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NEW NEW AMERICA AMERIC ★

OUR PUBLIC DEBATE OFTEN FRAMES IMMIGRATION AS A THREAT: ARE

IMMIGRANTS TAKING AMERICAN JOBS? ARE THEY A SECURITY DANGER?

THESE ARE UNDERSTANDABLE QUESTIONS—BUT THEY OVERSHADOW THE

FACT THAT FOR MOST OF THE WORLD, AND FOR MILLIONS OF AMERICANS,

IMMIGRATION TO THE REPRESENTS OPPORTUNITY AND HOPE.

HERE ARE 25 IMMIGRANTS LIVING AND WORKING IN THE U.S, WHOSE

SUCCESSES ARE SHAPING THE FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY­—AND REMINDING

US THAT THE AMERICAN DREAM SHOULDN’T BE A NATIONAL NIGHTMARE. ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY CAMPBELL HARRY BY ILLUSTRATION

WORTH.COM AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2016 059 DAVID KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH purchase of land for the team’s new sta- into telomerase, an enzyme crucial to BECKHAM dium in Miami; international phenomenon healthy DNA, would win her, along with PLACE OF BIRTH: Cristiano Ronaldo is reportedly consider- two colleagues, the Nobel Prize. She was TITLE: PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY, ing playing for the team. named head of the Salk Institute, one of UNIVERSITY; COLUMNIST, the world’s most prestigious and influen- tial centers for medical research, in 2015. IMPACT: ALTHOUGH BORN IN THE UNITED PREET BHARARA KINGDOM, KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH PLACE OF BIRTH: FEROZEPUR, GREW UP IN GHANA. His father, who PUNJAB, INDIA SERGEY BRIN came from a royal Ashanti lineage, was PLACE OF BIRTH: MOSCOW a lawyer and diplomat, and his mother TITLE: U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK was a novelist and children’s book writer. TITLE: COFOUNDER, GOOGLE; PRESIDENT, ALPHABET; DIRECTOR, X

Appiah studied at Cambridge, where he IMPACT: PREET BHARARA CAME TO THE NEW AMERICA earned a PhD in philosophy in 1982. In U.S. WITH HIS PARENTS IN 1970, WHEN IMPACT: SOVIET RUSSIA WAS NOT KIND the decades since, he has emerged as HE WAS JUST 2. Before becoming U.S. TO SERGEY BRIN’S JEWISH PARENTS, who perhaps the most influential social phi- attorney in 2009, he attended Harvard made the difficult decision to immigrate losopher and ethicist working in the Eng- College and Columbia Law School, then to the U.S. when Brin was 6 years old. lish language. Through professorships at served as chief counsel to U.S. senator After receiving a master’s in computer Princeton and now NYU, his gracefully Chuck Schumer and as assistant U.S. at- science from Stanford University, Brin written column in the New York Times—in torney. Currently, Bharara has led inves- went on to cofound Google with class- which he analyzes readers’ real-life ethi- tigations into corruption on Wall Street mate Larry Page, and became recogniz- cal travails—and his critically acclaimed and in New York State government and able as a proponent of Google Glass. 2006 book Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in the New York penal system. But Bharara Brin presides over Alphabet, the parent a World of Strangers, Appiah has pro- aspires to be not just a prosecutor, but conglomerate of the Google empire, mulgated the classical philosophy of also a leader, speaking at colleges and and directs X, an incubator company SAFRA cosmopolitanism, summed up in his core law schools around the country about the for product concepts in the early stages CATZ question: “What do we owe strangers relationship between culture and ethics. of development. When Brin discovered by virtue of our shared humanity?” He His best speaking opportunity, he told that he possesses the mutated gene that argues that all people share certain basic this magazine in 2014, was presiding over indicates Parkinson’s, he set out to beat values and that we are bound by those a naturalization ceremony in Manhattan. the odds for himself and others. Today, values and an obligation to other people “There were 75 new Americans from 31 the new Alphabet life sciences company as well as ourselves. His philosophy does different countries,” Bharara remem- Verily will target solutions for managing not praise diversity for diversity’s sake, bered. “And I said to those 75 people, ‘I and curing the disease, as well as cancer, KWAME nor does he preach relativism; rather, bet you cannot identify any other country diabetes and heart problems. ANTHONY Appiah acknowledges diversity as a reality where this is happening right now, where APPIAH and looks beyond it for common ground. 75 people from 31 different countries are becoming citizens. You know why? Be- SAFRA CATZ cause there is no such country.’” PLACE OF BIRTH: HOLON, DAVID BECKHAM TITLE: CO-CEO, ORACLE PLACE OF BIRTH: LONDON ELIZABETH BLACKBURN IMPACT: BORN IN ISRAEL, SAFRA CATZ TITLE: CO-OWNER, MIAMI MOVED TO THE U.S. AS A CHILD. She BECKHAM UNITED PLACE OF BIRTH: HOBART, TASMANIA started her career in finance before join- TITLE: PRESIDENT, SALK INSTITUTE FOR IMPACT: ALTHOUGH DAVID BECKHAM ing Oracle in 1999 as a senior vice presi- BIOLOGICAL STUDIES MADE HIS NAME AS A SUPERSTAR dent who reported directly to founder STRIKER IN EUROPE, where he played for IMPACT: ONE OF THE WORLD’S FOREMOST Larry Ellison. In 2001 she was appointed Manchester United and then Real Madrid SCIENTISTS, BLACKBURN CAME TO THIS to Oracle’s board, and she became El- from 1992 to 2007, he chose the United COUNTRY IN 1975 to do post-doc work in lison’s right hand during major acquisi- States as his home when his soccer ca- molecular and cellular biology at Yale. tions, such as Oracle’s hostile takeover of reer entered its twilight years. He played Part of the draw was the women’s move- PeopleSoft and its $7.4 billion purchase for Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy ment in this country, which encouraged of Sun Microsystems. She was promoted from 2007 to 2012 as part of a bid to her, she has said, to believe that she from president and CFO to co-CEO bring global stars to popularize the U.S. “would have a career in which she could alongside Mark Hurd in 2014, and in 2015, league. He also negotiated a smart con- thrive.” She headed west to conduct her $57 million pay package made her the tract that gave him preferential status if research at the University of , highest-paid female executive in the U.S. he ever wanted to own an MLS franchise. Berkeley and UC, San Francisco. An ad- Notoriously publicity shy, Catz’s influence Now Beckham heads Miami Beckham vocate for stem cell research, Blackburn at Oracle—and thus, on tech and busi- United, the company that is launching an was ousted from George W. Bush’s Presi- ness generally—has been unmistakable. MLS team in Miami. He played a major dent’s Council on in 2004, re- “There’s no difference between Safra and role in improving the visibility of MLS portedly because her views clashed with Larry,” former Oracle exec Mark Barrene- during the 2000s, and the Miami team the president’s. “As a naturalized citizen,” chea told the in 2006. could be the final element needed to she later said, “I have an immigrant’s love “One’s just at the microphone, and the bring the league into mainstream popu- for my country. But our country must not other is behind the curtain.” larity. In March Beckham announced the fail us.” In 2009, Blackburn’s research SERGEY ELIZABETH PREET BECKHAM: MATTHEW ASHTON/GETTY IMAGES; CATZ: TONY AVELAR/GETTY IMAGES; BHARARA: ANDREW BURTON/GETTY IMAGES; BLACKBURN: TIM MOSENFELDER/GETTY IMAGES; BRIN: PETER FOLEY/GETTY IMAGES BRIN: PETER FOLEY/GETTY IMAGES; TIM MOSENFELDER/GETTY BLACKBURN: IMAGES; BHARARA: ANDREW BURTON/GETTY IMAGES; AVELAR/GETTY TONY CATZ: IMAGES; ASHTON/GETTY BECKHAM: MATTHEW BRIN BLACKBURN BHARARA

WORTH.COM AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2016 061 JAN JHUMPA ANA CORRALES and her family: In 2017, her son Alberto he questioned in the . KOUM LAHIRI will debut a gallery in Georgetown, Md. “Or they have to extract any intelligence PLACE OF BIRTH: SAN JOSÉ, COSTA RICA or humanity or truth from it. Why?” TITLE: CHIEF FINANCIAL AND OPERATING OFFICER, NEST LABS MOHAMED A. EL-ERIAN IMPACT: ANA CORRALES HAS LIVED IN PLACE OF BIRTH: NEW YORK JAN KOUM COSTA RICA, MEXICO and throughout PLACE OF BIRTH: KIEV, UKRAINE the West Coast of the United States, TITLE: CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISOR, but Silicon Valley is where she is mak- ALLIANZ; AUTHOR, THE ONLY GAME IN TITLE: COFOUNDER, WHATSAPP TOWN: CENTRAL BANKS, INSTABILITY, ing her mark as a rare female and Latina IMPACT: JAN KOUM GREW UP IN THE SO- AND AVOIDING THE NEXT COLLAPSE leader in the tech industry. She came VIET UNION WITHOUT RUNNING . to the area to attend Stanford, where IMPACT: THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, After he and his mother immigrated to

she earned a master’s in engineering MOHAMED EL-ERIAN HAS CONSISTENTLY Mountain View, Calif., in 1992 when he NEW AMERICA economic systems in 1997, and then got REMINDED AMERICANS THAT WE ARE was 16, they lived off stamps. But to work. She devised and patented a NOT AN ECONOMIC ISLAND, helping to Koum’s luck started to change when he new method for storing solar energy, explain the U.S. to the world and vice enrolled at San Jose State University to cofounded the startup SunModular and versa. El-Erian was born in New York in study computer science and then went brokered its sale to Nanosolar in 2010 1958 when his father, an Egyptian dip- to work for Yahoo. In 2009, he cocreated while a senior executive at Cisco. She lomat, was working there. The family WhatsApp. The mobile messaging app is was at Cisco for 18 years, and through its returned to Cairo soon after, but in 1968 now one of world’s most used—handling Latino resource program Conexión, El-Erian’s father took a United Nations job billions of messages every day—and is Corrales became a role model for minor- and the family came back to New York. particularly important in the developing ities in science, technology, engineering “I immediately took to the more open, world. bought WhatsApp in and math. In 2015, Corrales joined Nest, dynamic and diverse environment,” the 2014 for $19 billion. Just months after the where she oversees finance and opera- dual U.S.-Egyptian citizen says now, “from sale, Koum paid it forward: He donated tions. Acquired by Alphabet last year, the way classes were taught to the much $556 million to the Silicon Valley Com- Nest, with its self-learning, WiFi-enabled less restricted discussions.” After higher munity Foundation, which funds approxi- thermostats, smoke detectors and secu- education at Cambridge and Oxford, El- mately 18,000 charities in the Bay Area. rity systems, is a pioneer in smart-home Erian returned to the U.S. in 1983 for jobs technology and the internet of things. at the IMF, Harvard Management Company RRITU: VERA ANDERSON/WIREIMAGE; EL-ERIAN: PATRICK T. FALLON/GETTY IMAGES; IMAGES; FALLON/GETTY T. PATRICK EL-ERIAN: RRITU: VERA ANDERSON/WIREIMAGE; and most notably, PIMCO, which he left JHUMPA LAHIRI ÑÁ in 2014. His new book, a prescient guide PLACE OF BIRTH: LONDON ROSA DE LA CRUZ for thinking about current economic chal- lenges, reflects his global perspective. But TITLE: AUTHOR PLACE OF BIRTH: HAVANA ANA at the same time, El-Erian says, being an IMPACT: JHUMPA LAHIRI RESISTS THE TITLE: OWNER, DE LA CRUZ COLLECTION CORRALES immigrant “has given me an appreciation TERM “IMMIGRANT FICTION.” “What do CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE for how unique and special the U.S. is.” we call the rest?” she asked in the New IMPACT: ROSA DE LA CRUZ AND HER York Times. “Native fiction? Puritan fic- HUSBAND, CARLOS, FLED CUBA FOR THE tion?” Still, the author, born in London U.S. during the Castro revolution and ALEJANDRO of Indian descent and raised in Rhode MOHAMED eventually made their fortune from soft GONZÁLEZ IÑÁRRITU Island, writes elegantly about the chal- A. EL- drink bottling plants throughout the lenges faced by immigrants: the tension PLACE OF BIRTH: MEXICO CITY ERIAN Caribbean. A passing interest in Latin between traditions and new cultures, American art in the ’70s transformed into TITLE: FILM DIRECTOR, PRODUCER AND between alienation and familiarity. In SCREENWRITER a passion for contemporary art, or as de the process, she raises concerns that all la Cruz has called it, “a collection that IMPACT: A RADIO HOST TURNED FILM- people can relate to, and reminds read- defines the 21st century” and a mission MAKER, ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ ers of humanity’s connections. Her debut to share her excitement with others. As IÑÁRRITU has hit a number of firsts in collection of short stories, Interpreter of one of Miami’s most prominent art collec- Hollywood for foreign-born directors: Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, tors, de la Cruz has helped make the city the first Mexican to be nominated for and her first novel,The Namesake, was a global arts hub, and she is outspoken a Best Director Oscar (Babel), the first made into a 2007 film. Her latest novel, about the need to make art accessible Mexican to win three Oscars (Birdman) The Lowland, takes place in India and to all. For nearly three decades, her and the first director of any ethnicity the U.S., spanning generations, and was home—a 15,000-square-foot museum- in 65 years to win back-to-back Oscars shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and like estate on Key Biscayne where art, (Birdman, The Revenant). But Iñárritu’s a finalist for the National Book Award in including pieces by Martin Kippenberger, influence goes beyond the symbolism 2013. Its international reach is reflected Félix González-Torres and Sigmar Polke, of these wins; his six feature films com- in Lahiri’s own life. Bengali was her first is the focus—has been available to the bined have grossed nearly $900 million, language, she studied Latin for years public by appointment. And in 2009, she each with higher profits than the previ- and, drawn to Italian, she taught herself opened a three-story space in downtown ous. Known for his Kubrickian fastidious- the language as an adult. In a 2015 story Miami to house the rest of her collection, ness and innovative storytelling, Iñárritu in , she noted that, de- the de la Cruz Collection Contemporary is telling Hollywood that blockbusters spite the fact she lives in Brooklyn, she ALEJANDRO Art Space. Her influence expands beyond don’t need to be devoid of depth. “Why now writes primarily in Italian. GONZÁLEZ Miami through her global connections do big films have to be about nothing?” ROSA

LAHIRI: MARCO DELOGU; KOUM: LUIS GENE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; CORRALES: MARLA AUFMUTH/GETTY IMAGES; I IMAGES; MARLA AUFMUTH/GETTY CORRALES: IMAGES; GENE/AFP/GETTY LUIS KOUM: DELOGU; LAHIRI: MARCO GETTY IMAGES BY A. FRIEDMAN/CONTOUR CRUZ: SARAH IÑÁRRITU DE LA CRUZ

WORTH.COM AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2016 063 ELON MARC LASRY AND SONIA TEMBA MAQUBELA SATYA NADELLA MUSK GARDNER (NEÉ LASRY) PLACE OF BIRTH: KING WILLIAM’S TOWN, PLACE OF BIRTH: HYDERABAD, INDIA EASTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA PLACE OF BIRTH: MARRAKECH, MOROCCO TITLE: CEO, MICROSOFT TITLES: COFOUNDERS, TITLE: HEADMASTER, GROTON SCHOOL IMPACT: SATYA NADELLA GREW UP IN AVENUE CAPITAL GROUP IMPACT: BORN INTO A FAMILY OF EDU- INDIA, WHERE HE RECEIVED HIS UNDER- IMPACT: WHILE OFTEN WRITTEN ABOUT CATORS—HIS GRANDFATHER WAS A GRAD DEGREE BEFORE MOVING TO THE SEPARATELY, THE BROTHER-AND-SISTER MENTOR TO NELSON MANDELA—Temba U.S. to pursue an MS in computer science DUO OF MARC LASRY AND SONIA GARDNER Maqubela fled South Africa in 1976 after from the University of –Milwau- has been one of the most successful his anti-apartheid protests placed his life kee. After graduating in 1990, he joined forces in the world of finance for more in danger. He escaped to Botswana, and Sun Microsystems but left for Microsoft than 20 years. Born in Marrakech, Lasry 10 years later made his way to New York in 1992. For the next two and a half years,

and Gardner moved with their parents with his wife and 10-month-old baby. Nadella spent weekdays working in Red- NEW AMERICA to Hartford, Conn., when they were After a stint on welfare, Maqubela landed mond, Wash., and weekends at the Univer- THAI young, and neither spoke English. Both a job checking coats at the Museum of sity of Chicago Booth School of Business LEE Lasry and Gardner went on to attend law Natural History, then became a teacher in pursuing his MBA. Nadella worked across school and then cofound their first finan- the New York public school system and departments in his first 22 years at Mi- cial firm, the $100 million Amroc Invest- later a professor of chemistry at Phillips crosoft, and he was leading its cloud and ments, in 1989. Their real success started Academy Andover. He was named head- enterprise group when he was tapped to with the foundation of Avenue Capital master of Groton in 2013. The school, replace Steve Ballmer as CEO in 2014. The Group in 1995, a hedge fund that at whose graduates include Franklin Roos- Microsoft board’s CEO search had been various times has focused on distressed evelt and Dean Acheson, was founded in long and arduous before selecting Nadella, debt, struggling energy and fracking 1884 by a Protestant minister and Boston a relative unknown outside the company. companies and, most recently, Puerto Brahmin named Endicott Peabody. It But his track record growing Microsoft’s Rican bonds. Started with $7 million of remains one of the country’s most elite Azure cloud-computing program proved the siblings’ money, Avenue Capital now boarding schools. That its students, many he could take the company in new direc- has assets of $11.3 billion, making Lasry of whom go on to enormous success and tions. Recently, that meant the high-profile and Gardner two of the most successful influence, are now guided by a black man $26.2 billion purchase of LinkedIn, the investors on Wall Street. and political refugee from South Africa largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history. INDRA is a powerful and inspiring thing. As KRISHNAMURTHY Maqubela puts it, “This story could never NOOYI THAI LEE have happened in any other country.” INDRA KRISHNAMURTHY

PLACE OF BIRTH: BANGKOK NOOYI PLACE OF BIRTH: CHENNAI, INDIA TITLE: CEO AND PRESIDENT, SHI INTERNATIONAL TITLE: CEO AND CHAIRMAN, PEPSICO PLACE OF BIRTH: PRETORIA, IMPACT: WITH A NET WORTH OF $1.2 BIL- SOUTH AFRICA IMPACT: AS ONLY THE FIFTH CEO IN PEPSI- LION, THAI LEE IS ONE OF ONLY 17 SELF- CO’S 51-YEAR HISTORY, Indra Krishnamur- TITLE: COFOUNDER AND CEO OF TESLA; MADE FEMALE BILLIONAIRES IN THE U.S. thy Nooyi has worked to put the company FOUNDER AND CEO OF SPACEX; AND TEMBA The daughter of a Korean economist, Lee CHAIRMAN OF SOLARCITY in line with more health-conscious patrons grew up in Korea and moved to the U.S. by facilitating acquisitions of brands such MAQUBELA with her older sister to attend high school IMPACT: FOLLOWING A TOUGH CHILD- as Tropicana and Quaker Oats. Born and and Amherst College, graduating in 1980. HOOD IN SOUTH AFRICA, ELON MUSK raised in Chennai, India, and receiving a BS Lee returned to Korea to save money MOVED TO CANADA to attend college in physics, chemistry and mathematics, as for business school, working at an auto and then transferred to the University of well as an MBA before coming to the U.S. parts maker, before coming back to earn Pennsylvania in 1992. He founded his first to earn a master’s from the Yale School of her MBA at Harvard in 1985. Lee always tech company, a city directory service Management, she became PepsiCo’s first aspired to own her own business. After called , in 1995 when he was just 24; female CEO in 2006 and its first of foreign gaining valuable experience at Procter & four years later he founded X.com, which birth. Since Nooyi moved into a leadership Gamble and American Express, Lee (with would go on to become PayPal. Success position at PepsiCo, becoming president her then husband) purchased software begat success, and Musk now helms and CFO in 2001, the company’s annual reseller and IT provider Software House in private space company SpaceX and elec- net profits doubled from $2.7 billion to 1989 for less than $1 million, changing its tric car manufacturer Tesla Motors, and $5.45 billion. Nooyi ranked as the eighth- name to SHI International. With a majority is the chairman of solar power company highest-paid CEO in the world this year stake in the company and as cofounder SolarCity. One of the most widely known with a salary of $22.2 million. But she also and CEO, Lee has grown the business to tech entrepreneurs in the world, Musk gives back: She gifted Yale an undisclosed $6.8 billion in revenue. SHI boasts 3,000 sees his job as preserving the future of amount, making her its biggest alumni employees globally and 17,000 customers humanity by creating clean power, clean donor; in turn the School of Management including AT&T, Boeing and Johnson & transportation and an insurance policy of is naming its deanship in her honor. How- Johnson. The largest woman-owned busi- sorts by making us a multiplanetary spe- ever, Nooyi has said her gift “pales in com- ness in the U.S., SHI has posted positive cies. Musk’s ultimate goal is to colonize parison with the gift that Yale gave me: the sales growth every year, with 14 percent Mars as a hedge against the effects of fundamental understanding that leader- growth recorded for 2015. global warming or nuclear war. ship requires an expansive worldview.” SATYA MARC SONIA NADELLA: MICROSOFT; MUSK: JUSTIN CHIN/GETTY IMAGES; MAQUBELA: ANNIE CARD; NOOYI: URS JAUDAS/GETTY IMAGES; LEE: SUSAN YOUNG; LASRY: MIKE MCGINNIS/GETTY IMAGES; GARDNER: COURTESY OF AVENUE CAPITAL GROUP CAPITAL OF AVENUE GARDNER: COURTESY IMAGES; MIKE MCGINNIS/GETTY LASRY: YOUNG; LEE: SUSAN IMAGES; URS JAUDAS/GETTY ANNIE CARD; NOOYI: MAQUBELA: IMAGES; CHIN/GETTY MUSK: JUSTIN NADELLA: MICROSOFT; NADELLA LASRY GARDNER

WORTH.COM AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2016 065 PIERRE OMIDYAR and two crew members) from Spaceport recently on June 2, when his NantHealth Tucson beginning next year. offering ended the day up 33 percent with PLACE OF BIRTH: PARIS a market value of more than $2.2 billion. TITLE: FOUNDER, EBAY AND FIRST LOOK MEDIA HAIM SABAN IMPACT: PIERRE OMIDYAR’S PARENTS, PLACE OF BIRTH: , PETER THIEL BOTH IRANIAN STUDENTS STUDYING IN TITLE: CO-OWNER AND CHAIRMAN, PLACE OF BIRTH: FRANKFURT, PARIS, immigrated to Maryland when he was a child. He fell in love with comput- TITLE: COFOUNDER, PAYPAL; CHAIRMAN, PALANTIR TECHNOLOGIES; ers, writing his first program at age 14. IMPACT: HAIM SABAN WAS 12 YEARS OLD BOARD MEMBER, FACEBOOK After studying computer science at Tufts WHEN HIS JEWISH FAMILY FLED EGYPT University, Omidyar founded eBay in 1995 after the Suez Crisis and resettled in Israel. IMPACT: PETER THIEL, WHO MOVED TO THE

and transformed e-commerce forever, Saban moved to Paris, then to LA in 1983. UNITED STATES FROM WEST GERMANY as a NEW AMERICA becoming quite wealthy along the way. In A high school dropout who built a $3.6 toddler, is best known for cofounding Pay- recent years Omidyar has devoted himself billion fortune through children’s TV pro- Pal and being the first outside investor in to media and free-speech causes, and in duction and ownership of media outlets Facebook. His $500,000 loan turned into 2014 he founded investigative news outfit such as Fox Family, the Israeli American an equity stake—Thiel sold the majority HAIM PIERRE The Intercept, in which journalists includ- has shaped children’s entertainment of his shares for more than $1 billion after SABAN OMIDYAR ing Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and and also American politics—particularly Facebook went public but retained a seat Jeremy Scahill cover national security and U.S.-Israel relations—since the ’90s. In on the board. Though that high-profile surveillance issues brought to light by Ed- 2007, Saban and private equity partners investment was made in 2004, Thiel re- ward Snowden. He’s also become involved acquired Univision and its digital, TV and mains an influential figure in Silicon Valley with movie production, and his filmSpot - radio properties, giving him influence today. He’s the don of the so-called PayPal light won the 2015 Best Picture Oscar for over the country’s fastest-growing de- Mafia, cofounded VC firm the Founders its portrayal of the Boston Globe’s investi- mographic, Hispanics, who make up 17.3 Fund, is cofounder and chairman of big- gation into sex abuse by priests. percent of the population. Saban makes data firm Palantir Technologies and has no bones about his desire to affect foreign made investments in longevity projects policy; besides being a behind-the-scenes including the SENS Research and Methu- JANE POYNTER player and a major Democratic donor, he selah Foundations. (Thiel has said he plans created a research center at the Brookings to live to be 120.) Most recently, Thiel PLACE OF BIRTH: SURREY, ENGLAND Institution on U.S. involvement in the Mid- bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against TITLE: CEO, WORLD VIEW ENTERPRISES; dle East and has attempted to buy the Los Gawker Media, which ultimately cata- COFOUNDER, PARAGON SPACE DEVELOPMENT Angeles Times and the New York Times as pulted the company into bankruptcy. a means to promote pro-Israel views. PATRICK JANE SOON-SHIONG POYNTER IMPACT: A PIONEER OF SPACE TOURISM, BRITISH–BORN, TUCSON, ARIZ.–BASED HAMDI ULUKAYA JANE POYNTER WANTS TO FLY TO MARS. PATRICK SOON-SHIONG PLACE OF BIRTH: ERZINCAN, One of eight people who lived for two PLACE OF BIRTH: PORT ELIZABETH, TITLE: FOUNDER AND CEO, CHOBANI years in a sealed three-acre research SOUTH AFRICA facility called 2 in the Arizona IMPACT: HAMDI ULUKAYA CAME TO THE TITLE: SURGEON, SCIENTIST AND desert in the early ’90s, Poynter concep- U.S. FROM TURKEY IN 1994 TO STUDY AT FOUNDER/CEO, NANTWORKS tualized two businesses while living in that and was disap- closed ecological system: She is cofounder IMPACT: BORN IN SOUTH AFRICA OF CHI- pointed by the quality of cheese and of Paragon Space Development, which NESE DESCENT, PATRICK SOON-SHIONG yogurt in the States. He was soon im- provides life support for extreme environ- CAME TO THE U.S. FOR SURGICAL TRAIN- porting feta from his family’s farm and ments—like in space and under the sea— ING AT UCLA, joining the university’s then bought a defunct Kraft yogurt fac- and is CEO of World View Enterprises, a medical school faculty in 1983. A noted tory in to create the Tucson–based space exploration venture. transplant surgeon, he was the first in yogurt of his childhood. Today, Chobani A main mission of Paragon is an ambitious the world to perform a full pancreas is a top-selling yogurt brand, valued at project to send humans on a round-trip transplant, among other milestones. Also $3 billion to $5 billion, with the largest orbit of Mars by 2021. Poynter and her a noted researcher, he discovered a treat- yogurt processing plant in the world, a cofounders are working diligently to fig- ment for type 1 diabetes and invented one-million-square-foot facility in . ure out the logistics of such a trip, while pancreatic cancer drug Abraxane. The Kurdish CEO is also a major phi- petitioning Congress to fund the project But it is his entrepreneurial efforts that lanthropist: He has signed the Buffett/ and NASA for the use of the Space Launch have made him the world’s richest doctor Gates Giving Pledge and announced he System and a vehicle for transport. Mean- with a personal worth close to $12 billion will donate the majority of his nearly $2 while, World View has raised $15 million and a position as advisor to Vice President billion in personal wealth to helping refu- this year to develop its high-altitude bal- Biden’s “cancer moonshot” effort to cure gees around the world. And he has taken loons, Stratollites, which bring people to cancer. Under the umbrella NantWorks, a particularly progressive approach to an altitude of 100,000 feet (almost 20 Soon-Shiong has created biotech compa- management: In April, he surprised Cho- HAMDI miles) above the earth’s surface. World nies that seek to revolutionize cancer care bani’s 2,000 full-time employees by giv- ULUKAYA View anticipates launching commercial by combining patient data with individual ing them shares collectively worth up to flights on these space capsules (which will genome information. He has led some of 10 percent of the company when it goes hold six passengers, at $75,000 per seat, the biggest biotech IPOs in history, most public or is sold. PETER SABAN: ALLEN BEREZOVSKY/WIREIMAGE; OMIDYAR: JAMES LEYNSE/GETTY IMAGES; ULUKAYA: CHRIS RATCLIFFE/GETTY IMAGES; THIEL: GETTY IMAGES; SOON-SHIONG: KEN HIVELY/GETTY IMAGES SOON-SHIONG: KEN HIVELY/GETTY THIEL: GETTY IMAGES; IMAGES; CHRIS RATCLIFFE/GETTY ULUKAYA: IMAGES; LEYNSE/GETTY JAMES OMIDYAR: ALLEN BEREZOVSKY/WIREIMAGE; SABAN: THIEL

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