Anthony E. Zuiker

Anthony E. Zuiker is one of the most creative and multifaceted individuals working in Hollywood today. He is the creator of television’s hugely successful CSI franchise, which includes CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. The original CSI has received widespread critical acclaim and was recently named the most watched series in the world for the fourth time in five...

Ben Mezrich

BEN MEZRICH has created his own highly addictive genre of nonfiction, chronicling the amazing stories of young geniuses making tons of money on the edge of impossibility, ethics, and morality. He has authored over a dozen books, including the wildly successful Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, which spent sixty-three weeks on...

Biz Stone

Biz Stone has been named Nerd of the Year by GQ, one of the Most Influential People in The World by TIME magazine, Entrepreneur of the Decade by Inc Magazine, one of Vanity Fair's Top Ten Most Influential People of the Information Age, and was honored with the International Center for Journalists' first Innovation Award...

Buzz Aldrin

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed their Lunar Module on the moon's Sea of Tranquility and became the first two humans to walk on the moon. This unprecedented heroic endeavor was witnessed by the largest worldwide television audience in history. He was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor amongst over 50 other distinguished...

Cameron Sinclair

As the Executive Director and Co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, Cameron Sinclair is not only an architect, but an author, humanitarian and world-class visionary. During his studies at the University of Westminster and at the Bartlett School of Architecture, Cameron developed a passion in social, cultural and humanitarian design. His resulting postgraduate thesis focused on providing...

Chris Bangle

One only needs to look down the street for evidence of Chris Bangle's ingenuity and far-reaching influence. A daring designer whose work has provoked endless discussion, Chris is best known for his tenure as Chief of Design for the BMW group, where he was responsible for bringing the designs of the BMW, Mini Cooper, and Rolls Royce into the twenty-first century. Graduating from the Art...

Chris Sacca

An accomplished venture investor, private equity principal, company advisor, entrepreneur, and public speaker, Chris manages a portfolio of over three-dozen consumer web, mobile, and wireless technology start-ups as well as an array of mature enterprises through his holding company, Lowercase Capital. Among his representative investments is Twitter Inc., where Chris was one of the first...

Christopher McDougall

When Christopher McDougall first ventured down into Mexico's Copper Canyons, he was a broken-down, ex-athlete who'd been told by top sports scientists that his body was too brittle for even a basic sport like running. But after encountering the Tarahumara Indians, he learned how to access such unexpected natural ability that within nine months, he was able to join the Tarahumara for a 50-mile...

Clayton  Christensen

Clayton M. Christensen is the architect of and the world's foremost authority on disruptive innovation, a framework which describes the process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves 'up market', eventually displacing established competitors. Consistently acknowledged in rankings and surveys as one of the...

Craig  Newmark

Craig Newmark is a self-described nerd, pioneer of the Web, speaker, philanthropist, and a strong advocate of the use of technology for the public good. He is the founder of craigslist, which he started in 1995 and is now one of the world's most-visited websites with around 50 billion pages views per month...

Daniel Burrus

Daniel Burrus is considered one of the world's leading technology forecasters
and business strategists, and is the founder and CEO of Burrus Research, a research and consulting firm that monitors global advancements in technology driven trends to help clients better understand how technological, social and business forces are converging to create enormous, untapped opportunities. He is the...

David Agus

Can we live robustly until our last breath? Do we have to suffer from debilitating conditions and sickness? Is it possible to add more vibrant years to our lives? And has the time come for us to stop thinking about disease as something the body "gets" or "has" but rather to think of it as something the body does? In The End of Illness, David B. Agus, MD, one of the world's leading cancer...

David de Rothschild

David is an adventurer, environmentalist, eternal optimist and the founder of myoo.com a group that uses exploration, adventure and storytelling as a way to give nature a voice. David is leading a new generation of action-oriented change makers and reigniting a collective spirit of hope that the fate of our planet can be rewritten. Driven by his immeasurable curiosity for the natural world he...

David Kushner

As a contributing editor of Wired and Rolling Stone and frequent guest on radio and TV from CNN to NPR, he reports on the key leaders and innovators of the information age. Author and journalist David Kushner is the leading expert on the new i-Conomy of digital culture and industry. From the baby billionaires of Silicon Valley (founders of Facebook to YouTube) to the Hollywood mavericks...

Eric Ries

Entrepreneur and New York Times Bestselling Author, ERIC RIES, is best recognized for pioneering the Lean Startup movement, a new-business strategy which maximizes a company’s potential by allocating and improvising their resources as efficiently as possible. When Crown Business published Eric’s first book, The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create...

Erik  Wahl

Erik Wahl is an internationally recognized graffiti artist, author and entrepreneur, Erik redefines the term “keynote speaker.” Pulling from his history as both a businessman and an artist, he has grown to become one of the most sought-after corporate speakers available today. Erik’s on-stage painting seamlessly becomes a visual metaphor to the core of his message, encouraging organizations...

Gary Hamel

The Wall Street Journal recently ranked Gary Hamel as the world's most influential business thinker, and Fortune magazine has called him "the world's leading expert on business strategy." For the last three years, Hamel has also topped Executive Excellence magazine's annual ranking of the most sought after management speakers. Hamel's landmark books, Leading the Revolution and Competing for the Future, have appeared on every management bestseller list and have been translated into more than 20 languages. His latest book, The Future of Management, was published by the Harvard Business School Press in October 2007 and was selected by Amazon.com as the best business book of the year.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Already considered a quintessential maven of modern-day marketing, GARY VAYNERCHUK is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author as well as a self-trained wine and social media expert. In high school, while working at his family owned liquor store, Gary started reading The Wine Spectator among other wine books and realized collecting wine offered an allure similar to...

Grant Achatz

Grant Achatz is the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Chef of 2008. His restaurant, Alinea, was named “Best Restaurant in America” by Gourmet Magazine. After opening, Alinea rapidly garnered top ratings from Mobil, AAA, Zagat, the Chicago Tribune, Time Out, Gayot, and was named to the Top 50 Restaurants in the World by Restaurant Magazine, UK.

Howard Behar

Howard Behar is the former president of Starbucks Coffee Company North America and Starbucks Coffee International. He joined Starbucks in 1989 when the company had just begun to venture outside the Northwest region. Initially serving as Vice President of Sales and Operations, he grew the retail business from 28 stores to more than 400 stores by the time he was named president of Starbucks Coffee..

Ian Morrison

Ian is an internationally known author, consultant, and futurist specializing in long-term forecasting and planning with particular emphasis on health care and the changing business environment. He combines research and consulting skills with an incisive Scottish wit to help public and private organizations plan their longer-term future.

James Cameron

Born in Canada, James Cameron moved to California in 1971 at the age of 17. He studied physics at Fullerton Junior College while working as a machinist, and later a truck driver. Setting his sights on a career in film, Cameron quit his trucking job and went to work on low-budget science fiction films as a self-taught designer and visual effects artist. In 1984, his first directed film...

Jason  Silva

"Part Timothy Leary, part Ray Kurzweil, and part Neo from 'The Matrix.'..." Host of Nat Geo's Brain Games, which premiered to the highest premiere ratings in National Geographic's history, JASON SILVA is an extraordinary new breed of philosopher who meshes philosophical wisdom of the ages with an infectious optimism for the future. Combining intriguing insights and a mastery of digital...

Joss Whedon

Emmy winner and Oscar nominee JOSS WHEDON is one of Hollywood's top creators, scripting and directing several hit films including THE AVENGERS and creating one of television's most critically praised shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Born in New York, Whedon is a third-generation television writer. His grandfather and father were both successful sitcom writers on shows such as...

Martin Eberhard

One of Fortune Magazine's Top Innovators and the man who founded the revolutionary Car Company, Tesla Motors, Martin Eberhard is waking business audiences up to the idea that innovation is the key to success and the key to making green cool. From the Rocket eBook to the Tesla Roadster, the visionary Eberhard is continuously pushing the envelope and changing the way we think of product...

Morgan Webb

Morgan defies all reason as a computer and gaming wizard who's strikingly beautiful, spunky and clever. From simple philosophy student to the programmer's pin-up girl, Morgan Webb had quite a ride. She survived the dot-com bust and found a cushy spot in the offices of TechTV as host of The Screen Savers, doling out daily Windows tips to love-stricken techies.

Pablos Holman

Pablos is a futurist, inventor, and notorious hacker with a unique view into breaking and building new technologies. Pablos is consulting worldwide on invention and design projects that assimilate new technologies - making wild ideas a bit more practical and vice versa. He helped create the world's smallest PC; 3D printers at Makerbot; spaceships with Jeff Bezos; artificial intelligence...

Peter  Guber

Peter Guber is Chairman and CEO of the multimedia Mandalay Entertainment Group. Prior to Mandalay, Guber was Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Chairman and CEO of Polygram Entertainment, Co-Founder of Casablanca Record & Filmworks and President of Columbia Pictures. Guber produced or executive produced (personally or through his companies) films that garnered five Best Picture...

Ram Charan

"Among the world's most sought after CEO advisers," according to Newsweek, Ram Charan is the business and management consultant who has helped some of the world's most powerful companies—GE, Home Depot, Bank of America—develop, shape and implement their strategic direction. For over forty years, Ram Charan has earned a peerless reputation for seeking out and solving some of the toughest...

Ray Kurzweil

Ray Kurzweil is one of the world’s leading inventors, thinkers, and futurists, with a thirty-year track record of accurate predictions. Called "the restless genius" by The Wall Street Journal and "the ultimate thinking machine" by Forbes magazine, Kurzweil was selected as one of the top entrepreneurs by Inc. magazine, which described him as the "rightful heir to Thomas Edison." PBS selected him...

Rem Koolhaas

His unique vision and inspirational designs are seen throughout the world. One of the world's most honored architects, a recipient of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2000, Rem Koolhaas is considered one of the world's most brilliant, daring and creative architects. Rem began his career as an architect not by designing a building but by writing a book. His Delirious New..

Suneel Gupta

Suneel Gupta is an expert at building stuff from scratch. From newly created ventures to Fortune 500 businesses, he's built and scaled dozens of products that are enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people around the globe. As Groupon's first Head of Product Development, he helped reinvent local commerce, and develop a tiny startup into a multi-billion dollar IPO within 2 years. He's also the Co...

Terry Tamminen

“Arnold Schwarzenegger may have signed the world's toughest anti-global-warming law, but it is Terry Tamminen, his environmental adviser, who is emerging as the state's real [global warming] Terminator.” (TIME Magazine, April 9, 2007). “Terry Tamminen...is probably the most brilliant guy around when it comes to the environment,” says Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, (Outside Magazine, April...

Todd  Rundgren

A Wizard, A True Star. The title of Todd Rundgren's 1973 solo album aptly sums up the contributions of this multi-faceted artist to state-of-the-art music. As a songwriter, video pioneer, producer, recording artist, computer software developer, conceptualist, and, most recently, interactive artist (re-designated TR-i), Rundgren has made a lasting impact on both the form and content of popular ....

Trey Ratcliff

Trey Ratcliff is a photographer, artist, writer and adventurer. Each day, Trey posts a new photo to his website, StuckInCustoms.com, which receives over half a million monthly page views. Trey has over 7.5 million social media followers via Google+, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. His photos and stories capture the beauty of exotic travel destinations and the humor of bizarre situations he...

Will Wright

Twenty years ago, a video game that you could neither win nor lose was inconceivable - unless you were Will Wright. With five years of college under his belt and no degree, twenty-something year old Will had the idea of creating a game based on designing and building cities. In achieving that goal, Will created a new genre in gaming and within it, one of the best-loved game franchises in...

 Will.i.Am

Will.i.Am is the front man and producer of the multi-platinum award-winning group The Black Eyed Peas. The seven-time Grammy Award-winner has sold more than 31 million albums and produced for such artists as U2, Justin Timberlake, John Legend, Mariah Carey, and Nicki Minaj, among others. Beyond music, Wil.i.Am has appeared in several films and television shows, including WOLVERINE...

William McDonough

William McDonough is a world-renowned architect and designer and winner of three U.S. presidential awards: the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (1996), the National Design Award (2004); and the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2003). Time magazine recognized him as a “Hero for the Planet” in 1999, stating that “his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that...

Yves Behar

Designer Yves Behar has produced some of the new millennium's most coveted objects, like the Leaf lamp, the Jawbone headset, and the XO laptop for One Laptop per Child. Over the past decade, Yves Behar and his firm fuseproject have become the design group that companies turn to for a game-changing idea. Take the re-invention of the Bluetooth headset, for one; or the re-envigoration of...

Jamie Gutfreund

Considered one of the world’s foremost experts on Gen Y or, “Millennials,” and Gen Z trends, consumer behaviors and preferences, JAMIE GUTFREUND is recognized internationally for helping business leaders move beyond data-driven analyses to provide a more tangible understanding of the why behind this young generation’s desires, attitudes and actions. In her role as Chief Strategy Officer...

Chad Hurley

In an era when “game-changer,” “status quo disrupter,” and “new standard,” are tossed around regularly, there are only a small handful of brands and technologies that serve as the indisputable, iconic personifications of those monikers. YouTube is one such entity. Serving as a website, a brand, and a verb, YouTube is the world’s largest and most popular video sharing site and the third...