This article will be published in the September 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
We reveal the 100 most influential individuals in the wider WIRED world, as nominated by more than 200 people in our network. The only rules for nomination to the WIRED 100 are that the individuals must have a strong European connection, if not a base here; and they are being judged on their influence today, rather than historic achievements or funding raised.
For the WIRED 100, as in each of the past five years, we wanted to identify not success nor wealth, but influence: that special ability to touch the culture, to build scalable success, to connect millions of people. From investors to inventors, engineers to e-commerce innovators, we collated hundreds of suggestions on little paper tabs (paper!) on our office walls, and with the input of the WIRED team put them in order. We excluded anyone from Condé Nast for avoidance of conflict, as well as names not closely linked to Europe.
Check out the full countdown here:
100
Web/Other CEO and CTO, Soundcloud, Berlin
SoundCloud faces tough challenges, from copyright claims to the Apple juggernaut. But what gives its founders influence is their 175m monthly users and their visibility as Berlin's iconic social network. Can they persuade enough fans to pay a fee to put the $123m-funded firm in profit?
99
Web/Social/Politics Artist/writer, London
As both a tech writer and artist, 34-year-old Bridle is politically charged and has an influential following. He's one of the first artists to understand the internet and make politically charged works about it. His Instagram project, Dronestagram, plots aerial photographs of unreported drone-strike locations.
98
Tech/investment Founder, Invoke Capital, London
Mike Lynch's Autonomy was acquired by HP for $11.7bn, before allegations of cooked books (strongly denied) flew and he was sued for $5.1bn. In 2013, he re-emerged with Invoke Capital and invested £12m in cybersecurity startup Darktrace, which combines expertise from Cambridge University, GCHQ, MI5 and the NSA.
97
Other CEO, FanDuel, Edinburgh/New York
Since co-founding FanDuel in 2009 out of Hubdub, a news-prediction startup, Eccles, 40, has seen his fantasy American-football platform expand to host over 30,000 leagues and to secure exclusive rights from the NBA for basketball. In July, a $275 million funding round valued it at more than $1 billion.
96
Web/Retail CEO, Delivery Hero, Berlin
The online food ordering startup operates in 34 markets, with 200,000 restaurants delivering ten million orders a month. In September, the company raised $350m, bringing total investment to more than $1bn since Ostberg, 35, founded it in 2011. Its current valuation is $3 billion. His next step? An IPO.
95
Tech/computing Co-founder, Huddle, California/London
McLoughlin and partner Alastair Mitchell launched their cloud-based co-working software in 2006. By December 2014, with McLoughlin, 36, as executive VP, Huddle was used by 80 per cent of the Fortune 500, and its value was around £1bn. In March he left to work at Silicon Valley VC firm SoftTech.
94
Web Co-founder, Wikipedia, London
The founder and "benevolent dictator" of the web's sixth most popular site has been speaking out against government surveillance and the tech sector's gender gap. As an adopted Londoner, Wales, 48, is also involved with Shoreditch's ventures such as People's Operator, a telco that invests in charities.
93
Investment/gaming Co-chairman, DLD, Tel Aviv
Regarded as the godfather of the Israeli tech scene, Vardi, 73, has founded and invested in tech companies ranging from software to energy production over his 40-plus years in the field. In addition to all this, Vardi is also a regular on the tech circuit, and serves as co-chair of the DLD (Digital-Life-Design) conference.
92
Investment P2P Money-Lending Service, London
In April, Samir Desai's startup closed a £150 million funding round, reflecting its remarkable success in the overcrowded peer-to-peer lending market. Funding Circle now has access to over 38,000 investors, who lent £100m to small businesses in Q1 2015 alone. The company hopes to hit $1bn in loans this year.
91
Tech/Investment/Design Entrepreneur, Istanbul
In May 2014, the 47-year-old Turkish entrepreneur exited his flash-sales site Markafoni. The former European director of M&A for eBay is an angel investor and eco-entrepreneur -- in May his design studio Atölye Labs launched low-carbon brand UNDO Laces. He's a connector in Istanbul's tech scene.
90
Tech/Investment/Politics Founder, Tech London Advocates, London
Shaw, 52, has been pushing for increased broadband speeds, modernised transport infrastructure and more office space for the capital. In February, he hosted the first Tech London Advocates event in New York and urged the UK tech sector to remain politically neutral before the general election.
89
Tech/Other Co-founder, Passion Capital, London
The 44-year-old Burbidge has invested in more than 40 companies, including DueDil, GoCardless and EyeEm, through the VC firm she co-founded. She's interested in cybersecurity, investing privately in secure-messaging app Wickr, and advises London's first cybersecurity accelerator, CyLon.
88
Events/Other CEO, The Futures Agency, Basel
There are hundreds of consultancies that help corporates understand the challenges of a fast-moving world, but few have a client list like Leonhard's. From Google to the European Commission, the 54-year-old futurist has the ear of some of the world's most significant decision makers.
87
Tech/Computing Co-Founders, SwiftKey, London
The predictive-typing app is now on over 200m smartphones. In May 2015, it moved towards monetising its user base by offering personalised keyboard themes. SwiftKey has expanded into the Asian market -- Hindi is available on Android, and there are plans for Japanese too.
86
Tech/Computing Founder, Gleam Futures, London/LA
Smales, 42, is manager to YouTube's superstars. From Zoella to boyfriend Alfie "Pointlessblog" Deyes (3.7m subscribers) he's helping British social-media stars build businesses to match their audiences: from best-selling books (Sugg, Deyes) to make-up (sisters Samantha and Nicola Chapman, Tanya Burr).
85
Social Youtube star, Brighton
The 25-year-old Brightonian -- better known as Zoella -- is the queen of YouTube. She has 8.3m subscribers to her fashion and beauty channel. Her popularity has earned her commercial tie-ins including a make-up range, and her 2014 novel Girl Online -- the first of a two-book deal -- was reportedly the fastest-selling British debut book ever.
84
Other Chief executive, Pinewood Group, Buckinghamshire
Dunleavy, 54, has been chief executive of Pinewood Group since 2000. Spectre, James Bond's 24th iteration, and Lucasfilm's new galactic adventure were both filmed on the lot near Iver, but the group also has studios in Canada, the US, Germany, the Dominican Republic and Malaysia.
83
Social Vine and Snapchat star, New York/France
French-born but NY-based Jarre, 25, has more than 8.5 million followers on Vine -- and over a million more on Snapchat. His charming, six-second comedy videos have been played over a billion times, bringing him a reported six-figure salary and high-profile partnerships, including with Paramount.
82
Politics Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Vatican City
Tighe, a 57-year-old Irishman who's a step or two away from being the online voice of God, manages the Pope's app and Twitter account. In April 2015, Pope Francis appointed him to streamline and modernise the Vatican's comms policy.
81
Investment/Web/Gaming Founder and president, KupiVIP Group; Investor, Moscow
Through Hartmann Holdings -- his family-owned investment vehicle -- the 32-year-old launched ShoppingLive, Sapato.ru, FastLane, SIMILE Ventures, CarPrice and Zaodno. His fashion site KupiVIP dominates the local market -- in April it purchased Sapato.ru, the Zappos clone.
80
Investment/Gaming COO, Super Evil Megacorp, California/Finland
Since selling his game-dev company, Playfish, to EA for $300m in 2009, he, 38, has focused on bringing multiplayer online battle arena games to tablets. Now COO at developer Super Evil Megacorp, he oversaw the release of the company's inaugural game, Vainglory.
79
Tech/Web/Computing Founder and CEO, Sigfox, Toulouse
As CEO of Sigfox, a wireless network used for machine-to-machine communication and the internet of things, Le Moan, 52, raised $115 million in February in what was at the time the biggest funding round in French history. The cash will be used to build a network in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
78
Social Model/actress, London
Of all Instagram's European users, only Cristiano Ronaldo has more followers. The 22-year-old has amassed over 13.2 million followers. A single shot will often break 600,000 likes -- few in fashion wield as much brand power as her. Next, she's looking towards Hollywood with a role in DC Comics' hotly anticipated Suicide Squad.
77
Investment Founder, The Collective Elevator, London
As the EU Commission's inaugural entrepreneur-in-residence, Sriskandarajah, 28, advised Brussels on startups. Now managing director of incubator-cum-workspace The Collective Elevator, he picks promising startups aimed at 25-to-35-year-olds.
76
Tech/Investment Founder, TheFamily, Paris
In March, French paper Le Parisien named Zagury, 30, the most influential "entrepreneuse" in Paris. The CEO and co-founder of accelerator TheFamily supports 270 startups and opened an office in London in May. Facebook announced it will offer mobile services associated with one TheFamily startup.
75
Investment Investor, Roving
A serial entrepreneur and super angel, France's Grinda, 41, has invested in stellar companies such as Alibaba, Delivery Hero and Uber, and is active from Bucharest and Paris to New York. He has made over 170 investments since 2009; exits amount to more than $300m. This year, his AngelList syndicate financed the apps Home61 and Recarga.
74
Tech/Events Founder, SIME, Stockholm
Although Stockholm's punchiest serial entrepreneur -- Ahlvarsson, 45, is a former world kickboxing champion -- has a wide portfolio, including his consultancy, Result, Star Stable Entertainment and workspace hub Epicenter, it's his well-attended SIME conferences that give him global clout.
73
Tech/Computing Artistic director, Ars Electronica, Linz
As artistic director of the Ars Electronica Center, 51-year-old Gerfried Stocker curates the future, working with innovators and "conceptioneers" to reimagine what happens when art and tech interact. The Center's Spaxels installation stole the show at Eurovision with only 30 seconds of airtime.
72
Tech/Computing CEO, Withings, Paris
A pioneer of connected health, Hutchings, 39, is behind Withings' activity-tracking wearable Activité as well as its cheaper, more colourful younger brother, the Activité Pop. The Pop was announced at CES in January and claims an eight-month battery life, a feature the French entrepreneur says defines a "true wearable" -- disqualifying smartwatches from the category. The company is a European leader in connected devices.
71
Retail/Web Founder and CEO, Lyst, London
The British entrepreneur raised $40m in a series C round for his e-commerce platform in April 2015 and plans to use the investment to take the company worldwide. The revenue of his Hoxton-based company has tripled year-on-year for the past three years -- in April 2015 sales reached £98 million.
70
Tech/Gaming
COO, Mojang, Stockholm
The former documentary film-maker, 38, is producing the upcoming live-action Minecraft movie while heading up the game's growing focus on real-world interventions. He's in our list in place of Notch who, since Microsoft's buyout of Minecraft, has been focusing on enjoying Beverly Hills life.
69
Web/Other Co-founder and CEO, Outbrain, Tel Aviv and New York
The native-advertising entrepreneur, 44, sold three businesses before launching content-recommendation service Outbrain in 2006. With 25 per cent of the market share -- way ahead of Yahoo! and AOL's competing services -- the plan is for a $1 billion IPO this year.
68
Politics Minister for Digital Affairs, Paris
Lemaire, 40, was appointed French minister for digital affairs in April 2014. Since then she has been fighting to have net neutrality included in French law. She has also started a €15m initiative to promote French entrepreneurs abroad, creating hubs for French tech in Boston and San Francisco.
67
Tech/Web Co-founder and CEO, Criteo, Paris
Founded in 2005, Criteo continues to make big money from personally targeted online advertising. The company, a standout French tech success, recently posted profits of €77.6m (£56.2m). Rudelle, 45, says the success was down to selling ads based on results, not eyeballs.
66
Telecoms/Apps Co-founder, Truecaller, Stockholm
Mamedi is the 31-year-old CEO and co-founder of Truecaller, a phonebook app that identifies callers via a crowdsourced database. The platform has over 100 million users and is installed on Nokia/Microsoft, Alcatel, Lenovo and LG phones. An agreement with Cyanogen means it'll be integrated into Android OS.
65
Web/Other Founder, Tech.eu, Brussels
Wauters, 34, is a seasoned European tech journalist and founder of Tech.eu -- launched with seed funding from angel investors including Dave McClure's 500 Startups. It offers data-based analysis, insights and research into the European tech industry. Since May, he's been advising the Belgian government.
64
Web/Other CEO, Axel Springer, Berlin
The CEO of Germany's largest multimedia publisher doesn't mind a scrap. In 2014, Döpfner, 52, sent an open letter to Eric Schmidt criticising Google's dominance of search. Recent investments in Blendle, a site that lets users pay for articles, and Business Insider underline his ambition.
63
Tech/Investment/Web/Apps Founder, Jaïna Capital, Paris
In 2015, Simoncini, 52, was ranked the third most active business angel in France in a survey by crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. He has made 23 investments since 2009 amounting to €12 million. After selling his online-dating company Meetic, he launched a film production company, Reborn.
62
Tech/Computing Co-founder and director, Amadeus Capital, Cambridge
A pioneer of home computing in the UK, Hauser was awarded an honorary knighthood in March 2015. Now the 66-year-old is taking entrepreneurship back to his native Austria: his Alpbach Summer School for Entrepreneurs aims to teach PhDs how to commercialise their ideas.
61
Telecoms CEO, Telenor, Fornebu
Nortel might just be the biggest teleco you've never heard of. Led by Baksaas, 60, the company (majority-owned by the Norwegian government) is investing heavily in developing countries such as Thailand and Pakistan. It amassed 26 million new customers in Q1 of 2015. Revenues in 2014 were £8.8bn.
60
Investment Investor, Roving
Chen, ubiquitous at European tech events, is a partner of Ceyuan Ventures, an early-stage VC fund in Beijing, founded in 2004, as well as MD of Yifei Investment Holdings. His expertise is in cross-border tech and media investments. He has invested in startups such as onefinestay, Sofar Sounds, FishBrain and Seedcamp.
59
Design Architect, London
In the decade since Hadid, 64, became the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, she has brought her project total close to 1,000, including the World Cup stadium in Qatar and a new parliament for her place of birth, Baghdad. Hadid's fluid designs helped her firm be named International Practice of the Year by Architects' Journal.
58
Web/Tech/Other Editor-at-large, Techcrunch, London
He continues to be ubiquitous on the conference circuit, and startups travel far to compete for £30,000 and a TechCrunch write-up at the site's London event, Disrupt. The startup workspace he co-founded, TechHub, launched its eighth location, in Madrid, in June.
57
Web/Other Chairman, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, Stuttgart
The 52-year-old's plan to move the family firm away from its newspaper business included a merger between Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's Macmillan Science and Education division and Springer Science & Business Media.
56
Design/Other Founder and CEO, PCH International, Cork/Shenzhen/US
Liam Casey's PCH International employs more than 25,000 staff in Asia to make hardware for everyone from startups to Philippe Starck and Apple. Casey, 49, plans to open up access to his production resources and create what he calls a "Netflix for high-end design".
55
Investment Venture capital, London and Munich
Wellington Partners is a pan-European venture capital firm with deep reach into the US and Asia. With more than £572m under management -- with an emphasis on life sciences -- the team's portfolio includes Hailo, Spotify and Dropbox. Recent investments include Mapillary and YOU-app.
54
Investment Founder, Lakestar, Zurich
With Facebook, Airbnb and Spotify in his portfolio, Hommels is one of the most discerning investors. In the past year, the 48-year-old has focused on the German on-demand economy, with investments in Marley Spoon (the new venture of the former CEO of Delivery Hero, Fabian Siegel) and cleaning service Helpling.
53
Web/Retail Founder and CEO, Farfetch, London
After working in retail for 15 years, Neves, 41, launched fashion retailer Farfetch, an e-commerce platform that represents more than 300 brands, in 2008. In March 2015 he raised £56 million in an E round of funding that valued the company at $1bn. [Condé Nast, which publishes WIRED, has invested in Farfetch.]
52
Events/Design Co-director, Serpentine Gallery, London
The Swiss art curator tries to get five hours' sleep a night, but often fails. His relentless travelling ensures the Serpentine Gallery is always at the head of conceptual creativity. The web hasn't killed art, 47-year-old Obrist argues, but rather increased interest in it.
51
Other Founder, Runway East/Ice/Faction Skis, London
Serial entrepreneur Hoye, 46, brings people together. In 2009 he co-founded ICE, a network of startup entrepreneurs. In 2014, he established Runway East, a co-working community of startups in London's Old Street. It houses more than 100 tenants, from IndieGoGo to Grabble.
50
Web/Politics Advocate peer, London
The former Lastminute.com exec has been on a roll since she sold up for £577m in 2005: becoming Open University chancellor, giving this year’s Richard Dimbleby Lecture, chairing Go ON UK, and being on the boards of Marks & Spencer and Channel 4. Plus, she is waking up the House of Lords.
You can read a full in-depth profile of Martha Lane Fox here
49
Other Blablacar, Paris
BlaBlaCar has a community of 20 million users, making it the world leader in long-distance ride sharing. Last year, it raised $100 million in a funding round led by Index Ventures. Over 12 months, it has launched in several markets: Turkey, India, Hungary, Romania, Croatia and Serbia, and in Mexico after acquiring competitor Rides.
You can read a full in-depth profile of Frédéric Mazzella here
48
Other President, ETH Zurich
In January, thermotronics professor Lino Guzzella, 57, took office as president of ETH Zurich -- the top university in mainland Europe, with 21 Nobel Laureates associated with it. The university, which has an endowment of 1.5 billion CHF (£1 billion), has spun out more than 300 startups since 1996, including 22 in 2014 alone.
47
Web/Other Co-founder, Klarna, Stockholm
The online-payments provider is one of a rising number of European startups valued at over $1 billion. Siemiatkowski, 33, expanded Klarna into the UK and the US in 2014. In 2015, he plans to expand from payments into payment systems for news articles and public transport.
46
Gaming/Apps Chairman, Rovio, Helsinki
The father of Rovio's ex-CEO Mikael Hed -- who left the company at about the time that the profits began to fall -- Kaj owns almost 70 per cent of its equity. Kaj, 60, continues to be an active investor in Nordic startups via his new venture fund MOOR Capital, which launched back in May 2013.
45
Retail Founders, Transferwise, London
Estonians Käärmann, 35, and Hinrikus, 34, started the peer-to-peer money-transfer startup TransferWise in 2011. It claims to have saved users £135 million in fees and is a powerful symbol of how fintech startups disrupt banking. The $1bn company has 300 employees.
44
Events European director, TED; Le Forum des 100, Geneva
As European director of TED, Giussani, 51, has one of the most impressive contacts books in the world of ideas. He has curated and hosted the TED University programme and the TEDGlobal conference, and is the man to impress if you want your 18 minutes of fame.
43
Tech/Computing Chairman, Nokia, Helsinki
When Nokia sold its mobile division to Microsoft in April 2014, Risto Siilasmaa saw an opportunity: the 49-year-old chairman of Nokia's board is currently overseeing a €15.6 billion (£11.2 billion) deal to buy French rival Alcatel-Lucent, showing doubters that Nokia is still, despite everything, a major player.
42
Events Convenor, Pitch@Palace, London
Even as his PR team was denying historical allegations about his personal life, the duke, 55, was reinventing himself as a startup supporter. His three Pitch@Palace events have brought hundreds of top-grade investors to St James's Palace to hear pitches from startups from across the UK.
41
Tech/Gaming/Design CEO, Lego, Billund
In the decade since Knudstorp, 46, joined LEGO, he has pulled it from a company on the brink of bankruptcy to one with revenues of £2.7bn. The former McKinsey consultant launched a programme to hire LEGO fans as designers. The LEGO Movie and Minecraft competitor LEGO Worlds paid off hugely.
40
Tech/Computing Founder, Raspberry Pi foundation, Cambridge
When Upton, 37, launched his credit-card-sized Raspberry Pi computer in 2012, he hoped to teach kids programming skills and dreamed of selling 10,000. By February 2015, the company had sold five million units. Recent school curriculum changes have placed the Pi at the forefront of ICT in British schools.
39
Telecoms/Apps Vice-president, iTunes International, London
Music sales on iTunes declined significantly in 2014 (hence the firm's investment in Apple Music) yet the platform generated $10.2 billion in net sales in 2014, up from $9.3 billion, and still dominates the global market. Schusser is responsible for all iTunes business outside the US, including fast-growing Asia.
36
Web/Retail/Apps Founder, Yoox, Milan
The 46-year-old CEO of luxury e-commerce platform Yoox pulled off an all-share deal takeover of his largest rival Net-A-Porter in April -- creating the world's largest online luxury retailer, valued at €3.12bn. The company was founded on his negotiating with high-end fashion brands to sell at discount prices.
35
Tech/Investment Venture capital, London
The London-based investors -- already one of Europe's biggest tech venture firms, with around $2.3 billion of assets under management -- is looking towards Europe from its new base in Kings Cross, with a round of hiring for an office in Paris. It has been part of rounds in 3D Hubs and Lyst and backed Kobalt early on.
34
Web/Social/Retail Founders, Stripe, California/Limerick
Patrick, 26, and John, 24, usurped Amazon when Kickstarter ditched the retail giant for their Stripe payments system in 2015. Backed by Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, the company has soared to a reported $5 billion valuation. When you press "Buy" on social media, you're probably using it.
33
Investment Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Anthemis, Geneva
Park's investment firm focuses on startups disrupting financial services through technology. Companies invested in include Betfair, Zoopla and Simple. Park, 46, launched the Anthemis Fellowship programme in 2015, whereby three fellows will be placed across portfolio companies.
32
Retail/Apps/Events Slush, Helsinki
As CEO, Kuusi spent 2011 to 2014 leading Slush's growth from a local, 150-person conference to a global event, attracting 14,000 delegates from 79 countries. Kuusi stepped down in 2014 to launch his own startup, the fledgling food-payments app Wolt, with $500,000 seed funding led by Inventure.
You can read a full in-depth profile of Miki Kuusi here
31
Web/Other CEO, Reed Elsevier, London and Amsterdam
Engstrom, a 52-year-old Swede, is CEO of Reed Elsevier, the Anglo-Dutch multinational publisher and information provider operating in the science, tech and medical sectors. Under Engstrom, it has transformed from a trad print-publication and events company to a digital information business.
30
Events Co-founder, DLD, Munich
The 61-year-old former journalist and founder of Europe's most influential tech conference, Burda's DLD, is securing a foothold in the US – the second DLD NYC took place in May 2015, joining the DLDsummer conference, DLD Tel Aviv Festival, DLD Moscow and DLDcities in Burda's portfolio.
29
Tech/Investment Angel investor, Cambridge
The Canadian expat, 51, is on the advisory board of LinkedIn, a non-exec at the London Stock Exchange and Cambridge University, and has backed Zoopla, LoveFilm and YPlan. She runs Silicon Valley Comes to the UK and Founders4Schools, which gets entrepreneurs speaking in classrooms.
28
Web/Retail Chairman, Yoox Net-a-Porter Group, London
The Richemont Group's sale of Net-A-Porter to Federico Marchetti's Yoox Group means that, while Massenet is chairman to Marchetti's CEO, the 50-year-old founder of the company is now part of the world's largest online luxury-goods business, valued at €3.12bn. In May 2015, Net-A-Porter launched The Net Set app.
27
Retail/Tech Founder, Just Eat, Marbella
In April 2014, the food-delivery startup debuted on the London Stock Exchange at a valuation of £1.47 billion. Buch, the platform's 40-year-old Danish founder, is an active angel investor -- in 2014, he was involved in seven series A fundings, two series B and a series C. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.
26
Tech/Web/Politics Eu Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Brussels
The EU is taking the fight to the world's biggest internet firms -- and Oettinger is its warrior. Less than six months after taking office, 61-year-old Oettinger announced plans to create a "digital single market", a strategy covering everything from online retail to broadband.
25
Tech/Investment/Web Co-founder, Yandex, Moscow
In Russia you don't Google, you Yandex. The search engine is responsible for 57 per cent of all Russian search-engine traffic, leaving Google in second place on 34 per cent. Volozh, 51, who founded the company in 1997 and remains its largest individual shareholder, has a net worth of over $1.7bn.
24
Web/Politics Minister for Internet Safety and Security, London
After two and a half years as the head of Tech City and David Cameron's digital adviser, Baroness Shields, 53, had returned to the private sector. However, post-election, her friend the Prime Minister has promoted her to a role as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State.
23
Investment Venture capital, London
The company's recent $10 million fund with Shenzhen-based UAV maker DJI underlines Accel's reputation for strategic investment in emerging markets. Renowned for its early backing of Facebook, it led the B round of French ridesharing startup BlaBlaCar, which is now valued at $1 billion.
22
Gaming Co-founder and CEO, Supercell, Helsinki
Mobile gaming is booming and 37-year-old Paananen's company, now 73 per cent owned by Softbank, is leading the way with its tablet-based products. In 2014, the company generated $1.7 billion in revenue with three blockbuster games: Clash of Clans, Hay Day and Boom Beach.
21
Web/Politics European Union Data Protection Supervisor, Brussels
Watch out, tech giants: the 58-year-old Italian judge was appointed to lead the EU's data-protection organisation in December last year -- just as the EU began to redraft its rules. He has stated his commitment to innovation, but also said that "big data requires big data protection".
20
Tech/Social Co-founder, Founders Forum, London
Hoberman's Founders Forum is a key European networking gathering. Hoberman, 46, was awarded a CBE last year and helped get tech entrepreneurs behind the Conservative party. In April he launched the F Factor, a competition offering 14- to 25-year-olds the chance to win £10,000 for a business idea.
19
Investment Venture capital, London
Index has made investments in some of the biggest names in tech, including BlaBlaCar and Etsy, and is looking towards a mobile-first world with a new $400m smartphone-focused fund. In 2013, only two Silicon Valley competitors had an equal or better performance on billion-dollar exits.
18
Events CEO, Web Summit, Dublin
In November 2014, Dublin's Web Summit, which Cosgrave, 31, co-founded in 2010, registered more than 22,000 attendees. In 2015, Cosgrave further expanded it with the launch of sister events in Hong Kong and Las Vegas and an event about finance in Belfast in June 2015. His speakers have included Bono and Eva Longoria.
17
Social/Gaming Founder and CEO, King Digital Entertainment, London
Over the last 12 months, 48-year-old Zacconi has steered Candy Crush makers King through a tepid IPO and back into investors' hearts. Though first-quarter results were not as strong as a year earlier, the $604 million profit was still a three per cent increase on the previous three months.
16
Other Director, Wellcome Trust, London
Under 53-year-old Farrar, an infectious-diseases expert, the trust will spend more than £800m advancing medical research in 2015, putting it behind only the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The trust is a founding partner of the Francis Crick Institute for biomedical research, about to open in St Pancras.
15
Investment Ventures Europe Investor, London
In February 2015, Google Ventures' European arm made its first investment -- leading a $60 million round in Kobalt, the UK firm that ensures songwriters get money from streaming. The European VC team has $125m to invest, so its partners -- including Tom Hulme and Avid Larizadeh -- get their calls returned.
14
Computing/Tech CEO, ARM, Cambridge
ARMprocessors power almost every smartphone -- but CEO Segars, 47, wants to take on malnutrition and disease. He has backed projects in STEM education, and is working with UNICEF to bring the benefits of wearable tech to children across the globe. But it's the £16.6bn company's consumer tech that gives him his influence.
13
Investment Founder, Mail.ru; investor, Moscow/California
The 53-year-old Russian VC travels 200 days a year to meet the founders of the companies he invests in, a portfolio that includes WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Alibaba. In 2015, his fund DST Global was involved in a $400m investment in India ride-sharing startup Ola Cabs.
12
Web/Retail CEO, Adyen, Amsterdam
Van der Does, 45, is the co-founder, CEO and president of Adyen, which he launched in 2006. It handles 187 currencies for 3,500 firms across the world, including Facebook, Dropbox, Airbnb, Netflix, Spotify and Groupon. At the end of 2014, Van der Does raised $250 million, which values the company at $1.5 billion.
You can read a full profile of Pieter Van der Does here
11
Web/Social/Design Director of Global Platform Partnerships, Facebook, London
Codorniou, 36, oversees the apps in the social network, a role that has significant influence on their success. His attention has been on developers outside Silicon Valley, such as the Beijing-based caricature app MomentCam, which won Facebook's first FbStart app competition in March 2015.
10
Web Google president of EMEA business and operations, London
Former Olympic rower Brittin, 46, joined Google as head of direct sales in the UK in 2007. In February, he was promoted to VP responsible for its EMEA business and operations. He has already announced an investment of $25 million to teach digital skills to a million people by 2016.
9
Apps Founder, Spotify, Stockholm
Ek has revamped Spotify (again) over the past year. Now the music-streaming platform hosts podcasts and videos from renowned media partners including Vice and MTV. And the new Spotify app adjusts the beat of your playlist to your running. But can the 32-year-old survive a new assault from Apple?
8
Design Designers, London and Copenhagen
Heatherwick's work with Denmark's Ingels, 40, on Google's new US HQ is exciting the Valley's power brokers. Even scaled back from its original plans, their proposed Googleplex will comprise 55,277m2 of flexible, translucent canopies.
7
Tech/Telecoms Founder, Free/42, Paris
Niel's influence in France is second to none: the 47-year-old is the founder of one of the country's leading ISP and mobile operators, Free, and co-owner of Le Monde. He's launched tech college 42, which aims to produce 60 graduates a year. The mission continues: in 2016, he'll unveil 1000 START-UPS, the largest ever digital-business incubator.
6
Apps General Manager UK, Ireland & Nordics, Uber, London
Bertram, 32, is behind Uber's successful expansion to London, a city that Travis Kalanick, Uber's CEO, described as the "Champions League of transportation": the taxi firm provides over a million rides a month there. She now has to tackle allegations of tax avoidance.
5
Tech/Other Facebook vice president for EMEA, London
Mobile is the main priority for Mendelsohn, 44. Facebook now has more than 100 million users in Africa alone, 80 per cent accessing the social network on mobile devices. Its internet.org project, which in the past year was launched in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia, is driving much of that growth.
4
Web/Other CEO, WPP, London
Sorrell's salary became news in 2014 when it was revealed the 70-year-old's compensation was £43 million -- the highest amount of any FTSE 100 company CEO by far. Since then, WPP has bolstered its position as the largest advertising group in the world by continuing to make acquistions. And Sorrell does have 179,000 staff.
3
Politics Eu Commissioner for Competition, Brussels
In April 2015, Vestager, 47, filed a complaint against Google for anti-competitive behaviour. It was the result of a five-year investigation initiated by Vestager's predecessor, Joaquín Almunia, after Microsoft and other companies first made antitrust allegations. Can she tame the giant?
2
Tech/Computing/Design Chief Design Officer, Apple, California/UK
Apple's emphasis on the design and feel of its products puts Ive's role on a par with CEO Tim Cook's. The 48-year-old is considered the world's most high-profile designer of hardware and software. That doesn't stop him quietly returning to the UK, most recently for Goodwood's cars.
Turn to the next page to find out who's topped the list in the The 2015 WIRED 100...
1
Investment/Web/Apps CEO, Rocket Internet, Berlin
Oliver Samwer is determinedly telling WIRED why the 33,000 employees in Rocket Internet's 30 companies across 110 countries are but a pixel on a spreadsheet of his ultimate ambitions. "I hope in ten years when we achieve 250,000 employees that I'm going to say the goal is one million, ja?" the 42-year-old CEO of Berlin's Rocket Internet startup machine says in a machine-gun-fire response when your correspondent manages to corner him in Berlin. "You plant seeds. You already know you have, say, 3,500 people in Africa. Will you have in ten years 10,000? No way. There will be maybe 40,000 people."
Samwer does not make time for journalists – his response when WIRED requested an interview was curt: "As you know we focus all of our time on building great companies. Unfortunately I am too much working currently [sic] and need to focus." When we persuaded his team that, as the individual nominated by our network as the single most influential European in WIRED's annual list, he should at least accede to a photograph, he reluctantly granted a (repeatedly rescheduled) nine-minute cover shoot. So the odds are low, when WIRED arrives at the Noah conference in Berlin in mid-June, that Samwer, scheduled to give a late-afternoon keynote, will be available to answer questions about his extraordinary, hyper-scaling, systematised, controversy-generating company-building empire. But then a strange thing happens. A speculative text message leads to a phone call and then a two-minute warning that Samwer is after all available to meet WIRED. And he's ready to clarify a few popular misconceptions about his business. "Our company is built on very simplistic virtues," Samwer begins, a Rocket media handler looking on in an otherwise empty VIP tent. "We had success because we worked very hard, because we tried to grow more global faster, because we tried to run faster, because we tried to think ten per cent smarter." When he and his brothers Marc and Alexander began exploring online businesses in California back in 1994, you had to be "an Einstein" to be part of the internet revolution. "But we stand for the type of analytical entrepreneur who could have been a lawyer, could have been working for a big company if he hadn't started an internet company. Maybe [we should demolish] the myth of internet building -- it's also something that relatively normal people can achieve with relative success."
The sons of two Cologne lawyers, the Samwer brothers returned from their Silicon Valley sojourn ready to bring West Coast business models to Europe much faster than their originators. In 1999 they launched a German eBay-like auction business called Alando, which they famously sold to eBay for $50 million (£30m) within 100 days of its going live. They launched a Facebook-ish social network called StudiVZ in 2005, which Holtzbrinck Ventures bought two years later for $85 million. Soon they were gaining a reputation for cloning Pinterest (as Pinspire), YouTube (MyVideo), Twitter (Frazr), Airbnb (Wimdu), Groupon (CityDeal) and Birchbox (Glossybox). By the time this magazine covered their parent business, Rocket Internet, as "the clone factory" in 2012, Oliver Samwer had gained a reputation as a ruthless, if sometimes insensitively brash, CEO: his image had not been burnished by an email he had sent some lieutenants the previous October headed "when is it time for blitzkrieg". "I will die to win and I expect the same from you," he told staff building an international furniture business. "The time for the blitzkrieg must be chosen wisely, so each country tells me with blood when it is time. I am ready – anytime! I do not accept surprises. I want this plan confirmed by all three of you: you must sign it with your blood."
That, though, was before Rocket became respectable: when it announced its intention in September 2014 to float on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Samwer sent a more measured email to all staff explaining his mission to build "one of the world's greatest internet companies". "For Rocket, being global is the big prize," he wrote. "Innovation never stops... we must win. To lead in our industries we have to innovate every day in providing the best services for our customers... Our strength is not in any single company or country. Our unique power is being the platform that brings it all together, and makes all the individual businesses possible. And the power of this platform is just getting started."
The IPO on October 2, 2014, raised €1.6 billion (£1.1bn), and made the Samwer brothers billionaires; now the business is finalising a move to a new 22,000m2 HQ building in Berlin's Kreuzberg district overlooking Checkpoint Charlie, from where it will be the "platform" that links companies such as HelloFresh and Foodpanda in food, Dafiti and Lamoda in fashion, Lazada and Linio in e-commerce, and Westwing and Home24 in home and living.
Rocket's website declares its mission as "to become the world's largest internet platform outside the United States and China" -- yet there was never any grand plan, nor any particular vision, Samwer says. "We didn't have that vision. This entire word 'vision' always sounds very far away. When I hear, 'What's your vision, what's your misison, what's your strategy?' -- I think for us basically we would like to be very successful entrepreneurs in the internet space and have a very big impact on lots of people and markets and countries. With Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma, I think they never expected to be that big either." As he told WIRED three years ago: "We are builders of companies, we are not innovators."
So he's not particularly bothered by the accusations of cloning others' original ideas. "Even Edison said [success was] 99 per cent perspiration, one per cent inspiration," he says now. "Are you really sure that of all the supermarkets in the UK, they all invented the same? I've never read a story that Tesco is the clone of Asda. Everyone has the chance to pick up ideas – and most people don't pick up. It's the difference between waking up -- which is easy -- and getting up, which is difficult. Your children have no problems to wake up. It's harder to make your children get up."
Oliver Samwer speaks quickly and firmly, and offers few opportunities for interruptions. "I would have an easier life if it was all easy?" he continues. "It's damned difficult. Would I love to be the very first ever in the world with an idea? Yes, maybe. Do I lose sleep over it? No. I like what I'm doing. We try to build successful companies that are sustainable, that are market leaders, that provide great service to customers. Maybe one day people will write, 'He didn't invent many companies, but he invented one,' and maybe the business model of Rocket will be one day be declared pioneering, an original idea."
In aiming to be "the home screen of the world", Rocket's original idea is to identify, then build, then scale businesses in e-commerce, marketplaces, finance-tech and travel more quickly and aggressively than anyone else. It divides the businesses it launches (or invests in) into "proven winners" -- such as fashion retailer Lamoda and home-interiors business Westwing; "emerging stars" -- payment gateway Paymill and home-cleaning firm Helpling; and "concepts" -- laundry service ZipJet and carpool platform Tripda. It has "Regional Internet Groups" in Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East to take a new business quickly into any territory where Berlin sees the numbers working.
Rocket gives you access to a network of experts, help in setting and scaling up the business, and access to capital," says Stefan Smalla, co-founder of interiors- commerce business Westwing in his Munich office. "That makes them great investors. It's not this romantic game building e-commerce – it's super expensive, and you need a boatload of capital to get it going." In four years, Rocket has helped Westwing scale to 15 countries from Brazil to Kazakhstan, with 1,600 employees and, as of 2014, €183m in revenue, growing at 66 per cent year on year. Part of the benefit is the centralisation of best practice: "We were looking at rolling out HR software, so we contacted Rocket, and got access to a few benchmarks of good products," Smalla says. "There are email lists such as CTO @ Rocket, product @ Rocket -- experts who run stuff across the Rocket portfolio, who can help."
Very often, Rocket will develop a business model internally and then go on to recruit its founders, typically management consultants such as Paul Philipp Hermann, formerly of the Boston Consulting Group and now co-founder of real-estate-listings business Lamudi. "I had the advantage of [launching with] a proven business model, of having a lot of help with fundraising, and lots of contacts," Hermann says. "We launched in late 2013 and are currently in 33 countries -- last January we were launching a new country every two weeks. They take a lot of the risks out – and provide an environment where you can thrive and learn. We have regular calls with Oli -- we go through our numbers, our KPIs, our planned strategy – and we meet four times a year in the office to go through things in more detail. You do realise it's not 100 per cent your company -- but then again, if I had launched alone, I'd be in a ten-person startup, scared of running out of cash tomorrow. Rocket gives you an unfair advantage."
One criticism often made of the Samwers is that businesses are structured so as to minimise the founders' upside, thereby hindering the growth of an ecosystem where wealthy founders re-invest. Samwer naturally disputes this. "Nobody created as many millionaires outside the US and China as us. Maybe we didn't create multibillionaires yet, but let's look at how many multibillionaires there are anyway in non-US and non-China tech. Microsoft was once a millionaire factory. We're not a factory yet, but we've filled several school classes, and there are multimillionaires and also multi-hundred millionaires there."
Increasingly, prospective founders are responding to the benefits of being inside the machine. "In Germany you really need it because the culture is so antagonistic to startups that a factory approach makes such a difference," according to Christian Grobe, who went from McKinsey to co-founding peer-to-peer lending business Zencap. "A lot of our McKinsey friends don't think about going to big companies like Mercedes now – they want to launch a startup in Berlin with Rocket. The downside is that you're expected to deliver your numbers from day one. There's no trying-out period."
Samwer is blunt, too, about his mistakes. "I invested in Facebook at $15bn and sold it at $15.5 because I was scared," he tells Marco Rodzynek on stage at Noah. "I missed the chance to invest in Delivery Hero at $10m; the list is very long." He also pulled out of Turkey after losing money in a series of businesses. "I don't regret it. You learn. There's no transformation if you don't try. In the same year we entered 27 markets; yes, Turkey didn't work, but 26 worked. I'm so focused on what's next I can't start crying at the past. "The most important thing is that you chose the right business model. Then it's all about being number one in this business. You'll have a period when you'll have substantial significant losses as you build enough of a critical distance from number two, three, four. Being number one and giving everything to become that is very important. It's speed, but also the detail, the focus on the operations, the loyalty of the customers. It comes down to the normal virtues – hard work, thinking a little faster, smarter, going more international, and being a little braver and luckier."
And his founders know he won't give them any slack. "Oli's passionate, no bullshit, straight to the point," says Christian Grobe. Paul Philipp Hermann agrees: "I've never seen someone more passionate about what he's doing. He really, really wants to succeed in whatever he does. He schedules 12-hour phone sessions when he has companies on the call for 20 minutes one after the other. Who does that?"
"He's driven, loyal, aggressive, but he honours people who do good," says Paymill's Mark Henkel. "In Europe, in my eyes, Oliver Samwer is the internet: I guess that drives you. He's also someone who fears failing. I don't think what drives him is money.
He wants to prove that this company is a real company."
At Noah, Samwer likens himself simply to a baker. "I bake a cake out of three things: ideas, people and capital. I do that every day, and there's always a shortage of one."
So what are his remaining ambitions? "We would like to be involved in many, many of the winners in Europe, Latin America, Russia, South Asia, India, Australia, the Middle East and Africa," he says without pause. "I'm now 42; I've got quite a few years still to go. When I look at [Rupert] Murdoch, when I look at [SoftBank's] Masa Son in Japan, who has a 300-year business plan -- I'll be in this business for my whole lifetime. That means still many years to come. I want to sit here in five, ten, 25 years -- and hopefully we'll be a lot bigger."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
