozy)

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: Randall may have solved one of the most imposing puzzles in physics: why the Earth's gravity appears to be so weak compared with other elementary forces like electromagnetism. Her theory is that gravity may be concentrated in a hidden dimension beyond our normal three — in a warped, parallel universe with totally different chemistry.

NEXT MOVE: Seeking evidence via Europe's Large Hadron Collider, which will create subatomic particles that potentially have momentum in extra dimensions when it starts up again in September.

SEE THE CHANGE: Lisa Randall's Official Site

Photo: Shinji Yamada/ Harvard University

WHAT HE'S CHANGING:Eno finds rock music utterly boring — which is why he's able to help that genre's biggest artists reinvent their sound and make their freshest music. From Talking Heads to U2, he has blurred the line between art for art's sake and pop hitmaking — and last year, he even produced a Coldplay album that (mostly) silenced the haters.

WANNA-BE: Bloom, his music-making iPhone app, lets everyone be Eno for a day.

FRIENDS SAY: "Brian is such a stimulating intellect," says U2 bassist Adam Clayton. "He's always bringing in strange things and strange sounds and different energy."

Photo: Harvey/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: He gave the left their balls back. Moore's killer Bush-era run of documentaries — Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko — sparked a deep, righteously angry part of progressive brains, making it impossible to sit back and drink another latte.

NEXT MOVE: Think you're pissed about the banking crisis now? Wait until you see his upcoming Wall Street movie.

BAD CALL: His support for Nader in 2000.

KEY QUOTE: "Thank you, Republican Party. You helped us elect one of the most liberal senators to the presidency. We couldn't have done it without you."

SEE THE CHANGE: Michael Moore's Official Site

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Photo: Micelotta/WireImage

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING:Can bacteria solve America's energy troubles? A few years ago, Keasling figured out how to insert genes from a wormwood plant into the DNA of a yeast cell, thus turning the microbe into a cheap factory for artemisinin, a key anti-malarial compound. Now head of the Joint BioEnergy Institute in California, Keasling and a team of 150 scientists are engineering bacteria to convert cornstalks and wheat chaff into synthetic hydrocarbon fuels that can power planes, trains and automobiles.

KEY QUOTE: "We don't have to accept what nature has given us."

SEE THE CHANGE: Keasling Lab

Photo: Courtesy of University of California, Berkeley

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: The conscience of U.S. foreign policy. No one played a more important role than Power in forcing the human rights catastrophe of Darfur onto the front page. A Pulitzer winner for A Problem From Hell, her devastating indictment of America's failure to halt genocide in the 20th century, she is now senior director for multilateral affairs for the National Security Council.

OFFICE POLITICS: Will be working closely with Hillary Clinton — after calling her a "monster" during the primaries.

NEXT FIGHT: Leading a review of U.S. policy on Darfur crisis, which has been called "the first genocide of the 21st century."

SEE THE CHANGE: Samantha Power's Blog

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Photo: Lauren/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: If Judd Apatow offers a romantic image of the everyday schlub, Will Ferrell shows the 21st-century American man as he is — cocky, anxious, insular, full of Cool Ranch Doritos and light beer. What's even more impressive is what he makes out of it: a new genre of satiric films, a brilliant one-man Dubya show on Broadway for a smash run, and Funnyordie.com, Ferrell's site with partner Adam McKay — the starriest A/V club on the Web.

FRIENDS SAY: "When you look at some of the characters Will creates," said McKay, "it's bizarre that he's a huge movie star."

SEE THE CHANGE: Funny or Die

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Photo: Wargo/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Our basic assumptions about American capitalism. The Nobel Prize winner champions the idea that markets are more efficient when government guides free enterprise.

FRIENDS SAY: "Joe Stiglitz is an economist's economist," says Paul Krugman. "For years, he attacked the conventional wisdom that what's good for bankers is good for the economy. Now he's a key critical voice in the debate over how to deal with the mess the bankers made."

KEY QUOTE: "Adam Smith's invisible hand . . . is invisible, at least in part, because it is not there."

SEE THE CHANGE: Joseph Stiglitz's Official Site

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Photo: Hoffman/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Caldeira, one of the U.S.'s leading climate modelers, believes that only radical action will avert global warming before major ecosystems collapse. He's not only thinking out of the box, he's smashed it: "Why don't we just make emitting CO2 illegal?"

NEXT FIGHT: Legitimizing research into geoengineering — the intentional, large-scale manipulation of Earth's climate systems — to stop global warming. chance of success: High. We may have the tools to cool off the Earth, but should we start messing with a system we don't really understand?

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Photo: Josh Tickell

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The first must-read literary doorstop since Infinite Jest, his 2666 is the latest release in the U.S. by the late Chilean writer. Largely about the horrific murders of young women in Mexico, the massive tome has been championed by Jonathan Lethem and an entire generation of young writers.

FRIENDS SAY: Lethem called 2666 "not only a supreme capstone to [Bolaño's] own vaulting ambition but a landmark in what's possible for the novel as a form."

NEXT MOVE: Picador announced plans to release 11 more untranslated Bolaño works, making him the Tupac of letters.

Photo: Caruci/AFP/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Kennedy found his voice as an outspoken critic of Bush administration environmental policies. His passion and moral outrage have made him a guiding force in the environmental movement, and he's at the top of the Rolodex of key environmental appointees in the Obama administration.

FRIENDS SAY: "He's not so much an advocate as an architect," says Terry Tamminen, former secretary of the California EPA. "He sees these tools as an intricate web to ultimately accomplish his goals." next fight: Putting an end to mountain-top-removal coal mining.

SEE THE CHANGE: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s Official Site

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Photo: Lovekin/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Our idea of watching movies. His new Netflix on-demand service reshuffles the way people rent films — instantly, over the Internet, for one flat fee a month. It's the most appealing, legal alternative to bootlegging — and could save Hollywood from the same fate as the music business.

ENEMIES SAY: "Netflix doesn't really have or do anything that we can't and don't already do ourselves," said Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes last August.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS: Blockbuster's stock has nose-dived; Netflix grew in February to more than 10 million subscribers.

SEE THE CHANGE: Netflix.com

Photo: Courtesy of Netflix

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: How we heal. Russell is pioneering regenerative medicine — ways for damaged tissues and organs to repair and rebuild themselves. Current project: an artificial ovary so women with cancer could undergo radiation treatment and still be able to have children.

SIGNATURE MOVE: Wowing lecture audiences with photos of gruesome wounds that are miraculously healed from his futuristic therapy.

NEXT FIGHT: Developing business models through which regenerative medicine can cut overall health care costs.

Photo: Courtesy of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: Belcher, a bioengineer at MIT, is hacking biological systems within viruses to create new kinds of batteries. These batteries, half the size of a human cell, can be poured into empty spaces, such as an airplane wing, and may eventually be sprayed or printed on surfaces like ink. Also on her plate: creating viruses that can ID cancer cells or build semiconductors.

NEXT CHALLENGE: Creating viral batteries to embed in night-vision goggles.

KEY QUOTE: "In the ocean, it took organisms 50 million years to perfect their systems. We're doing it in a few weeks."

Photo: MIT Biomolecular Materials Group

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WHAT THEY'RE CHANGING: The nature of rock stardom. They shift their sound constantly, haven't had a hit single in 16 years — but every college kid knows they're the most important band of their generation.

FRIENDS SAY: "They've made consistently brilliant records," says My Morning Jacket's Jim James.

BIG MOVE: In 2007, let fans set their own price for downloads of In Rainbows.

KEY QUOTE: "If I die tomorrow, I'll be happy that we didn't carry on working within this huge industry that I don't feel any connection with," says Thom Yorke.

SEE THE CHANGE: Radiohead's Official Site

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Photo: Shearer/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: After making Amazon the largest online retailer, Bezos has scared the crap out of the book industry with the Kindle 2 e-book reader, an effective updating of the tepidly reviewed Kindle.

FRIENDS SAY: "Jeff is the fastest person I know to sense the hidden structure in anything going on around him," says Stewart Brand.

CHANCE OF SUCCESS: Kindle 2 got great reviews, but is a single-function device that costs nearly $400 ever going to command iPod-like ubiquity? And what happens when Apple jumps in?

SEE THE CHANGE: Amazon's Kindle Store

Photo: Tama/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: In a business where even greats like Philip Seymour Hoffman sign on for Mission: Impossible III, Penn is an unrelenting artist who doesn't chase dollars or popularity. "I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me," he said the night he won his second Oscar in five years, for Milk.

FRIENDS SAY: "He's a two-time winner of the GLA Award — Greatest Living American — voted on by a committee of one: me," says Jack Nicholson.

KEY QUOTE: "If there's anything disgusting in the movie business, it is the whoredom of my peers."

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Photo: Sullivan/Getty

WHAT THEY'RE CHANGING: The Montreal septet broke from the insular world of indie rock with unabashedly anthemic songs, earning a wider audience — but on their own terms. "They came up through the Internet, and through connecting with people," says James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, "which has nothing to do with how the industry usually creates success."

FRIENDS SAY: David Bowie gave copies of the band's Funeral to his friends.

ENEMIES SAY: "They have good tunes, but they're pricks, so fuck 'em," says Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips.

SEE THE CHANGE: Arcade Fire's Official Site

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Photo: Venema/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Philanthropy. With a foundation sporting a $29.7 billion endowment, Microsoft's chair has gone from fighting Google and Apple to taking on HIV and poverty. The Gates Foundation makes its largest contribution to the GAVI Alliance, which has immunized 213 million children against diseases such as yellow fever and hepatitis B.

NEXT FIGHT: Atoning for the Zune.

CHANCE OF SUCCESS: "He can't possibly succeed, but that's the wonderfully audacious thing," says former Microsoft technology chief Nathan Myhrvold. "Only he's in position to do something like this."

SEE THE CHANGE: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Photo: Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Everything Facebook does affects the social lives of its users — who totaled 175 million as of February. In March, he answered rivals at Twitter by making over Facebook with expanded real-time updates — "a continuous stream of information," he calls it.

ENEMIES SAY: "Facebook probably at least has to consider a more experienced CEO in planning for an IPO," says author Kara Swisher, who once called him a toddler.

SIGNATURE MOVE: Doubling down. Zuckerberg has parted with only 1.6 percent of his company — sold to Microsoft for $240 million.

SEE THE CHANGE: Facebook.com

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Photo: Deney Terrio

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Chu, a Nobel-winning physicist, embodies the idea that smart thinking and new technology can help save the world. But will he be able to take a moribund agency, in charge of our aging nuclear-weapons stockpile, and turn it into a dynamic force for change?

FRIENDS SAY: "He brings a breath of fresh air to Washington," says Al Gore. "The fact that he's plain scary-smart helps a lot."

NEXT FIGHT: Building a smart grid, a key component to a new energy revolution.

KEY QUOTE: "If we continue on our current path, we run the risk of dramatic, disruptive changes to our climate in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren."

SEE THE CHANGE: Department of Energy

Photo: Somodevilla /Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Subversion is as old as comedy, but Baron Cohen's tricking in our own backyard: Borat was as damning a portrait of American life as any Upton Sinclair novel (though let's not go overboard, it also had a spectacular nude-wrestling scene). Next is Br?no, about a flamboyant fashion reporter, and the rumor is it's going to make Borat look tame. The media-shy Baron Cohen is also one of the last stars to actually build mystery around himself.

SIGNATURE MOVE: Stays in character on set, à la Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder. "He and I had some heated discussions, but he'd be chastising me as Borat," says Borat director Larry Charles.

NEXT FIGHT: Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell are slated to play Sherlock Holmes and Watson in a comedy co-produced by Judd Apatow.

THE BETTER HALF: Baron Cohen's fiancée, Isla Fisher, stole Wedding Crashers and hit with Confessions of a Shopaholic.

KEY QUOTE: "I think you can hide behind the characters and do things that you yourself find difficult."

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Photo: Anderson/WireImage

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: The new face of punditry is not some buxom anchor babe but an unconventionally sexy, nearly six-foot-tall nerd who's not afraid to brandish her Rhodes scholar wits on national TV. In the 35-year-old Air America host, MSNBC has found a TV presence motivated not by shoutfests and point-scoring but by probing questions, curiosity and intelligent debate. Maddow's who-cares lesbianism also places her at the leading edge of the image of gay America — that is to say: totally normal.

FRIENDS SAY: "She doesn't hit you over the head with it, but there is no mistaking her intellectual prowess," says Arianna Huffington.

MARK OF INFLUENCE: Maddow's show has frequently drawn more viewers than MSNBC's kingpin Keith Olbermann and, for the first time in the network's history, out-Nielsen-ed Larry King.

NEXT MOVE: The self-described "national-security liberal" and Air Force brat is writing a book about the shifting political attitudes surrounding America's military since World War II.

SEE THE CHANGE: Rachel Maddow's Official Site

Photo: Goldstein/NBC

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: How we think about power. In her two international bestsellers, No Logo and The Shock Doctrine, Klein has staked out a radical critique of the corporate, capitalist welfare state. She's a compassionate, scary-smart bomb-thrower, whose writing is accessible, deeply reported and exciting to read — quite the opposite of the forbiddingly dense and dismissive Noam Chomsky, to whom she's often compared.

FRIENDS SAY: "She exposed the link between corporate power and the increasing police violence needed to protect it," says Amy Goodman, host of Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! "From Katrina to the global economic meltdown, she follows the money, shattering myths and hammering home hard truths."

MARK OF INFLUENCE: The world's most unlikely Bond girl. Quantum of Solace was a gloss on her analyses of how multinationals buy off developing-world governments and hijack resources.

KEY QUOTE: "There is no way to reconcile the public's vote for change with the market's foot-stomping for more of the same."

SEE THE CHANGE: Naomi Klein's Official Site

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Photo: Fabi/AFP/Getty

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The 21st century media landscape. A trusted member of Obama's Harvard law-school mafia and his pick for FCC chair, Genachowski is the architect of the president's bold technology-and-innovation platform and shaped Obama's conviction that tech isn't just a productive sector of the economy — it's the catalyst that makes sweeping change both possible and affordable.

NEXT FIGHT: After eight years of kowtowing to big corporate media, the FCC, under Genachowski, is expected to spur media diversity and competition as the lines between broadcast and interactive media continue to blur. He's also been a strong advocate for Net neutrality.

MARK OF INFLUENCE: Will deploy $7 billion for the next generation of superfast broadband infrastructure.

FRIENDS SAY: "Genachowski is an inspiration to techies in government who want to start using Web technology to better serve the public," says Craigslist's Craig Newmark. "He's the real deal."

Photo: Chris Hartlove

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The idea that you can ever be overexposed. After years of giving his music away for free on a series of brilliant mixtapes, the New Orleans hip-hop star proved his fans would also pay with last year's awesome Tha Carter III. The album became the best seller of 2008, officially making the tattooed, syrup-swigging, perpetually stoned 26-year-old the weirdest pop superstar since Michael Jackson — and the most prolific since Prince. (For his upcoming album, he has already turned in more than 30 songs and told his label to pick its favorites.)

SIGNATURE MOVES: Accidentally shot himself in the chest when he was 12 — while imitating Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, in front of a mirror.

NEXT FIGHT: His guitar-heavy "rock" album, Rebirth, is due out in May.

CHANCE OF SUCCESS: 50 percent. Rebirth's first single, "Prom Queen," isn't great — but last spring, Wayne out-T-Pained T-Pain with "Lollipop," so don't count him out.

KEY QUOTE: "I will stand up for marijuana any day," he told Katie Couric this year. "I'm a rapper . . . and I am a gangster, and I do what I want."

SEE THE CHANGE: Lil Wayne's Official Site

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Photo: Milgrim/FilmMagic

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The global response to the climate crisis. Since leaving politics, the once-wooden speaker has become a Bono-like activist, the essential frontman for the fight against global warming. Most recently his Alliance for Climate Protection co-sponsored TV ads that debunk the myths of clean coal. He's also now a partner at venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, which recently invested in Bloom Energy, a developer of fuel-cell technology that Gore has been championing for years. Gore's influence is also still felt in government, where his protégée, Carol Browner, is now Obama's "climate czarina."

FRIENDS SAY: "By taking a complex scientific issue and making it part of the zeitgeist, Gore has opened millions of eyes to the threat of climate change," says Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund.

NEXT FIGHT: Cheerleading a global carbon cap-and-trade system.

KEY QUOTE: "We have the capacity to make this generation one of those generations that changes the course of humankind."

SEE THE CHANGE: Al Gore's Official Site

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Photo: Ngan/AFP/Getty

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: When Silicon Valley venture capitalists have questions about the science of what's possible, they call Lewis, a professor of chemistry at CalTech. Nobody knows more about the progress — and roadblocks — to making fuel from the photons that pour down on us every day. He's working on engineering artificial leaves that will convert energy into fuel, mimicking photosynthesis. As the White House prepares to spend billions pushing renewable energy, Lewis has become an indispensable voice in the debate.

FRIENDS SAY: "He is one of the few scientists who understand the challenge to civilization that our energy problems pose," says physicist Martin Hoffert.

KEY QUOTE: "Energy is the only commercialized field that I have ever seen where people try to cogently and consistently advance arguments against doing R&D to develop the next generation of more advanced, cheaper, better technology. We don't have all the answers, but we know where to look and we need to be going for it."

SEE THE CHANGE: The Lewis Group

Photo: Courtesy of the Lewis Group

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: President Obama has charged her with the dirty work of getting dysfunctional agencies — including the EPA, Department of Energy and Department of Interior — to work together to save the planet. Her biggest challenge: outmaneuvering Republicans and coal-friendly Democrats who argue that dealing with global warming will destroy what's left of the economy.

FRIENDS SAY: "She is tenacious," says Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund. "If she wants to get somewhere, you can count on her to find a path."

NEXT FIGHT: Pushing a meaningful global-warming bill through Congress before the U.N. climate conference in December.

CAN SHE DO IT? President Obama's strong commitment to tackling global warming means he can't afford to let Browner fail. But given the urgency of the climate crisis, she needs to knock it out of the park.

KEY QUOTE: "This is all about opportunity. We have the opportunity to create jobs and to protect our environment. It's a win-win."

Photo: Haynes/Getty

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The key to Williams' company, Twitter, isn't that celebrities and congressmen are using it. It's that it effectively creates a real-time version of Google: Search for any fresh news item on Twitter and you'll get incredibly useful results (take that, Google News); and if you have a large personal network, you have a roaming crew of friends, tipsters and advisers with you at all times.

FRIENDS SAY: "Twitter me this, Twitter me that," writes Shaquille O'Neal. "Hello to all my Twittereans."

WATERSHED MOMENT: Williams tweeted that he craved chocolate — then found candy left on his office doorstep.

NEXT FIGHT: Profitability; Twitter does not yet make money. "The challenge for Twitter is: Will others come up with a better way of doing it?" says Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft technology chief.

MARK OF INFLUENCE: Politicians tweeting during an Obama speech.

KEY QUOTE: "Twitter makes me smarter, faster and more efficient," Williams says. "I want to do that for millions of people."

SEE THE CHANGE: Twitter.com

Photo: Joi Ito

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Not long ago, the Hollywood male ideal was a six-packed faceman who could smash a meteor headed toward Earth. Now he's a schlubby pot smoker with an aimless job and an infinite knowledge of crap television and Web porn. For that you can thank Apatow, whose crudely cute Everyman sensibility drove Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express and Forgetting Sarah Marshall and launched the careers of anti-Pitts Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Jason Segel.

FRENEMIES SAY: Knocked Up star Katherine Heigl said it was "hard to love" the movie because it was "a little sexist."

SIGNATURE MOVE: Seemingly ad-libbed pop-culture riffs like the scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin: "You know how I know you're gay? You like Coldplay."

NEXT FIGHT: His upcoming Funny People looks like Tuesdays With Billy Madison: Adam Sandler as a comic who thinks he's dying mentoring Rogen.

KEY QUOTE: "I always thought of myself as a nerdy guy. I relate to underdogs. It may be my way of saying to every girl who broke up with me, 'Why'd you do it?'"

SEE THE CHANGE: Judd Apatow on MySpace Films

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Photo: Bennett/Sony Pictures

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Nintendo's chief designer is creating some of the most important culture of our time: In an era where video games outsell DVDs and CDs, Miyamoto is the industry's most original mind. With the Wii and its motion-sensing controls, he changed the very nature of video gaming into something anybody could enjoy.

NEXT MOVE: Moving Memo Pad, an animation program that lets you sketch out your own cartoons for the Nintendo DSi.

CHANCE OF SUCCESS: 90 percent. It's already huge in Japan.

FRIENDS SAY: "He showed gamers aren't just a bunch of gross losers in their basements," says Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski.

SIGNATURE MOVE: His response to the wave of Guitar Hero and Rock Band knockoffs last year was the slightly loopy, improvisatory Wii Music — a game that delighted some and left as many folks scratching their heads.

KEY QUOTE: "Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock & roll."

SEE THE CHANGE: Nintendo

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Photo: Riha./Nintendo via Getty Images

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: He's been prescient about both the scope and depth of the economic crisis — warning against the housing bubble and calling for greater regulation of the mortgage markets as early as 2005. Krugman's clarion calls for the heroic, historically unthinkable measures — the nationalization of failing banks and hundreds of billions in government stimulus — necessary to reboot the global economy and forestall another global depression have given politicians of all stripes cover to actually debate and, in the case of the stimulus, actually implement these ideas.

MARK OF INFLUENCE: Alan Greenspan now advocates bank nationalization.

NEXT FIGHT: The sharpest critic of Bush-era economic policies is, surprisingly, reprising that role for Obama. Krugman on Tim Geithner: "Every plan we've heard from Treasury amounts to the same thing — an attempt to socialize the losses while privatizing the gains."

FRIENDS SAY: "If we didn't have Krugman, who would we turn to in the mainstream media to call it like it is?" asks Michael Moore. "I'll wait for the answer."

SEE THE CHANGE: Krugman Online

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Photo: Morin/AFP/Getty

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: The rapper, who was raised in both Sri Lanka and the U.K., is the world's most dangerous pop star — with a neon look and polyglot sound that provide our first glimpse at true 21st-century pop. Her songs (and video imagery) flirt with endorsing revolution by the world's oppressed, even as they turn the idea of "world music" inside out, juxtaposing sounds from reggae to old-school rap to disco to Indian folk music to the Clash and the Pixies.

BREAKTHROUGH: The gunshot-ridden "Paper Planes" brought M.I.A. to the masses, via the trailer for the film Pineapple Express.

FRIENDS SAY: "She's never stuck for a fresh idea, no matter how crazy it might be," says one collaborator, British producer Switch. "We had Indian drummers playing over an Afrika Bambaataa record."

KEY QUOTE: "I tried to make something exist that didn't exist before."

NEXT MOVE: She's already got her own record label and clothing line. And after taking time off with her newborn son, it'll be time for a third album.

SEE THE CHANGE: M.I.A.'s Official Site

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Photo: FilmMagic

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WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: Part Drudge-like aggregator, part news-gathering organization, part roiling op-ed forum, her Huffington Post has torn down the walls between "old" and "new" media, between paid reporters and citizen muckrakers, to become the most trafficked stand-alone political news site on the Internet (4.5 million unique visitors in September — more than double Drudge's traffic).

SIGNATURE MOVE: With traditional newspapers cratering, Huffington secured $25 million in venture capital in November.

ENEMIES SAY: "If the Huffington Post is the future of journalism, I don't believe in the future," wrote Michael Miner in the Chicago Reader.

FRIENDS SAY: "Her genius is her ability to bring so many disparate people together," says Talking Points Memo's Joshua Micah Marshall. "The digital-media world would be unrecognizable without her." mark of influence: Obama fielded HuffPo reporter Sam Stein's question at his first nationally televised news conference. next move: Rolling out local HuffPos to fill the void left by dying newspapers.

SEE THE CHANGE: The Huffington Post

Photo: Kohen/Getty

WHAT'S HE CHANGING: The art of the deal in Washington. Emanuel has a reputation as a Chicago brawler, but as Obama's chief negotiator for the $789 billion stimulus package he showed off the balletic talents that earned him a scholarship at the Joffrey. Emanuel started the bill not with an our-way-or-the-highway proposal but with broad outlines and a dollar figure — letting Congress take ownership of the details. Then he derailed an insurrection of conservative House Democrats, reached out to the three GOP senators needed to pass the bill, and personally hammered out the arcane Medicaid reimbursement formulas needed to forestall the defection of Sen. Ben Nelson. Finally, Emanuel showed up with a scalpel, shaving $100 off the president's signature $500-per-person tax cut — showing the White House would "put some skin in the game." "He's not ideologically liberal," Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg said. "He comes out of Chicago politics, which is more transactional."

FRIENDS SAY: "He's from the [Vince] Lombardi wing of the party," says John Lapp, who worked under Emanuel. "He's a guy who wants to win at any cost."

ENEMIES SAY: New York Times columnist Paul Krugman accused Emanuel of pushing for too small a stimulus package and conceding too much. Emanuel shot back, "How many bills has he passed?"

SIGNATURE MOVE: Making Rush Limbaugh the boogeyman face of the GOP.

KEY QUOTE: "I wake up some mornings hating me too."

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Photo: Olson/Getty

WHAT SHE'S CHANGING: You mean, besides that pathetic men's gym locker known as American comedy? Fey's got new-wave feminism, NBC and maybe even GE balancing on her skinny Upper West Side shoulders as she builds a franchise for her self-deprecating, gimlet-eyed humor. And her satirizing of Sarah Palin may well have swung a few points toward Barack Obama in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

FRIENDS SAY: "I hesitate to use this, because it sounds a little Bush-ian, but God ordered her to do an impression of Sarah Palin," says Keith Olbermann.

TRUE GRIT: "I've never known anything Tina wanted that she didn't get — nobody works harder," Fey's buddy Amy Poehler once said. "Maybe a professional ditch digger."

MARK OF INFLUENCE: Little, Brown paid Fey a reported $6 million for an upcoming comedy book — without a proposal.

NEXT FIGHT: It would be nice if 30 Rock could add some ratings muscle to its sheaf of awards; the show frequently lands in fourth place in its Thursday time slot.

SEE THE CHANGE: 30 Rock

Photo: Mazur/WireImage

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The sound, style and ethos of hip-hop, R&B and pop, dragging in everything from French house to Japanese pop art to eurythmics to sneakers last seen in Back to the Future Part II. He writes songs, produces and raps with equal facility, bringing sorely needed creativity into the moribund world of commercial hip-hop. But more than that, with an endless series of hits and sold-out arena tours, he is this decade's only real new pop superstar.

FRIENDS SAY: "He's brave, he's smart and he's got amazing taste," says L.A. Reid. "And he's outspoken. You couple that with genius musical talent, and you have an artist doing what no one else is trying. Even the things people think of as mistakes only make him more interesting."

BIG RISK: Started singing on last year's 808s & Heartbreak. "With a song like 'Diamonds,' it's almost like I was trying to pass a test," West said. "But when you make a record like 'Love Lockdown,' it's like you're not even trying to pass a test. You just do a Basquiat painting over the whole test."

SEE THE CHANGE: KanyeUniverseCity.com

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Photo: Charriau/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: Waxman is laying down the law on climate policy and universal health care ...literally. Leaving behind the watchdog role that made him the most effective member of the Democratic opposition during the Bush years, the California congressman has wrested control of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee from SUV apologist Rep. John Dingell of Michigan. Waxman's priorities: capping carbon emissions, fostering renewable energy and overhauling our $2 trillion health system.

FRIENDS SAY: "If Congress had an MVP in this session, Henry Waxman would win the title," says former Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle.

ENEMIES SAY: GOP patron saint Rush Limbaugh calls him "Nostrilitis."

MARK OF INFLUENCE: Former Waxman chief of staff Phil Schiliro is now Obama's top congressional negotiator.

NEXT FLIGHT: Waxman's committee will unveil legislation by May to cap emissions.

KEY QUOTE: "We are at a unique moment and have an opportunity that comes once in a generation."

SEE THE CHANGE: Waxman.House.gov

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Photo: Somodevilla/Getty

WHAT THEY'RE CHANGING: All of those critics predicting a post-Bush political comedy drought turned out to be as accurate as a hot Jim Cramer stock tip — especially in the case of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, which seem to have been energized after a late-2008 period of Bush fatigue. More than mocking politicians, Stewart and Colbert have always been masters at mocking the way TV pundits cover politicians, and the election of our very smart president has not made cable news any less retarded.

HOT SEATS: The two shows are among the last booking real authors and innovators like Malcolm Gladwell, Robert Reich and Naomi Klein.

NEXT FIGHT: Stewart has found a new target in blowhard financial analysts on CNBC. "If I'd only followed CNBC's advice, I'd have a million dollars today," he said. "Provided I'd started with $100 million." Colbert, meanwhile, is trying to get NASA to name a space-station room after him.

SEE THE CHANGE: TheDailyShow.com and ColbertNation.com

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Photo: Barket/Getty

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The world, man. There have been politically active rock stars before, but no one else has dived so deep into a single issue, or succeeded so wildly: Bono's tireless lobbying of the likes of George W. Bush and Tony Blair helped lead to billions in debt relief and additional aid to Africa — and it feels like he's just getting started. He followed that with Red Campaign, which fuses commerce and charity, and Edun, his wife's African-made clothing line. All that, and U2 are still making some of their best music with the new No Line on the Horizon.

FRIENDS SAY: "I'm just in awe of how he's managed to find the time to do so much in this world," says the Edge. "His activism is an extension of the group's preoccupations, but he's taken it on to a whole different level."

KEY QUOTE: "The greatest obstacles to people realizing their potential are of a spiritual nature."

NEXT FIGHTS: In the face of a worldwide recession, can Bono help prevent the West from retrenching on aid to the poorest? And can U2 outsell Coldplay?

SEE THE CHANGE: U2.com

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Photo: Mazur/WireImage

WHAT HE'S CHANGING: How we relate to technology — which really means, how we live our lives. The effects of Jobs' crowning achievements — the Apple computer, the iPod, the iPhone, the Mac, Pixar — have improved our world and reshaped industries. Just as impressive is the 54-year-old's creative endurance — he's been on an unmatched run for 35 years, since he began as a technician at Atari.

FRIENDS SAY: "In a sense, he is a great architect, usually working on stuff smaller than a building," says Stewart Brand.

MARK OF INFLUENCE: He's become the last symbol of American industry. In the debate over how to save GM, many suggested that Jobs bring his alchemical pragmatism to build an iCar.

SIGNATURE MOVE: Apple is still releasing major products during the recession — look for a new iPhone this summer and a netbook in the fall.

NEXT FIGHT: His own future. Jobs is a pancreatic-cancer survivor, and speculation about his health problems is rampant, despite assurances from the Apple board that Jobs will return to the company in June.

SEE THE CHANGE: Apple.com

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Photo: Morris/Getty

WHAT THEY'RE CHANGING: The idea that there's anything you can't know — or find in three seconds. First they gave us the tools to organize the Internet, with Google search; then they made any knowledge that's ever been paid for or sealed away — books, maps, news, software code, e-mail programs — available and easy to use. And, oh, yeah — it's free.

WHO THEY THREATEN: Anyone who's ever held a copyright.

ENEMIES SAY: "Google's not a real company," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once told an employee who was leaving for Google. "It's a house of cards."

THEIR HOBBY: Google's philanthropic wing, Google.org, has devoted $100 million to clean energy and other initiatives.

NEXT FIGHT: Adapting their desktop supremacy into the coming wave of mobile computing; will Google's monster search business translate to smartphones?

CHANCE OF SUCCESS: 50 percent; early reviews of the Google phone were mixed.

SEE THE CHANGE: Google.com

Photo: Sullivan/Getty

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WHAT HE'S CHANGING: The every-man-for-himself ethos of the Reagan Revolution, in favor of a greater idea of America: We're all in this together. The change is reflected in the successes of his first six weeks — the largest-ever middle-class tax cut, passed with the stimulus; his extension of health care to 4 million children; and the act he signed to bring fair pay to working women. "He has already brought about an amazing amount of constructive change," Al Gore tells Rolling Stone. "And he has succeeded in greatly expanding the limits of what is now considered possible." The crises Obama faces in domestic and foreign policy are immense, but his opportunity to implement sweeping change is similarly historic. "He has a capacity to do so much in the next eight years that he'll leave behind a very different understanding of what government can be — and of America itself," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the Democratic think tank NDN.

FRIENDS SAY: "I've learned to trust his judgment on how to build a coalition for change," says Gore. "We all have a great stake in Obama's success, because his success equals the country's success — Rush Limbaugh notwithstanding."

SIGNATURE MOVE: Going big or going home. Instead of an insurance crisis — affecting only those without it — he frames the health care debate as a crisis in cost, one that affects all Americans. Same thing with climate change, says Gore: "He's combined the four important elements of the solution — cap and trade, a renewable-energy standard, the efficiency and conservation measures, and the electricity superhighway — into one measure, which gives him a chance to overcome the rear-guard efforts of special interests determined to pick things apart."

LEADERSHIP STYLE: "In a meeting," Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president, told RS, "Barack asks everybody in the room what they think, regardless of where you fall in the hierarchy. He focuses, he prods, he pushes, to make sure that he fully understands your position."

KEY QUOTE: "I wish I had the luxury of just dealing with a modest recession or just dealing with health care or just dealing with energy or just dealing with Iraq or just dealing with Afghanistan. I don't have that luxury, and I don't think the American people do, either."

SEE THE CHANGE: Whitehouse.gov

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Photo: Souza/Office of the President/Getty Images

See the entire RS100 list, and break it down by category

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The RS100: Agents of Change

100 | Taylor Swift

99 | Nicholas Schiff

98 | Arne Duncan

97 | Shepard Fairey

96 | James Murphy

95 | Sudhir Venkatesh

94 | Joshua Micah Marshall

93 | Wes Jackson

92 | Alfonso Cuarón

91 | Nate Silver

90 | Nick Denton

89 | Van Jones

88 | Joseph Romm

87 | Philippe Starck

86 | Elon Musk

85 | Paul Thomas Anderson

84 | Will Wright

83 | Mitchell Joachim

82 | Melanie Sloan

81 | Matthew Weiner

80 | Jack White

79 | Neil Young

78 | David Chang

77 | Shai Agassi

76 | Wafaa El-Sadr

75 | Marc Jacobs

74 | Bruce Nilles

73 | Cliff Bleszinski

72 | Banksy

71 | Craig Venter

70 | Josh Schwartz

69 | Michael Pollan

68 | Josh Lasseter

67 | J.J. Abrams

66 | Joe Rospars

65 | Andy Samberg

64 | Anderson Cooper

63 | Leroy Hood

62 | Danny Boyle

61 | Arnold Schwarzenegger

60 | Avner Ronen

59 | James Cameron

58 | Anna Barker

57 | Cornel West

56 | Amory Lovins

55 | Tim Westergren

54 | Rick Farman & Jonathan Mayers

53 | Nathan Wolfe

52 | LeBron James

51 | Kate Winslet

50 | John Hanke

49 | Dave Eggers

48 | Danger Mouse

47 | Greg Daniels

46 | Trent Reznor

45 | Jessy Tolkan

44 | Alex Rigopulos & Eran Egozy

43 | Lisa Randall

42 | Brian Eno

41 | Michael Moore

40 | Jay Keasling

39 | Samantha Power

38 | Will Ferrell

37 | Joseph Stiglitz

36 | Ken Caldeira

35 | Roberto Bolaño

34 | Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

33 | Reed Hastings

32 | Alan Russell

31 | Angela Belcher

30 | Radiohead

29 | Jeff Bezos

28 | Sean Penn

27 | Arcade Fire

26 | Bill Gates

25 | Mark Zuckerberg

24 | Steven Chu

23 | Sacha Baron Cohen

22 | Rachel Maddow

21 | Naomi Klein

20 | Julius Genachowski

19 | Lil Wayne

18 | Al Gore

17 | Nate Lewis

16 | Carol Browner

15 | Evan Williams

14 | Judd Apatow

13 | Shigeru Miyamoto

12 | Paul Krugman

11 | M.I.A.

10 | Arianna Huffington

9 | Rahm Emanuel

8 | Tina Fey

7 | Kanye West

6 | Henry Waxman

5 | Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert

4 | Bono

3 | Steve Jobs

2 | Larry Page and Sergey Brin

1 | Barack Obama

Contributors: Mark Binelli, Brian Braiker, David Browne, Tim Dickinson, Jason Gay, Jeff Goodell, Brian Hiatt, Steve Knopper, David Kushner, Tom Nawrocki, Julie Piotrowski, Corey Seymour, Sean Woods

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The RS100: Entertainment

J.J. Abrams

Judd Apatow

Paul Thomas Anderson

Danny Boyle

James Cameron

Sacha Baron Cohen

Alfonso Cuarón

Greg Daniels

Will Ferrell

Tina Fey

Marc Jacobs

LeBron James

Josh Lasseter

Sean Penn

Andy Samberg

Josh Schwartz

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert

Matthew Weiner

Kate Winslet

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The RS100: Music

Arcade Fire

Bono

Brian Eno

Danger Mouse

Rick Farman & Jonathan Mayers

Lil Wayne

M.I.A.

James Murphy

Radiohead

Trent Reznor

Taylor Swift

Kanye West

Tim Westergren

Jack White

Neil Young

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The RS100: Politics

Ken Caldeira

Anderson Cooper

Arne Duncan

Rahm Emanuel

Julius Genachowski

Arianna Huffington

Naomi Klein

Paul Krugman

Rachel Maddow

Joshua Micah Marshall

Michael Moore

Barack Obama

Samantha Power

Joe Rospars

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Nate Silver

Melanie Sloan

Joseph Stiglitz

Henry Waxman

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The RS100: Science/Energy

Shai Agassi

Anna Barker

Angela Belcher

Carol Browner

Steven Chu

Wafaa El-Sadr

Al Gore

Leroy Hood

Nate Lewis

Wes Jackson

Mitchell Joachim

Van Jones

Jay Keasling

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Amory Lovins

Elon Musk

Bruce Nilles

Lisa Randall

Joseph Romm

Alan Russell

Nicholas Schiff

Jessy Tolkan

Craig Venter

Nathan Wolfe

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The RS100: Technology

Jeff Bezos

Cliff Bleszinski

Nick Denton

Bill Gates

John Hanke

Reed Hastings

Steve Jobs

Shigeru Miyamoto

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Alex Rigopulos & Eran Egozy

Avner Ronen

Evan Williams

Will Wright

Mark Zuckerberg

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The RS100: Writing/Art

Banksy

Roberto Bolaño

David Chang

Dave Eggers

Shepard Fairey

Michael Pollan

Philippe Starck

Cornel West

Sudhir Venkatesh