Once again, Vanity Fair leaves geeks at the kids' power tablePreeminent among the magazine world's kingmaking power lists is Vanity Fair's New Establishment, which appears in the October issue — on newsstands in L.A. and New York today, but not in the Bay Area for another six days. Silicon Valley gets similar short shrift: The names who make it there are predictable bigs like Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison, or Hollywood-crossover types like Jeff Skoll, eBay's first employee turned movie producer. Walt Mossberg, now employed by New Establishment perennial Rupert Murdoch, also squeaked in. The consolation prize Vanity Fair offers: Its "Next Establishment" list, reserved for the likes of Twitter's Ev Williams. It's a marvelous piece of New York media trickery — flatter the geeks by making them feel included, but corral them into a side room so the real power brokers aren't offended by comparison. True, the "Next Establishment" suggests that these are people who might matter in the future. But in saying that, Vanity Fair's editors are also sending the message that right here, right now, its "Next" nominees are nobodies. On this year's list:
  • Wendi Deng Murdoch, MySpace China
  • Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, MySpace
  • Max Levchin, Slide
  • Robin Li, Baidu
  • Markos Moulitsas, DailyKos
  • Elon Musk, SpaceX
  • Ali and Hadi Partovi, iLike
  • Mika Salmi, MTV
  • Dmitry Shapiro, Veoh
  • Quincy Smith, CBS
  • Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times
  • Peter Thiel, Clarium Capital
  • Evan Williams, Twitter
  • Andrew Zolli, PopTech