The Next Establishment

Spaceships, haute couture, and something called Twitter are turning these 30 up-and-comers—most under the age of 40—into moguls in their own right. If they continue to make all the right moves, they’ll soon pop up on the V.F. 100

HERBERT ALLEN III His father still works the big room, but Allen III has been formally in charge of Allen & Co. since 2002. The apple did not fall far from the tree: under Allen fils. 40. the investment firm has remained a below-the-radar white-shoe power broker.

JUDD APATOW The 39-year-old's outrageously ribald yet surprisingly sweet comedies -The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Knocked Up—have earned more than $100 million at the box office and cost next to nothing to make. With numbers like those, the studios would let Apatow do a remake of Gigli.

GEORGINA CHAPMAN AND KEREN CRAIG The 31-ycarold designers behind Marchesa have been outfitting marquee names around the world (Renee Zellweger, Cate Blanchett, Sienna Miller, Penelope Cruz) since their fashion label debuted just three years ago. It probably doesn’t hurt that Chapman’s longtime boyfriend is Harvey Weinstein.

DOV CHARNEY He opened his first American Apparel store less than five years ago. In December, he sold the company, pocketing $250 million. But Charney, 38, still runs the show. Today he leads a growing fashion empire built on simple but sexy styles, provocative (some say pornographic) ad campaigns, and ethical business practices—staffers are paid a decent wage. (He's also currently being sued for sexual harassment.)

CHELSEA CLINTON So far. Clinton. 27, has chosen to stay out of the family business and is currently working for investment boutique Avenue Capital Group. But depending on what happens next November, she may decide that she was not born to analyze corporate bonds. Whether she ends up in finance or politics, it would be foolish to think she won't be a player.

DAMON DASH AND RACHEL ROY Dash. 36, has maintained his street cred since his departure from Roc-A-Fella Records and Rocawear. both of which he co-founded, by busily cobbling together a diverse portfolio of ventures, ranging from shoes to film. His wife, the 33-year-old fashion designer, is behind the well-received Rachel Roy collection.

CHRIS DEWOLFE AND TOM ANDERSON Most company founders, having been bought out for $580 million, would take the money and run. But DeWolfe. 41, and Anderson, 31, whose MySpace was purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in 2005. still run the company and are building it furiously; they’ve recently launched international MySpace sites. MySpace Records, and MySpace TV.

LAPO ELKANN Beginning in 2003. Elkann, 29. helped revitalize Fiat, the Italian auto giant founded by his great-great-grandfather, with a bold marketing-and-branding campaign. And after enduring a drug scandal in 2005, he has rebuilt his personal reputation and even launched a new fashion brand.

JANUS FRIIS AND NIKLAS ZENNSTROM Friis. 31,andZennstrom. 41, created the Internet file-sharing service Kazaa and the fast-growing Web phone and communications company Skype, which eBay bought for $2.6 billion in 2005. Now the duo is fine-tuning Joost. a peer-to-peer video-streaming site that will provide 150 channels of free Internet TV with content from Sony, Warner Bros., and Viacom.

JONATHAN GRAY Last February. Blackstone's senior managing director orchestrated what was then the largest leveraged buyout ever, when the private-equity giant paid $39 billion for Equity Office Properties Trust. In July, Blackstone announced that Gray will spend $26 billion for Hilton Hotels Corp., which will make Blackstone the world's largest hotel group. Now everyone is clamoring to do deals with the 37-year-old.

BRAD GREENSPAN In 2005. Greenspan attempted to top News Corp.’s $580 million bid for MySpace, in which he was an early investor. Greenspan lost. He tried to trump the media giant again last summer by countering Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion offer for Dow Jones. He lost again. But we haven't heard the last from this 34-year-old entrepreneur: keep your eye on his social-networking Web companies BroadWebAsia and LiveUniverse.

JOICHI ITO Bridging the gap between Asia and Silicon Valley. Ito, 41, runs the Japan-based mega-million-dollar venture-capital firm Neoteny, which invests in Web companies. He has made personal investments in Technorati, Socialtext, and Flickr. Like every good techie, he has a must-read blog. Joi Ito's Web.

DAVID LAUREN The 35-year-old senior vice president has instituted innovative ideas at Polo Ralph Lauren since taking the job. in 2001. But Lauren, who dates presidential niece and Feed Project founder Lauren Bush, will have to continue to prove to Wall Street that he's cut from C.E.O. cloth, like his father: Ralph Lauren's board of directors will choose the company’s successor.

ADAM LIPPES In 2004, Lippes, 34, left his post as the youngest-ever creative director of Oscar de la Renta to start his own upscale underwearand-supersoft-T-shirt line, Adam & Eve. His label has since morphed into a full fashion line whose fans include Oprah, Brad Pitt, and Nicole Kidman.

DANIEL LOEB Publicly insulting people can make you lots of enemies, I but Loeb, the 44-year-old C.E.O. of Third Point L.L.C., has found that it can also make you rich. He writes scathing public letters to executives telling them to shape up or step down. It seems to be working: since he founded it. in 1995, his hedge fund has delivered annual returns of 27 percent.

RYAN KAVANAUGH The 32-year-old's Relativity Media helps bankroll ! Hollywood: the private-equity firm raises capital to finance a studio's slate of films (he funded Talladega Nights and Gridiron Gang), a sweet deal for studios and investors because risk is distributed over a portfolio of movies. Despite the current credit crunch. Kavanaugh’s operation is on the upswing it has deals with Lionsgate, Paramount, and Sony.

MARKOS MOULITSAS Liberal bloggers are the new kingmakers of the Democratic Party, and none is more influential than Moulitsas. 36, who attracts 600.000 hits per day to DailyKos.com. To the chagrin of formerly ascendant moderates, such as the Democratic Leadership Council, nearly every major Democratic presidential contender made a pilgrimage to Chicago in August for Moulitsas’s second YearlyKos convention.

ELON MUSK At 36. Musk is building the next-generation spacecraft for NASA. His space-exploration company, SpaceX, which Musk started five years ago with $100 million of the money he amassed from selling Internet businesses Zip2 and PayPal, beat out Raytheon and Lockheed for $278 million from NASA. The father of five children under the age of four (twins and triplets) is also the primary investor in the electric-sports-car manufacturer Tesla Motors, and he's a movie producer (Thank You for Smoking).

ZAC POSEN Fashion's whiz kid exploded onto the Seventh Avenue scene in 2002 when, as a 21-year-old. he debuted his catwalk show. Posen, now 27, has made an aggressive push to expand his brand, while staying in the public eye by dressing A-listers, such as Natalie Portman, Cameron Diaz, and Kate Winslet.

BRETT RATNER There is no such thing as a sure thing in Hollywood, but Ratner is about as close as you can get. The hungry 38-year-old director's record of mega-hits (the Rush Hour franchise, last year’s X-Men installment) was interrupted by this year's disappointing Rush Hour 3. but the star-studded parties he throws at his Beverly Hills mansion help make him the guy everyone in Hollywood wants a piece of.

DANNY RIMER His uncanny knack for picking winners Skype is the most prominent example—has made technology investor Rimer, 36, and his firm. Index Ventures, the envy of Europe's venture-capital community. Expect his recent bets on a Skype-like cell-phone service and a global WiFi network to pay off nicely.

NAT ROTHSCHILD Once a society playboy. Rothschild, the 36-year-old scion of the European banking family, has buckled down. He is co-chairman of Atticus Capital, a hugely successful, $14 billion hedge fund, and has made wise private-equity investments in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe—moves that could make him the richest Rothschild yet.

BEN SILVERMAN Hollywood is watching Silverman, 37. the newly appointed co-chairman of NBC Entertainment. His Reveille production company which is behind home-run hits The Office (an Emmy), Ugly Betty (a Golden Globe), and The Biggest Loser— might just have what it takes to pull the peacock out of its prime-time ratings slump.

EVAN WILLIAMS Williams, 35. is an idea man. The idea that made him a millionaire was a blog-publishing tool called Blogger, which Google bought from him in 2003. His current brainchild is Twitter, a Web phenomenon that encourages people to share brief messages about their lives with friends (or anyone) in real time.

DIRK ZIFF The 43-year-old oversees Ziff Brothers Investments, his family’s investment boutique, which has interests in corporate debt, equity, hedge funds (Och-Ziff). and entertainment (the company was an early investor in DreamWorks). He also played guitar in Carly Simon’s band.

MARK ZUCKERBERG When Yahoo offered a reported $1 billion to buy Facebook. the Web site’s founder, the 23-year-old Zuckerberg, did a strange thing—he said no. Whether he's holding out for more or envisioning greater wealth via a public offering, Zuckerberg's site some describe it as a more upscale version of MySpace -continues to grow at a stunning pace, and media swooning over him has reached Steve Jobs-like levels.

JESSICA FLINT

MATT PRESSMAN