Above image, from left to right, Steve Jobs (Featureflash / Shutterstock.com), J.J. Abrams (Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com), Bill Gates (JStone / Shutterstock.com) and Mark Zuckerberg (Kobby Dagan / Shutterstock.com)

This list was written not just from the point of view of monetary power, but from cultural significance and, for a few of these folks, general awesomeness.

George R.R. Martin

For writing A Song of Ice and Fire, effectively reinvigorating a whole host of fantasy fans, and inspiring the wildly popular Game of Thrones television series.

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Steve Jobs (even though he’s no longer around)

For his continued influence on the home computing world, and because he taught us all to think different.

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J.J. Abrams

For bringing the Star Trek universe back to the big screen in all its shiny glory, for making Benedict Cumberbatch Khan, and for Lost, I guess.

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Joss Whedon

For making Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and that Avengers movie that spawned Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and for always having nerds’ best interests in the media.

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Satoru Iwata

For being the head honcho of Nintendo and releasing title after super nerdy, mad enjoyable title on the weirdest and best consoles ever.

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Mark Zuckerberg

For being the contentious but admittedly genius inventor of Facebook, and for ushering in an Internet age where Big Brother may actually be watching us.

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Larry Page

For being the CEO of Google, creating the program that ranks pages, and basically controlling all our online actions forever and ever.

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George Lucas

For introducing the Force to the world, making us all wish we had a lightsaber, and basically revolutionizing the way filmmakers work.

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Bill Gates

For being Microsoft, more or less, and rivalling Steve Jobs’ influence on the modern computing universe.

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Gary Gygax

For being still alive as the wizard Mordenkainen, giving nerds and geeks the opportunity to enter worlds of epic imagination, and revolutionizing gaming as we know it.

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