The list now includes Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, YouTube’s Neal Mohan, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, and e.l.f. Beauty’s chairman and CEO, Tarang Amin.
There are several Indian Americans on Fortune’s inaugural list of the “100 Most Powerful People in Business,” which consists of founders, CEOs, innovators, and disruptors from 40 different industries. Their names include Vinod Khosla, the founder and managing partner of Khosla Ventures; Neal Mohan, the CEO of YouTube; Shantanu Narayen, the CEO and chair of Alphabet (Google); Satya Nadella, the CEO and chairman of Microsoft; and Tarang Amin, the CEO and chairman of e.l.f. Beauty. It also mentions Mukesh Ambani, the managing director and chairman of Reliance Industries.
to Fortune, a crucial characteristic unites those on the list.One important factor, according to Fortune, ties the people on the list together. The people around them are influenced by their words, deeds, and wealth. They could use their influence to make news or to gently nudge people in private.
Fortune says that Satya Nadella has “successfully led Microsoft through not one but two major transformations in his decade at the helm of the world’s largest software company,” from PCs to the cloud and now to artificial intelligence. According to the magazine, Nadella is “continuing to invest in Microsoft’s internal AI capabilities as well as placing savvy bets on up-and-coming startups in fields from driverless cars to quantum computing,” in light of the success of a number of Microsoft products made under his leadership.
As CEO of Alphabet, Sundar Pichai “leads one of the world’s most powerful tech conglomerates, with best-of-breed businesses like Google, YouTube, Android, and Waymo self-driving cars under its flag, along with a market cap in excess of $2 trillion,” according to Fortune. However, as the magazine points out, Pichai is unable to wait. According to Fortune, “The company made $74 billion in profit last year, and antitrust regulators are eager to dismantle it. The emergence of generative AI also poses a threat to undercut the search advertising business that generated a large portion of that profit.”
Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, is a big believer in AI. This year, Adobe released 100 new AI features across its suite of creative cloud services, and while most of those tools are included in standard subscription pricing, forthcoming video features will likely come at a higher price point. When Narayen took over, Adobe’s yearly revenue was $3 billion; by the end of the previous year, it had grown to over $19 billion.When Narayen took over, Adobe’s yearly revenue was $3 billion; by the end of the previous year, it had grown to over $19 billion.
When Neal Mohan took over as YouTube CEO in 2023 from Susan Wojcicki, he was not exactly well-known. Mohan, who wears a blazer, has focused more on Shorts, YouTube’s product for short-form video clips that competes with TikTok and Instagram Reels, as CEO. He has also added new AI capabilities and courted creators through revenue sharing. YouTube Music and Premium, meanwhile, have now surpassed 100 million subscribers, while YouTube TV now counts more than 8 million paid subscribers.
One of Silicon Valley’s most powerful investors is 69-year-old Vinod Khosla. He was one of the founders of Sun Microsystems in 1982, which invented a variety of open-source software. After that, he worked for 18 years at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, where he made investments in internet and fiber-optic businesses that were successful in the 1990s. Among the more notable was Juniper Networks, which produced a 2,500-fold return for Kleiner when it went public in 1999. He started his own company in 2004 and has made investments in AI, sustainability, and health care startups. Khosla made perhaps his biggest bet in 2019 when his firm wrote a $50 million check to OpenAI. He was also among the first to call for OpenAI to rehire CEO Sam Altman, who was fired by the startup’s board the previous year. More recently, Khosla has drawn attention for his prediction that AI will replace most jobs.
Leading e.l.f. Beauty for more than ten years, Tarang Amin has terrified rivals around the world by offering lip glosses, eye palettes, and simply branded e.l.f. (which stands for eyes, lips, and face) products at a fraction of the price of competing brands. The company’s sales have increased by an astounding 22 consecutive quarters under his direction. In fiscal 2024, the company brought in more than $1 billion in total revenue, around 77% higher than the previous year. The business agreed to acquire skin-care brand Naturium in 2023 for $355 million.
Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries in India, was the richest person in Asia as of early November, with an estimated net worth of $100 billion. One of the most significant conglomerates in India, Reliance has holdings in telecommunications, retail, entertainment, and petrochemicals, among other industries. In an effort to prepare the next generation to take over the lumbering conglomerate, Ambani has appointed his eldest son, Akash, as chairman of Reliance Jio, a telecom company, and his daughter, Isha, as the head of Reliance’s retail division.
