The founder of Third Point LLC, Dan Loeb is Wall Street's poison pen—a hedge fund manager whose letters to derelict corporate managers not only produce spectacular investment returns but also provide entertaining reading.
Formerly Goldman's chief investment strategist—she stepped down from the role in March 2008 and now serves as the firm's senior U.S. investment strategist—Cohen is one of the stock market's best-known prognosticators. She's most famous for predicting the bull market of the 1990s—and then remaining overly optimistic during what turned out to be a prolonged downturn.
Paul Tudor Jones is the founder of Tudor Investment Corp., a hedge fund with some $19 billion in assets under management. Until recently, Jones was best known for having never ended a year with a loss. Alas, his fund fell in 2007, though he still managed to take home a tidy $700 million.
Bob Greenhill is the founder and chairman of Greenhill & Co., a boutique investment bank he founded in 1996.
Thomas Peterffy
Larry Fink
Art Samberg
Black is a managing partner of the legendary buyout firm Apollo Global Management, which he co-founded in 1990.
Icahn is the financial world's jack-of-all-trades: a hedge fund investor, a private equity investor, a corporate raider, and, his favorite guise of late, an "activist investor"—a thorn in the side of corporate management teams from New York to Korea.
Tepper runs Appaloosa Management, a $12 billion hedge fund that specializes in buying up stakes in distressed companies.
Brooklyn-born Mark Kingdon is the founder of Kingdon Capital, a hedge fund with $5 billion in assets under management. According to Trader Monthly, he earned $100-150 million in 2007.
Dick Fuld was chairman and chief executive officer of Lehman Brothers, the investment bank that filed for bankruptcy in September 2008.
A former research whiz at Goldman Sachs, Asness is a founder of AQR Capital Management, a Greenwich-based quantitative hedge fund that manages more than $30 billion. His fund has been one of the hardest hit by the meltdown in the credit markets.
Curry is co-anchor on the Today Show and a former host of Dateline.
A fixture on TV since the '60s, Walters is known for her soft-focus interviews, her ability to make grown men and women cry, and one of the most famous speech impediments of the 20th century. She's currently the resident den mother, referee, and part owner (ca-ching!) on The View.
Schwartz wears two hats. By day, he's the executive vice president of communications for CBS. As the humorist "Stanley Bing," he writes a column for Fortune and has authored a number of bestselling books.
Popcorn predicts cultural trends for corporate clients at her cultish company, BrainReserve.
Kirtzman covered the local political beat for WCBS until the station dropped him in early 2008. He's also the author of Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City, an account of New York's 107th mayor.
Lipsky is founder of the short-lived New York Sun, the daily newspaper which acted as a right-wing antidote to the New York Times. It kicked around from 2002-2008.
