Contributors

Creating these special TIME 100 issues involves a two-step process. As Business editor Bill Saporito, who oversaw this chapter with executive editor Steve Koepp, puts it, "First we argue about who should be on the list; then we argue about who should write the stories." Here, a few of our selections:

LEE IACOCCA, who writes about Henry Ford, had a surprise for us: he had once met the great man while working as a neophyte drafter in 1946, a story he recounts for you in this issue. Iacocca, you may remember, was fired as president of Ford by Henry's grandson Henry II before going on to greater glory turning around Chrysler. As you will see, he doesn't hold any grudges.

JACQUES PEPIN has more than enough credentials to assess the role of Ray Kroc and McDonald's. But he turned out to be a better choice than we initially thought. Not only is Pepin a great chef, food writer and TV host on PBS (Jacques Pepin's Kitchen: Cooking with Claudine), but early in his career he learned about American cuisine by working for Howard Johnson's, thus becoming a veteran of the fast-food wars.

NORMAN PEARLSTINE, the editor-in-chief of Time Inc., was our choice to write the introductory essay, as it occurred to us that since this was an issue about bosses, we might as well ask our own boss to contribute (clever, huh?). Pearlstine is a former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and has been covering business for more than three decades.

RICHARD BRANSON writing about Pan Am founder Juan Trippe is a little cheeky on our part, given that Trippe was a renegade who took on the entire industry for the right to create cheaper fares, while Branson, founder of Virgin Airlines, is a renegade who...well, you get the idea. Branson is probably the most colorful tycoon of his generation, with a penchant for starting new businesses and crash-landing balloons.

DAVID GELERNTER, a computer science professor at Yale, was asked to write about Bill Gates. One nerd discussing another? Hardly. Those familiar with Professor Gelernter know him as a wide-ranging (one book topic: the 1939 World's Fair) and engaging writer, who was also a target of the Unabomber's. Those unfamiliar with him will be surprised by his provocative story on the world's best-known businessman.

MOLLY IVINS is a writer who normally creates heat, as any politician she's scorched can tell you. But Ivins, whose column in the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram is widely syndicated, found someone to admire in Willis Carrier, the father of air conditioning. Ivins, after all, lives in the Sunbelt--and Carrier's engineering achievement has helped make it much more livable.

MARCY CARSEY and TOM WERNER, two of television's most prolific producers (3rd Rock from the Sun, The Cosby Show, Roseanne) are proud to be "charter members" of the TV generation. Who better than they to tell you about David Sarnoff, the brilliant man who founded NBC and put that addictive device in your living room?