Honorable Mentions
Jeff Bezos: In 1995, he opened Amazon.com, the first online bookstore, whose sales have soared past $1 billion. His success led the way for a surge in “dot-com” companies and e-commerce Web sites.
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John Bogle: Founded the Vanguard Group, which popularized low-cost, no-load mutual funds. Bogle also set up the first index mutual fund, which triggered a surge of investor interest in indexing, instead of actively managed stock funds.
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Coco Chanel and Pierre Cardin: French fashion designers who revolutionized women’s and men’s clothing designs and helped popularize the modern fashion industry.
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Cesar Chavez: Helped found the United Farm Workers of America union; led a nationwide boycott of California table grapes and became a symbolic representative for poor, migrant laborers.
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Alexander Fleming: In 1928, he discovered a green mold that killed bacteria, which led to the development of the first antibiotic drug, penicillin.
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Harold Greene: Federal judge who presided over the antitrust case that broke up AT&T;’s monopoly in 1984, clearing the way for open competition in the telecommunications industry.
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William Hewlett and David Packard: Started a tiny firm in 1939 with $538. First product was sound-testing equipment. Later, HP moved into computers and hand-held scientific calculators. The pair helped lay the groundwork for the Silicon Valley revolution.
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Carl Laemmle: Early movie magnate; helped set up Universal in 1912, and three years later opened a 230-acre studio site in Universal City.
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Lee Iacocca: Led Chrysler’s great comeback in the 1980s after the company received $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees. Iacocca appeared in ads offering cash-back incentives to customers who bought Chrysler’s K-cars, thus setting the standard for the CEO as pitchman and star.
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Alfred Kahn: As head of the Civil Aeronautics Board, he led the deregulation of the U.S. airline industry, which led to lower air fares, consolidations, new airlines and record complaints for poor service.
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Henry Luce: Created an American publishing empire by starting magazines that were widely copied, including Time, Life, Sports Illustrated and Fortune.
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Guglielmo Marconi: Inventor who in 1901 transmitted the first transatlantic wireless radio communication. Marconi’s work cleared the way for development of the radio industry; awarded 1909 Nobel Prize in physics.
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Craig McCaw: A visionary who spurred the growth of the cellular phone industry by building McCaw Cellular; in 1994, he sold the company to AT&T; for $11.5 billion.
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William McGowan: Founded MCI and led its long fight to bust up AT&T;’s telephone monopoly; McGowan also prompted price wars in long-distance phone rates.
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William Mulholland: Los Angeles’ chief engineer, who designed an aqueduct that in 1913 began carrying water into the city from Owens Valley, providing a major water source to help L.A. grow.
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Rupert Murdoch: Started out owning newspapers in Australia. His News Corp. is now a worldwide media conglomerate with interests in satellites, publishing, movie production and television.
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Arthur C. Nielsen: Devised the television ratings system by setting up sampling boxes atop TVs in 1,200 homes, forever altering the TV industry. Nielsen built the largest market research company, which studied consumer responses to everything from soap to drugs.
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Pete Rozelle: As commissioner of the National Football League (1960-89), Rozelle turned a sleepy sports league into a mega-entertainment industry, setting the standard for sports as big business. The Super Bowl and Monday Night Football became part of our popular culture, and the NFL’s television revenue skyrocketed from a few million dollars in the early ‘60s to the first billion-dollar TV deal in 1982.
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Arthur Rock: Seminal Silicon Valley-area venture capitalist who coined the term “venture capital.” Rock financed start-ups Intel and Apple Computer, which helped create an industry that would galvanize the nation’s economy.
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William Paley: Visionary who built Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) into a national radio and television empire, ruling it with an iron fist for half a century.
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Bugsy Siegel: The gangster who saw the promise of a desert community called Las Vegas as a gambling mecca. In 1946, he opened the first celebrated casino there, the Flamingo.
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Sen. Robert A. Taft and Rep. Fred A. Hartley Jr.: They sponsored Taft-Hartley Act legislation in 1947 that curbed union strikes and shifted power to management, including delaying by 80 days the start of a strike that might trigger a national emergency and outlawing the practice of hiring only union members.
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Wernher von Braun: Nazi rocket scientist who helped develop the first liquid-fuel rockets that traveled long distances and were used to attack England during World War II; later he led NASA’s rocket team that landed a man on the moon in 1969.
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Kemmons Wilson: Unhappy with the accommodations during a driving vacation with his family, he set out to right the negative image of motels by opening the first Holiday Inn in 1952, which triggered the modern motel chain industry.
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Sam Walton: Founded Wal-Mart and built it into the nation’s biggest retailer. Walton revolutionized retailing by opening large stores in rural areas and offering discount prices, with a sophisticated distribution system that kept his stores well stocked.
