The 32 most powerful people in business technology in 2016

Microsoft Executive VP of Cloud and Enterprise Scott Guthrie

Microsoft is betting its entire future on cloud computing, even as sales of its traditional Windows and Office boxed software continue their slow but steady decline.

It's meant that Scott Guthrie, who leads cloud computing at Microsoft — including its Microsoft Azure cloud platform and Dynamics CRM businesses, both of which grew mightily in 2016 — has become an increasingly huge force at the revitalized company.

And he's going to get even more power, very soon. Microsoft's $26.2 billion takeover of LinkedIn will go under Guthrie's umbrella, as the data feeds into the Dynamics CRM platform.

Amazon CTO Werner Vogels

Amazon Web Services is far and away the leader in the fast-growing cloud computing market, where companies rent functionally unlimited supercomputing power for fractions of pennies on the hour. It's already a $12 billion business for Amazon, and the retail giant's most profitable unit.

So much of that success is because of Amazon CTO Werner Vogels, whose team keeps finding new ways to drive the price of Amazon Web Services down, even as they add new features that make it an increasingly attractive alternative to, say, Oracle.

And as Amazon keeps building its cloud under Vogels' direction, it just keeps the pressure on the legacy IT world and startups alike to drop prices and up their game.

Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell

In 2016, Dell's blockbuster $67 billion acquisition of one-time rival EMC finally closed, in the biggest high-tech deal ever.

It makes industry stalwart Michael Dell the leader of one of the world's biggest IT companies — and one of the last big holdouts against the rise of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and other cloud-computing platforms.

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis

This was a a big year for artificial intelligence, with just about every tech company large and small looking to jump on the bandwagon.

And Demis Hassabis is right at the center. As the CEO and cofounder of DeepMind, which Google bought for $500 million in 2014, he's one of the leading artificial intelligence geniuses at a company full of them.

To drive the point home, it was Hassabis and his DeepMind team who invented the AlphaGo artificial intelligence that defeated Go champion Lee Sedol this year. It's made DeepMind one of the most visible experts in the high-growth race to build better AI.

Palantir cofounder and CEO Alex Karp

$20 billion Palantir might just be Silicon Valley's most secretive company, choosing to keep both its data-mining technology and its client list, many of whom are government agencies, under tight wraps.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp now has a direct line to Donald Trump's White House: Legendary investor Peter Thiel, one of Trump's very few prominent supporters in Silicon Valley, is also one of Karp's cofounders at Palantir. It's a connection that earned Palantir an invitation to Trump's tech summit in New York City in mid-December 2016.

All the while, Karp is challenging the United States Army on the way it doles out lucrative defense contracts, in a way that could set a precedent for tech companies looking to sell to the public sector.

Intel President of Client and Internet of Things Businesses and Systems Architecture Group Murthy Renduchintala

Murthy Renduchintala, the former Qualcomm exec who joined Intel in 2015, is the second most powerful person behind CEO Brian Krzanich.

Almost every business aside from the data centers falls under his management. He also led one of the largest layoffs in Intel’s history this year.

Renduchintala, who was given a whopping $25 million pay package to jump ship in 2015, also represents a new culture at Intel: the rise of outside executives. Intel has historically promoted from within, but after Renduchintala’s hiring, nearly one-third of the company’s top management came from other companies.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gets a lot of credit for reforming the company's culture in the post-iPhone world, making for a kinder, gentler company more willing to partner up with other tech companies rather than to crush the competition.

This year, Nadella's philosophy was strained to the limit, as the company's monumental $26.2 billion LinkedIn purchase threatened to end its short-lived friendship with Salesforce, while also placing the company under intense regulatory scrutiny in the European Union.

Still, the deal is a great example of Nadella's vision for Microsoft going forward, where data from sources like LinkedIn is as important (or moreso) than the individual apps you use, especially as you increasingly travel from smartphone to PC to tablet and back.

And as long as Nadella has Microsoft's resources to throw at that philosophy, expect many more shockwaves across the industry in the years to come.

Dropbox COO Dennis Woodside

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston may be the face of the company, but it is COO Dennis Woodside who’s in charge of the day-to-day operations of the $10 billion startup.

Under Woodside’s watch, Dropbox has become much smarter with its spending, becoming cash flow positive this year, while significantly expanding its business product offerings.

Despite some of the lingering question marks, Dropbox seems to be driving in the right direction, with talks of an IPO for next year already starting to surface – and Woodside will get a lot of credit if the company manages to have a successful public offering.

Microsoft Technical Fellow Alex Kipman

Microsoft's high-tech HoloLens isn't available to consumers just yet, but it's starting to slowly make its way into the workforce.

Elevator-repair professionals are starting to use the HoloLens to diagnose and treat mechanical problems; factory workers are beginning to use HoloLens to get a better sense of what's going on from the factory floor; and so on.

Leading the charge is Alex Kipman, Microsoft's head of all things HoloLens. As so-called "augmented reality" starts to become a real market category, Kipman is the guy in charge. It's a young technology yet, but HoloLens and tech like it has a real chance to change everything.

Intel VP and general manager of Data Center Group Diane Bryant

The shrinking PC market has forced Intel to move away from its bread-and-butter PC chip business and focus more on its data center business instead.

Now, Intel gets 30% of its revenue – and nearly half of its operating profit — from its data center group, a telling sign that the chip giant’s future clearly depends on the growth of the data center group.

Diane Bryant is the leader of Intel’s data center group, managing over $15 billion of the company's annual revenue. That makes her one of the most important people at Intel, and one of the most powerful female leaders in all of tech.

In 2016, the slowing growth in Intel’s data center business worried some Wall Street investors. But there’s no question Intel is counting on Bryant’s leadership to complete its transformation.

Oracle Founder and Executive Chairman Larry Ellison

In 2016, Larry Ellison slowed down on dogging his longtime frenemy Marc Benioff and his company Salesforce, and set his sights on a new target: Amazon Web Services, the massively profitable cloud-computing arm of the Amazon retail empire.

This year, Ellison spent a lot of time trying to convince the world that it was Oracle, not Amazon, that offers the most powerful cloud computing platform. Despite Oracle's considerable resources, Amazon's market leadership means Ellison has his work cut out for him.

Meanwhile, Ellison bolstered his personal fortunes this year when Oracle bought NetSuite, a deal that made him $3.5 billion in cash.

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner

Word on the street is that LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner will be leading the transition team that will bring the social network fully into the Microsoft fold, in the wake of this year's $26.2 billion acquisition.

It's a huge sign of Microsoft's confidence in Weiner, and of how much power he stands to wield within the company once all the dust settles: Usually, it's the buyer that leads those transition teams, not the seller.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn continues work on its own master plan. In 2016, Weiner unveiled his plans to turn LinkedIn into an online "school" to teach new skills in an increasingly digital world.

Salesforce cofounder and CEO Marc Benioff

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff had a busy year, from masterminding an aborted bid for Twitter, to cozying up to Amazon after ending his friendship with Microsoft, to his continued slams on his former mentor, Oracle's Larry Ellison, to overseeing a $5 billion startup-buying binge.

Still, Benioff's biggest impact this year might have been in the public sphere, as his social activism led him to publicly criticize United States Vice President-Elect Mike Pence and fighting politicians who support discriminatory laws across the country.

Twilio cofounder and CEO Jeff Lawson

Twilio is one of the companies that secretly runs the internet: Its services let apps and websites send you text messages or give you phone calls. If you've ever gotten a text from Uber saying your car is getting close, or a phone call from Netflix to verify your account, you've used Twilio.

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson, a long-time industry veteran formerly at Amazon Web Services and StubHub, saw his influence grow this year as the company shot way up after its debut as a publicly-traded company in June. Twilio's success ended the 2016 tech IPO drought, with companies like Nutanix and Apptio following suit soon after.

Qualcomm CEO Steven Mollenkopf

Qualcomm, the processor company that powers lots of higher-end Android smartphones, made some big moves this year under the guidance of CEO Steven Mollenkopf.

In October, Qualcomm paid $47 billion for NXP Semiconductors, giving the company a way into the growing smart-car market, while also paving the way to make a big play for the so-called "Internet of Things."

And earlier in December, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would be coming to Qualcomm's ARM processors — one of the very few times Microsoft has made Windows available for something other than an Intel chip. It's a big deal for Microsoft, and potentially a bigger deal for Qualcomm as it keeps finding new markets to infiltrate.

Salesforce Chief Equality Officer Tony Prophet

Tony Prophet made a big career move this year when he took Salesforce’s first Chief Equality Officer position in September.

The move highlighted Salesforce’s ongoing effort to promote workplace equality and diversity across the broader tech sector. Prophet, a former Microsoft marketing executive, is in charge of being the leading voice for equal pay, inclusion, and social activism.

Prophet’s hiring perhaps will encourage more Silicon Valley companies to make workplace equality a top priority and address the tech industry’s deep-rooted diversity problem.

Bessemer Venture Partners investor Byron Deeter

Byron Deeter’s work in the cloud business is well-documented through his annual “State of the Cloud Report” and Bessemer Venture Partners’ famous “Top 10 Laws of Cloud Computing" report.

But Deeter's been making the right calls for years, having invested in companies like Box, Shopify, and Instructure way before they went public.

In 2016, Deeter proved himself again, when Twilio, a company he backed from the seed stage, had a very successful public offering in an unusually quiet year for tech IPOs.

And he has plenty more in the pipeline for potential IPOs: Send Grid, Adaptive Insights, and Gainsight are all part of his portfolio.

GE CEO Jeff Immelt

Jeff Immelt is on a mission to transform GE from an industrial giant to a software powerhouse.

At the core of his plan is what he calls an "industrial internet" strategy. The goal is to invest in software and technology for the industrial space, like energy and transportation, and get to $15 billion in software revenue by 2020.

As part of the plan, GE launched a new division called GE Digital last year, and built a new office in Silicon Valley that now has 1,700 employees. In November, GE announced that its software and services business is on track to hit $6 billion in revenue this year, up 20% year-over-year.

Immelt isn't scared of doling out money if it means faster growth too: GE acquired field-service management software company ServiceMax for $915 million this year.

Nutanix CEO and cofounder Dheeraj Pandey

Nutanix, a company that provides hyperefficient hardware and software for data centers, achieved a $2 billion valuation in 2014, making it one of the first "unicorn" companies in enterprise technology.

To keep employees from jumping ship while they waited for the opportune time to IPO, Dheeraj Pandey, Nutanix's cofounder, CEO, and largest shareholder, even gave up about $14 million of his future stock grants to be distributed to employees to sweeten the available pot for them.

Now, Pandey looks on-target: Even after the dust settled and the stock price normalized after exploding out of the gate, Nutanix is now a $4 billion company on the public markets. Meanwhile, Pandey's cofounders at Nutanix have gone on to other startups.

Stripe cofounders John and Patrick Collison

In late November, Stripe, a company that helps businesses accept payments online, reached a $9.2 billion valuation, making it the most valuable financial technology startup.

The visionaries behind the company are John and Patrick Collison, the brother cofounders from Ireland, who are also now the youngest Irish billionaires following the latest round of funding.

The cash infusion put a cap on what turned out to be a big year for Stripe: Early in 2016, the company announced the launch of Atlas, a program to help entrepreneurs all over the world launch their own internet businesses. Stripe Radar, a new anti-fraud tool, bolstered the company’s offerings to big businesses.

And as more and more payments go online, expect more big things to come for Stripe’s cofounders.

Microsoft Executive VP of Windows and Devices Terry Myerson

Microsoft Windows is up against some harsh challenges, as computing increasingly moves to the smartphone and tablet, and even the server room starts to get outsourced to cloud computing platforms like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft's own Azure.

That makes Terry Myerson a crucial asset at Microsoft, as he works to make sure Windows stays relevant no matter what else happens.

And between the launch of the acclaimed Surface Studio PC and the debut of Windows for ARM processors, Myerson and his team has clearly been thinking outside the box — despite the company's earlier missteps on mobile.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman

In her day job, Meg Whitman is the leader of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, one of the largest IT companies in the world, next to the consolidated Dell/EMC entity — a competitor of whom she's highly critical.

In 2016, though, Whitman got just as much notice for her politics. Whitman, a long-time Republican, crossed party lines this year to pledge her support to Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.

At one point, she compared Donald Trump to dictators like Mussolini and Hitler, though more recently, she called for unity under his new administration.

Google Senior VP of Cloud Diane Greene

In 2016, Diane Greene took her strategy for Google's growing cloud business to the next level.

Between hiring away artificial intelligence experts from Snapchat and snapping up Apigee for $625 million, Greene showed that Google is willing to spend as it accelerates its play to overtake Microsoft and Amazon in the cloud wars.

With big companies like PayPal apparently in talks with Google to move some or all of their infrastructure to the Google Cloud, it looks like Greene's big bets stand to pay off. Under her leadership, Google is slowly but surely becoming a force in enterprise IT.

Facebook VP of Infrastructure Jay Parikh

Facebook isn't exactly the first name in enterprise hardware, but that could be about to change.

Under VP of Infrastructure Jay Parikh, Facebook is taking its home-built innovations in data center design and releasing them to the rest of the world.

After taking on the multibillion-dollar data-center equipment industry over the last few years, Facebook this year set its sights on the $500 billion telecom equipment market, too. Parikh's team also unveiled this year a new optical network switch that outperforms comparable equipment from Cisco and Juniper on both speed and efficiency.

From Facebook's perspective, it's just another way to connect the whole world up to the internet. But it has the side effect of putting the old-guard IT vendors on notice.

Square Capital Lead and Chief HR Officer Jackie Reses

While the nifty credit-card swipers are often touted as evidence of Square’s innovation, the company’s future success may rely on Square Capital, its high-margin lending business.

Leading the charge is Jackie Reses, Yahoo’s former chief development officer. Although Square Capital’s revenue is small compared to the rest of the business, many investors believe it will play a bigger role because of its highly-efficient, low-cost business model. In the most recent quarter, Square reported $208 million in loans, up 70% year-over-year.

On top of Square Capital, Reses also runs the company’s HR department, making her one of the most important executives at the company.

Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy

Andy Jassy is the most important person at Amazon not named Jeff Bezos.

It’s because he runs Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s massive cloud computing business that’s on pace to hit $12 billion in annual revenue. AWS is also the most profitable and fastest-growing business at Amazon, and has firmly established itself as the de facto leader in the rapidly growing cloud computing space.

Jassy may be soft-spoken, but without his leadership, AWS may nowhere it is now. It’s no surprise that Bezos gave a big stamp of approval this year, promoting Jassy to CEO of AWS.

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield

Stewart Butterfield continued his hot streak this year, raising another round of funding that valued Slack at $3.8 billion.

The whopping price tag, achieved in less than three years, is a testament to Slack’s crazy growth: the company has four million daily active users and surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue in the summer.

Butterfield is one of the most experienced and likable guys in Silicon Valley. With the company poised to see increased competition, Slack will rely on his leadership even more next year.

Box CEO Aaron Levie

It's been two years since Box went public, and its CEO Aaron Levie is starting to prove a lot of people wrong.

In 2016, Box cracked the $100 million quarterly revenue milestone for the first time, and is now expected to reach ~$400 million in annual revenue. The company has exceeded revenue guidance for eight straight quarters so far, and as promised, has become much more efficient with its spending, inching closer to cash flow positive, as well.

Although Box’s stock is still below its IPO price, Levie is making a lot of smart moves and is turning out to be one of the most promising leaders in the cloud software space.

Salesforce Chief Scientist Richard Socher

Richard Socher shot up to one of the top positions at Salesforce this year after his startup MetaMind was acquired for roughly $30 million in April.

Salesforce named him chief scientist to manage hundreds of its data scientists, while making him lead its new flagship product, Einstein. With Salesforce putting more emphasis on artificial intelligence, Socher will only see his role expand within the company.

Even before joining Salesforce, Socher was already an influential figure in the artificial intelligence space. He still teaches at Stanford, his alma mater where he earned a Ph.D in computer science.

SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin

Jason Lemkin has made a name for himself in the cloud software space, better known as software-as-a-service (SaaS), by actively sharing his knowledge of the business through blog posts and events for years — even earning the nickname the “godfather of SaaS.”

His company, SaaStr.com, has gone from a simple blog to a full-scale event and learning community business. This year, he even launched his own $70 million Saastr fund – a remarkable size given he's the only general partner of the fund.

Lemkin’s blog posts on SaaStr.com have become must-read material for anyone in the space, while his annual SaaStr event is now one of the most important events in cloud software.

Salesforce EVP of corporate development and Salesforce Ventures John Somorjai

Salesforce bought companies at a record pace this year, shelling out roughly $5 billion on acquisitions.

Although Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff may call the final shots, it’s John Somorjai who runs the numbers and makes sure all M&A deals go through smoothly. He’s also in charge of Salesforce Ventures, the company's VC arm that’s become one of the most active corporate VCs in recent years.

With all signs pointing to another active M&A environment in 2017, Somorjai will likely have a busy year again — and his stock at Salesforce will only continue to rise.

Slack VP of Product April Underwood

Slack’s biggest draw may be its easy-to-use messaging app, but the company’s real ambition is to become a broader platform that takes care of workflow and business processes.

That job largely rests on VP of Product April Underwood, who was hired away from Twitter last year.

Underwood has helped Slack launch a new $80 million fund late last year, and saw 6 million app installs on its platform so far. Now, her next big project is to get Slack’s enterprise version out, which has been in the works for the past three years.