Herb Allen

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE: His New York investment-banking firm spends an estimated $10 million staging its famed annual five-day retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho. While Herb, 68, is tightly bonded with the top players, his son Herbert Allen III, 41, cultivates the younger, up-and-comer attendees from new-media start-ups such as Digg, Ning, and Joost.

BIG DEALS: Advised Murdoch on his takeover of Dow Jones. The firm also guided NBC Universal on its $925 million purchase of Oxygen Media, the TV channel backed by investors Oprah Winfrey and Paul Allen.

MAN-OF-THE-PEOPLE MOVE: Wrote a New York Times op-ed calling for taxation on investment income of the endowments of the wealthiest colleges and universities (including his own alma mater, Williams College).

SIDE PROJECT: Allen is helping fund the former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent’s oral-history-of-baseball project.