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Schmidt was not even on last year's list, but the rise of Google as the dominant internet business has seen him leapfrog luminaries such as Rupert Murdoch - mirroring perhaps Google-owned YouTube's overtaking of Murdoch's MySpace as the net's most popular social site. Indeed YouTube's founders Steven Chen and Chad Hurley debuted at number 14.

Since Schmidt joined Google in 2001 the company has been transformed from the web's leading search engine to be the dominant player in the global online advertising market. And having conquered the web, Google is now expanding its advertising business into TV, print, radio and mobile.

"No wonder everyone else is worried," the Guardian notes.

Jobs in top ten

Murdoch, his son

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James and TV bosses Mark Thompson and Michael Grade complete the top five. Richard Branson is at six, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who counts Schmidt amongst his fellow board members, at seven, though one of the panellists who compiled the list said this could be the year when "we see a lot of reaction against the Apple brand".

That could depend on the success, or otherwise, of the iPhone but as the Guardian says, "Steve Jobs keeps on innovating and the bubble shows no sign of bursting just yet."

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and its CEO Steve Ballmer, fail to register anywhere in the 100, reflecting the extent to which the world's biggest desktop software company has been out-thought and out-manoeuvred by Google in the online space.

And creeping in at number 100 is the online phenomenon of the moment, Facebook. Number 100 is the space reserved for people or phenomena which don't quite fit elsewhere on the list - recent incumbents include ITV Digital's Monkey and the ghost of Lord Reith. Whether Facebook can live longer than ITV Digital remains to be seen.

"Social networks come and go - remember Friendster?" the Guardian asks. "Only time will tell if this latest example is fab or fad.

"We think it's fab but tomorrow we might have got bored of it and signed up somewhere else. Such is the nature of social networking."