Kai Huang, CEO, RedOctane (Age: 36)
Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, Cofounders, Harmonix (Ages: 39 and 37)

Photograph by Andrew Hetherington/Redux

When Kai Huang invented the faux-six-string controller and Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy dreamed up the games for Guitar Hero and Rock Band they created the future of rock and roll. MTV bought Harmonix (which owns Rock Band and designed Guitar Hero) for $175 million, and Activision snatched up RedOctane (which owns Guitar Hero and manufactures its guitar-shaped controllers) for $99.9 million. The hidden value in those acquisitions? They are digital platforms for music distribution. Since 2007, Rock Band players have downloaded more than 21 million songs at $2 a pop. In May, Mötley Crüe released a single on Rock Band. In September, Metallica's new album, Death Magnetic, was offered to Guitar Hero players the same day it hit stores. And in October, MTV landed the Beatles, whose catalog has long remained beyond the reach of iTunes. Huang, Rigopulos, and Egozy now lunch with the stars they used to see in concert.

35. TOBIAS MEYER, WORLDWIDE HEAD OF CONTEMPORARY ART, SOTHEBY'S >>

Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art, Sotheby's (Age: 45)

Photograph by Steve Pyke/Countour by Getty Images

While pretty much the entire economic landscape is in ruins, one gilded corner remains: the soaring art market. Thank Tobias Meyer, who has established himself as the art world's most dynamic deal-maker. In May, he engineered the sale of Francis Bacon's Triptych for an artist record $86 million. But his coup de grâce was persuading Damien Hirst to bypass dealers like Larry Gagosian and give his works directly to Sotheby's to auction. Meyer helped Hirst rake in more than $170 million, establishing the provocative Brit as the most bankable artist since Andy Warhol. Meyer's steely confidence and instinctive taste allow him to guarantee huge prices to artists with the certitude that he can sell their work for a profit. "Tobias is the James Bond of the art market," Peter Dunham, a Los Angeles-based collector, told the New York Times. "He's beautifully dressed [and] has beautiful manners. But he's tenacious and ruthlessly efficient in getting the deal done. His skill lies in his ability to make collectors and buyers feel comfortable." Even as everything else is crashing down around them.

36. THE COLD WARRIORS >>

Gay American Idol (Age: 30)

When Ellen came out to a national magazine it was a pioneering move. When Lance Bass did it, well, he knew a good idea when he saw one. But when Clay Aiken announced "I'm gay" on the cover of People, it was proof that a has-been's hunger for publicity is matched only by America's insatiable fag-scination. Was this a bombshell five years after the former American Idol had his 15 minutes, two years after the National Enquirer reported that he'd solicited sex in gay chat rooms? "You'd have to say good job for something that has so little news value," says Larry Gross, director of USC's Annenberg School for Communication. No one but a handful of Claymates was shocked—"I think it was all of five women who were still members of the Rock Hudson fan club," says Howard Bragman, a longtime Hollywood publicist who has advised numerous actors on coming out. Expect more shameless D-listers to crawl out of the woodwork and the closet. "The appetite is there," Bragman says. "The No. 1 thing people ask me is who's gay in Hollywood." Thanks to Gaiken, now we'll know who's gay on Hollywood Squares.

40. THOMAS BEATIE, MR. MOM >>

Mikheil Saakashvili, President, Georgia (Age: 40)
Dmitry Medvedev, President, Russia (Age: 43)

Photograph by Cristina Garcia Rodero/Magnum

Some people look at these young pit bulls and see George Bush and Vladimir Putin holding their leashes. But in August the two leaders showed that they're not yet housebroken. First West-leaning Mikheil Saakashvili slipped his collar and sent tanks into the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Then Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's handpicked successor, invaded the region with some 15,000 Russian troops. The showdown pulverized Georgia, brought the oil-rich Caucasus region to the brink of all-out war, and pulled the United States and Russia into a tense standoff full of Cold War rhetoric. The barking continued: Saakashvili said an "existential threat hangs over Georgia" and Medvedev boasted that "Russia is a nation to be reckoned with from now on." The stakes are high, says Charles King, a professor at the School of Foreign Services at Georgetown University: "Georgia has been one of the largest recipients of U.S. political and economic assistance, and if it becomes a member of NATO, an attack on Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, would be the equivalent of an attack on Tampa or Tucson." That's why Washington is hoping Saakashvili and Medvedev just learn to heel.

37. JUSTIN GASTON, PARENTS' NIGHTMARE >>

Mr. Mom (Age: 34)

Photograph by Regine Mahaux/TB/Getty Images

Forget the freakish photos, the media circus, and even the dude-with-pillow-under-his-shirt send-up on SNL. Thomas Beatie, legally speaking the world's first pregnant man, forced us to glimpse what male motherhood is like—and it's both beautiful and terrifying. Regardless of how history views the transgender man, a onetime Miss Hawaii Teen USA finalist, he sure left the Y-chromosome crew with lasting questions: Would you if you could? Do the joys of childbearing outweigh the drawbacks? Will they give me an epidural? So while the tabloids and Oprah ate up Beatie's personal journey, and crazed Bible-beaters hurled epithets at him, his uterus-less wife, and his baby, Susan, male-kind was quick to rejoice at the possibilities: single fatherhood, feeling baby's first kick, the moment of truth with the home-pregnancy test. And just as quickly shuddered in fear—of morning sickness, maternity clothes, the pain of childbirth, and the fragility of Roe v. Wade. Yes, through surgery, hormones, and a sperm donor, Beatie gave us a taste of what evolution and biology never saw fit to. Now pass the saltines, please—we're feeling queasy.

1. THE UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE AGENT >>

SEE THE FULL LIST >>

Parents' Nightmare (Age: 20)

Photograph courtesy of Alphax/X17Online.com

If Miley Cyrus baring her shoulders was deemed scandalous by the parents of her tween-age fan base, what kind of effect will her running around with a 20-year-old underwear model have? One parent doesn't seem troubled—the Disney star's manager dad, Billy Ray, who may have brokered the relationship. Now that Justin Gaston has landed the world's most worshipped tween idol, he's redefining what boyfriend means to girls ages 4 to 14. Out: dimpled, asexual Zac and Cody. In: strapping dude who earns a living showing off his package. When teen-pregnancy rates climb, guess who will get the blame? Of course, Gaston made sure to take Cyrus to a church service in Pasadena on one of their first dates, and the starlet maintains that there'll be no sex until marriage. Even if that turns out to be true, in many parents' minds he's already finger-banging their young daughters.

38. R. KELLY, SINGER >>

Reclusive Rock Album (Age: 14)

Eighteen band members. Three managers. Four producers. More leaks than the Bush White House. Close to $20 million spent. Fourteen fucking years. Yet somehow Chinese Democracy—the absurdly delayed opus from Guns N' Roses—owns you. You don't want to care, but you simply can't help yourself. Blame the train-wreck factor of the reclusive, enigmatic Axl Rose, who's become rock's answer to Michael Jackson (minus that sketchy man-boy-love thing). But beneath the apparent hair plugs and Botox is a mad scientist still capable of a few flashes of greatness. Tracks like "There Was a Time" and "This I Love" sound more like "November Rain" than like anything on the band's classic debut, Appetite for Destruction, but they still rock. More surprising, though, they're actually being released. "We never thought this day would come," announced Tony Jacobs, VP of marketing at Dr Pepper, who earlier this year promised free bottles of the soda to anybody who bought Chinese Democracy if the album made an appearance in 2008. "Now all we can say is the Dr Pepper is on us." Great. You waited 14 years and all you got was one stupid album and a soda.

31. THE SPACE INVADERS >>

Singer (Age: 41)

Courtesy of AP Photo/L.D. Chukman

When image consultants say there's no such thing as bad publicity, a sordid, six-year-long case involving sex, minors, and videotape isn't what they have in mind. R. Kelly just may have turned conventional wisdom on its head: Despite being repeatedly written off, the singer became infinitely more culturally relevant during his legal ordeal. He's released four No. 1 albums, of which he's sold more than 8 million copies, and landed 21 singles on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and 10 in the Top 20 (including "I'm a Flirt" and "Same Girl"). And rather than tone down his raunchy lyrics, Kelly has pumped up the perviness (from the recently leaked "Kiss Your Candy": You got the club on pause/ In your jeans real tight/ I can see your little crack/ Wanna hit them drawers). "People roll their eyes, but they still download his music and networks still play his videos," says Natasha Eubanks, creator of the gossip blog the Young, Black, and Fabulous. "We've all seen the sex tape, we know the damn deal. But he's in his own lane musically, so he can get away with it." The King of R&B's new challenge is continuing his reign now that he's beaten the rap.

39. CLAY AIKEN, GAY AMERICAN IDOL >>

Zhai Zhigang, Jing Haipeng, Liu Boming, Astronauts
(Ages: all 42)

Forget about those baby-faced gymnasts at the Olympics, or Beijing's ability to send our economy into instant free fall by calling in the billions we owe. The real proof of China's exploding superpower status is these three taikonauts. With the completion of their three-day mission aboard the Shenzou VII—including Zhai Zhigang's 13-minute space walk—the former fighter pilots reignited the space race. Their heroics, broadcast live on state TV a month after the games ended, unleashed a second wave of national pride, punctuating a year fraught with brutal cold spells, catastrophic earthquakes, political turmoil, and tainted milk with celebration in the streets. The full scale of their accomplishment remains a state secret, but what we do know is eye-opening: The Chinese have made three journeys into outer space since 2003. They plan to launch a space lab by 2011 and a fully operational space station by 2020. And they don't intend to rest until they've planted a big red flag on the moon. NASA, meanwhile, is mothballing its shuttles in anticipation of a new line of spacecrafts not scheduled for launch until 2015. That gulp you just heard? It's coming from the Pentagon. Seems all that scientific inquiry has led China to missiles that can knock a satellite from the sky.

32. NATE SILVER, STATISTICAL SOOTHSAYER >>

Statistical Soothsayer (Age: 30)

Photograph by Melissa Ann Pinney

Until recently, Nate Silver was known in the sports-betting world as the whiz kid who developed PECOTA, an algorithm used to forecast baseball results with unprecedented accuracy (like the Tampa Bay Rays' improbable breakout season, which he predicted way back in February). Last winter he decided to train his brainpower on the race for the White House, anonymously starting the blog FiveThirtyEight (named for the number of electoral-college votes). Obsessively crunching poll results and demographic figures, then plugging them into his own formula, Silver predicted Hillary Clinton's surprisingly narrow victory in the Indiana primary and her 15-point loss in North Carolina within one and two percentage points, respectively—shaming almost every paid professional in the country. Politics junkies took notice. Within months, FiveThirtyEight was attracting more than 600,000 readers a day, and Silver, now unmasked, was receiving glowing endorsements from media pundits. Joe Klein named him "rookie of the year," and Stephen Colbert booked him as a headliner. After less than a year on the job, Silver is the political world's most rigorous, reliable authority on polling. Not bad for a sports geek.

33. ANDREW STANTON, WRITER-DIRECTOR >>