Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg named most influential person in tech industry

London, 18 October 2007: Facebook founder MArk Zuckerberg has today been named the most influential person in the high-tech industry by a panel of experts in the eighth annual Agenda Setter’s poll by silicon.com. The Agenda Setters Top 50 focuses on the people driving and shaping the tech industry in 2007 and is a barometer of success within the IT sector. www.siliconagendasetters.com

Mark Zuckerberg, just 23 years old, has rocketed to the top spot above the likes of Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Rupert Murdoch, after failing to appear at all in last year’s rankings. Launched just three and a half years ago, Facebook’s popularity has exploded in 2007, with the social networking giant growing to more than 42 million active users across the world. In the UK alone, the site has tripled its reach from 2.7 million users to 9 million users in the past six months.

The Top 10 Agenda Setters for 2007 are:
1. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
2. Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple
3. Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google
4. John Chambers, CEO, Cisco
5. Ashley Highfield, BBC technologist
6. Nicholas Negroponte, laptop creator
7. Niklas Zennström, former CEO, Skype
8. Diane Greene, VMware president
9. Jonathan Ive, Apple chief designer
10. Viviane Reding, European commissioner

The new wave?
This year’s poll also sees other social networking figures and blogs featuring highly, with Rob Pardo, World of Warcraft (23), Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing (41) and prominent tech blogger, Michael Arrington from Tech Crunch (35) all making the top 50. Meanwhile, 2007 is the first year in the poll’s history that anyone from Microsoft (33) has not been included within the top 20 on the list. Other notable omissions include individuals from major technology players like Motorola, Nokia and Samsung. This represents a huge shift in the technology space, as those from the new wave of social networks and online communities have risen from relative insignificance to become, in some cases, more influential than the veterans of the industry.

This year also marks another significant change as an unprecedented number of technology chiefs from user organisations have secured a place on the list. The CIOs of five user organisations including British Airways (11) and Virgin America (25) enter the top 30. The survey also marks the rising dominance of Asian companies with those from Infosys, Huawei and Wipro making the final 50, as the global balance of power continues to shift from West to East.

Tony Hallett, editor and site director of silicon.com, said: “Our annual poll continues to expose the latest trends and driving forces in the technology industry and it has been fascinating to watch the rapid changes that have taken place over the last 12 months. Up until 2004, CEOs, politicians and regulators topped the polls every year. Clearly, the tech industry has undergone a massive transformation since then, as now a 23 year old has taken the top slot as the CEO of one of the largest social networks in the world. Online communities are certainly the most talked-about tech trend this year.”

The full results and special report are available at www.siliconagendasetters.com.

-Ends-

Notes to Editors

The 2007 Agenda Setters Top 50 is:
1. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder
2. Steve Jobs, Apple CEO
3. Eric Schmidt, Google CEO
4. John Chambers, Cisco CEO
5. Ashley Highfield, BBC technologist
6. Nicholas Negroponte, laptop creator
7. Niklas Zennström, Skype CEO
8. Diane Greene, VMware president
9. Jonathan Ive, Apple chief designer
10. Viviane Reding, Euro commissioner
11. Paul Coby, BA CIO
12. Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com CEO
13. Emily Bell, Guardian Unlimited editor
14. Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO
15. Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO
16. Ben Verwaayen, BT CEO
17. Nandan Nilekani, Infosys
18. David Yu, Betfair CEO
19. Satoru Iwata, Nintendo CEO
20. Mark Hurd, HP CEO
21. Mo Ibrahim, ex-Celtel
22. James Murdoch, BSkyB
23. Rob Pardo, World of Warcraft
24. Michael Moritz, venture capitalist
25. Bill Maguire, Virgin America CIO
26. Rorie Devine, Betfair CTO
27. Meg Whitman, eBay CEO
28. Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo writer
29. Rupert Murdoch, News Corp CEO
30. Ren Zhengfei, Huawei Tech founder
31. Azim Premji, Wipro chairman
32. Daniel Rimer, venture capitalist
33. Kim Cameron, Microsoft ID chief
34. Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist
35. Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
36. Premal Shah, Kiva president
37. Lawrence Lessig, law professor
38. Paul Otellini, Intel CEO
39. Bruce Perens, open source advocate
40. Richard Stallman, GNU founder
41. Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing
42. Charles Dunstone, Carphone CEO
43. Bruce Schneier, security expert
44. Linus Torvalds, Linux kernel initiator
45. Tim O’Reilly, Web 2.0 guy
46. Luis von Ahn, Captcha
47. Geelen and Pauwels, TomTom
48. JP Rangaswami, BT Global CIO
49. Blake Ross Firefox founder
50. Trevor Baylis, inventor


For more information contact:

Jo Walters, CNET Networks UK
020 7021 1237
joanne.walters@cnet.com


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