hehe found this pretty interesting on cnn.com. it's a list of 10 people who don't matter after cnn has selected 50 people who influenced the world the most. i only copied and pasted some that i found funny and that cmu students, or i should say CS majors in particular, would prob disagree with. diana, i guess u can tell us if the first one is true or not

Let's face it: The head of the world's biggest software company is a lame duck. Sure, Microsoft's board still backs Ballmer as CEO, and he still has a core of loyal executives within the company. But with longtime partner Bill Gates stepping away from his day-to-day role to focus on saving the world, and Ray Ozzie playing the role of resident visionary, the CEO job just won't be as much fun. And with employees and investors still in a froth over the company's low share price, it will be increasingly tempting for Ballmer to follow Bill's lead, and make boosting the shares someone else's problem.

Three years ago, he likely would have been near the top of our "50 Who Matter" list. And even now, we still feel a little twinkle of joy each time a Netflix DVD arrives in our mailboxes. Yet despite our deep affection for the company, its raison d'etre itself - the DVD - seems destined for the endangered species list. It's simply not clear that anything Hastings has built will give him much of a leg up as the industry shifts toward video-on-demand and other forms of digital distribution. Hastings has created an amazing system for shuffling around 120mm plastic discs, but online rivals such as iTunes and MovieLink seem to have the momentum as we head into the future.

Sun's newly appointed CEO is full of ideas - some of which he airs on his blog - and he's making much-needed cuts in the company's bubble-bloated workforce. But none of that will be enough to change the underlying dynamic: Sun's server business has become a commodity, and the company is not making enough money from software like Java to supplement its shrinking hardware profit margins. Schwartz's latest push - more energy-efficient servers - is rapidly being copied by other computer makers. Sun has always dared to be different, but soon it will have to join the rest of the industry and start making some money too.

It's a testament to the success of Torvalds's open-source ideas that he's on this list at all. His Linux operating system is fast, cheap, and out of control - and that's entirely by design. While Torvalds still oversees any changes made to the innermost core of Linux, most of the innovation is now done by others, and commercial businesses like Red Hat and Novell increasingly steer its future. Although he can claim credit for popularizing one of the most powerful ideas ever to sweep through the software industry, Torvalds's project has matured to such an extent that it's largely outgrown its illustrious creator.

In entrepreneurship, timing is everything. So we'll give Zuckerberg credit for launching his online social directory for college students just as the social-networking craze was getting underway. He also built it right, quickly making Facebook one of the most popular social-networking sites on the Net. But there's also something to be said for knowing when to take the money and run. Last spring, Facebook reportedly turned down a $750 million buyout offer, holding out instead for as much as $2 billion. Bad move. After selling itself to Rupert Murdoch's Fox for $580 million last year, MySpace is now the Web's second most popular website. Facebook is growing too - but given that MySpace has quickly grown into the industry's 80-million-user gorilla, it's hard to imagine who would pay billions for an also-ran.

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gonna go to NYC from 6/30 to 7/2 with family and hopefully meet up with a bunch of people ^^ let us know if u're gonna be around so we'll include u in our mailing list haha. alan will spam u while he's at work