Who’s Most Successful among MIT Alumni?
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Determining one’s level of success is entirely subjective. And determining the most successful MIT alumni seems impossible.
But, according to the news site Business Insider, 21 MITers stand out in a field of more than 130,000 alumni. The site’s list, which was released last week, includes architects, CEOs, and scientists but gives no defined method for determining success.
While it’s an impressive list, we’ll let you decide if the ranking truly constitutes MIT’s most successful. (“Most well-known” may be a better descriptor.)
The 21-person list, which actually features 22 alumni, list is below. Click on each name to jump to Business Insider for more info.
Let us know your take—and which other alumni merit mention—in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter.
21. Lorenzo Mendoza SM ’93, CEO, Empresas Polar 20. I.M. Pei ’40, architect 19. Drew Houston ’05 and Arash Ferdowsi ’08, founders, Dropbox 18. William Hewlett SM ’36, co-founder, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Company 17. Jonah Peretti SM ’01, founder, BuzzFeed and Huffington Post 16. Brian Halligan MBA ’05, CEO and co-founder, HubSpot 15. John W. Thompson SM ’83, chair, Microsoft 14. William Porter SM ’67, founder, E-Trade 13. Robin Chase SM ’86, co-founder, Zipcar 12. Ivan Getting ’33, engineer, co-credited with development of GPS 11. Shirley Ann Jackson ’68, PhD ’73, president, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 10. James Woods ’69, actor 9. John Potter SM ’95, former United States Postmaster General 8. Benjamin Netanyahu ’75, SM ‘76, prime minister, Israel 7. Amar Bose ’51, SM ’52, ScD ’56, founder, Bose Corporation 6. Andrea Wong ’88, president of international, Sony Pictures Entertainment 5. John Thain ’77, chair and CEO, CIT Group 4. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin ScD ’63, astronaut 3. Salman Khan ’98, MEng ’98, founder Khan Academy 2. Kofi Annan SM ’72, former secretary-general, United Nations 1. Ben Bernanke PhD ’79, former chair, Federal Reserve
Comments
Hajime Sano
Sun, 02/15/2015 6:48am
I think prominent may be a better description of listed alums rather than successful.
Ed Richardson
Sun, 02/15/2015 3:14am
How can you include actor James Woods & exclude Tom & Ray Magliozzi (Car Talk radio show)
Marshall Byer, 1945
Sun, 02/15/2015 12:57am
What ever happend to Alfred Sloan, 1895, or any other 19th century graduate? The list is obviously skewed to people in recent memory.
Kåre Olaussen
Sun, 02/15/2015 12:54am
This is the most unimpressive list I have ever seen!!
Even among MIT Nobel Prize winners (I don't see (m)any of those on the list), there is only one who stands out:
Richard P. Feynmann
Mankinds understanding of nature was profoundly changed by his works, in my opinion more than any other scientist in the 20'th century (including Einstein). It is a great great insult to MIT to leave him out, compared to all of 21 unimpressive, soon-to-be-forgotten people on the list.
Bernanke??? OMG!!!!
Toshi Baily
Sat, 02/14/2015 11:28pm
Very impressive list indeed. There are, however, so many successful academics none of which are listed above, Bernanke being the only exception. As pointed out above there are 30+ Nobel Prize winning alums. Nonetheless, it's wonderful to be a part of this distinguished community, non-academic and academic.
Roy Weinstein
Sat, 02/14/2015 10:51pm
I would think that Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman would make the list. He made great strides in understanding a basic, but unintuitive, property of matter - quantum mechanics. He also contributed to the US weapons arsenal, and debugged the cause of a spacecraft explosion. But of course if you prefer actors ....
The strengths of an MIT education are evident when they populate such a diverse fields as you have listed.
Roy
harold wilensky
Sat, 02/14/2015 9:56pm
Richard Feynman
Irwin M. Jacobs
Andrew Viterbi
Claude Shannon
Bob Metcalfe
I could go on
Simon van Norden
Sat, 02/14/2015 8:58pm
How about George P. Shultz? MIT PhD, MIT Professor, Dean of the business school at U. Chicago, Secretary of Labor and then the Treasury under Nixon, the president and director of Bechtel. But that was just for starters.....
As Reagan's Secretary of State, he was responsible for the diplomacy that ended the Cold War and started reducing stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
I think that stacks up nicely against the accomplishments of Bibi and Kofi....
Art Chen
Sat, 02/14/2015 8:37pm
Alfred Sloan - who build Genral Motors. How soon we forget. It is just like Washington and Lincoln birthdays replaced by President's Day.
Enrico
Sat, 02/14/2015 8:34pm
Richard Feynman!!
John Dixon, '55
Sat, 02/14/2015 7:49pm
Note that the list doesn't include the Koch brothers, who earned multiple degrees at MIT.
Being well-known and influential doesn't necessarily involve positive impact.
John Dixon, '55
Sat, 02/14/2015 7:47pm
Can't help noting that the Koch brothers didn't make it.
Being well-known and influential doesn't necessarily benefit the world.
herb kleiman
Sat, 02/14/2015 7:39pm
I think Richard Feynman deserves to be added to the list.
Hajime Sano
Sat, 02/14/2015 7:24pm
While an interesting list, it is a bit like asking which of your kids do you love the most? There are so many alums that have made a difference in the world without making a big splash in the news or in business.
I'm honored just to be an alum.
Eric Reifschneider
Sat, 02/14/2015 6:58pm
Hard to imagine Irwin Jacobs, founder and longtime CEO of Qualcomm, not being on this list. 3G and 4G cellular networks and the smartphones used by hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people around the world use would not be what they are without Qualcomm's pioneering work with CDMA and LTE technology, among other things, and Irwin was the company's leader throughout most of this time (until 2005). In my view Irwin should be considered one of the great American innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs of all time, and he probably would be if he were not such a modest and soft-spoken man. He and his family have also been great benefactors in the San Diego community. Another example of the difficulty of compiling such a list.
J Gardner
Sat, 02/14/2015 5:55pm
It appears that none of the Business Insider news site folks graduated from MIT -- because they didn't properly define the most important element of the problem, or even reflect on the importance of doing so, and that is the issue "What is success?" From the looks of the chosen, the criterion was fame, power, and/or wealth. These would be highly debatable as equivalents to 'success'. Therefore, the original question should have been who were the most famous, powerful, and/or wealthy.
Emre Koksal
Sat, 02/14/2015 5:44pm
They have some 05 MBA and founder of Huffpost, but missing the likes of Claude Shannon or Norbert Wiener. What a joke of a list.
Joe Lestyk
Sat, 02/14/2015 5:00pm
I think that both Irwin Jacobs (Qualcomm) and Kent Kresa (Northrup-Grumman) were, or are, more successful than some of the names on this list.
rcl
Sat, 02/14/2015 4:25pm
Really??? If it was a list of most famous, they should have included Click and Clack!
I can't believe that there wasn't some input from MIT or the Koch Brothers would certainly would have been listed, as well as Larry Summers.
Jan Jurnecka
Sat, 02/14/2015 4:24pm
One more...Robert Swanson (deceased)...co-founder of Genentech.
Chad Raymond
Sat, 02/14/2015 3:47pm
James Woods never graduated; I believe that disqualifies him as an alumnus of MIT.
Nelo Sekler
Sat, 02/14/2015 3:46pm
A tough, impossible list to list to compile. For example, you missed Ken Olsen, founder of DEC; just thinking of my own class ('56), Rusty Scheickart, astronaut, and a brilliant career afterwards, Gideon Gartner, founder of the Gartner Group.
Perhaps you should have a separate lists of only undergraduates.
jego
Sat, 02/14/2015 3:46pm
It has to be BUZZ ALDRIN , the only one in this list to have walked on the moon .
Martin Strasmore
Sat, 02/14/2015 3:22pm
Really Subjective - I agree the list seems to be most publicly known. We did a survey of our '73 Sloan SM class on HAPPINESS & SUCCESS. The obvious result is that success is being truly happy and that is an internal judgement and depends on your values. It seemed clear that no-one measured happiness in material terms and that to me is a partly a function of our MIT experience. I would guess that many of those listed are very satisfied with their lives and quite happy too; but not because of their place on the list!
John Dyer
Sat, 02/14/2015 3:19pm
Two MIT men who were giants of industry in their time are Alfred P. Sloan (General Motors) and George Eastman (Kodak). Each built a dominant enterprise that became a significant transformative influence on their industry, economy and society. I suspect their absence on the list is because their empires have declined and become their era was "before our time".
Tim Chambers 1…
Sat, 02/14/2015 3:05pm
I am enjoying the comments much more than Business Insider's silly list! 21 is so arbitrary. So is the membership. But it's an excuse to start a conversation. Let's remember Ray and Tom Magliozzi, the Car Talk guys. And Tom Scholz, musician (writer/performer) and co-producer of Boston, the rock album that remains my favorite after 39 years.
Tim Chambers 1…
Sat, 02/14/2015 3:04pm
I am enjoying the comments much more than Business Insider's silly list. 21 is so arbitrary. So is the membership. But it's an excuse to start a conversation. Let's remember Ray and Tom Magliozzi, the Car Talk guys. And Tom Scholz, musician (writer/performer) and co-producer of Boston, the rock album that remains my favorite after 39 years.
Robert M Lurie
Sat, 02/14/2015 2:58pm
Really stupid list!! What is success?? Only money and "fame"? I hope this isn't the objective of education at MIT!!
Paul Malchodi
Sat, 02/14/2015 2:54pm
I choose to have my success in life be measured by how those I parent, teach, coach and work with eventually work to make their worlds a better place after my influence is gone. Essentially by how my children raise their children, though I know they may choose to do their work in the world without being parents themselves. To me, no other definition of success is meaningful.
GG
Sat, 02/14/2015 2:53pm
disappointed that there are only 3 women.
Irene Wei
Sat, 02/14/2015 2:37pm
Wow! they missed Lamberto Andreotti, CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, a Big Pharma based in New Jersey and Carl Gordon, PhD, Co-founding Partner of Orbimed Healthcare Fund Management, New York City. Maybe because healthcare is not significant in the big picture...or maybe the list should have been at least 100!
William Weisberger
Sat, 02/14/2015 2:29pm
Richard Feynman, B.S. 1939, Nobel Prize in Physics 1965.
"Richard Feynman, the legendary physicist . . . has been named the seventh greatest physicist of all time in a poll taken by the British journal Physics World. The poll surveyed 130 leading physicists worldwide. - See more at: http://www.caltech.edu/article/12019#sthash.htddTy2w.dpuf"
Ephraim Fuchs
Sat, 02/14/2015 2:28pm
Charles and David Koch, the world's 6th and 7th richest men
Richard Feynman
William Shockley, inventor of the transistor
Robert Noyce, co-inventor of the integrated circuit and co-founder of Intel
Bill Felling
Sat, 02/14/2015 2:16pm
Click and Clack.
Jim Radley
Sat, 02/14/2015 2:02pm
I second Mr. Cangahuala's recommendation to add Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, who earned his MS and PhD in aeronautics from MIT in 1924 and 1925, respectively. His list of accomplishments and awards was beyond extraordinary, and included the Congressional Medal of Honor for his B-25 raid on Tokyo early in WW II. He was also arguably one of the most skilled and greatest pilots who ever lived.
Alberto
Sat, 02/14/2015 1:52pm
Since the winner is the former chair of Federal Reserve, why not to mention Mario Draghi PhD '76 and current President of the European Central Bank?
Miles Fidelman
Sat, 02/14/2015 1:40pm
Well, there are an awful lot of Noble Prize winners who didn't make the list. I'd kind of like to see Richard Feynman. Then again maybe Oliver Smoot - how many people get a unit of measure named after them (or his cousin George, who won the Nobel).
Dick Bodman
Sat, 02/14/2015 1:37pm
With no offense to those most impressive people on the list who have given society so much, I am amazed that the at least two Koch brothers were not on your list. Two, with the help of a highly impressive, recruited and nurtured, executive teams has built one of, the largest and most successful private companies ever, have stood for and been accountable for their faith in America and free enterprise and have given back to MIT to be counted for regarding his opinions. And, not least, they have given, MIT the world class Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Not a small set of accomplishments in my opinion.
Larry Constant…
Sat, 02/14/2015 1:34pm
The list is somewhat over-representative of recent Internet success stories whose long-term impact remains still an open question. Certainly someone like William Hewlett, whose broad impact echoes loudly through many decades, should rank much higher than some of the relative newbies.
Of course, it all depends on the definition of success, but I would certainly add the Magliozzi brothers. What about software pioneers, like Mitch Kapor? And what about my school's namesake, Alfred P. Sloan himself? Or doesn't the Insider look back that far?
--Larry Constantine, Sloan '67 (pen name, Lior Samson)
Jay Caplan
Sat, 02/14/2015 1:33pm
Of course Bob Metcalfe should be on the list, as Mike Hughes said. How about Doc Edgerton? Think of everything high speed photography has done for engineering, art, and instant replays! Think of his influence on countless MIT students.
Christoph von Braun
Sat, 02/14/2015 1:07pm
Frankly, I think the whole list is rather idiotic. What does it matter who is on what position on that list? It's endlessly debatable and tells us exactly nothing. I don't get anything out of it and don't care if Ben Bernanke is on No. 1 position or Buzz Aldrin or some unknown person whom I befriended during my time at MIT, and who for me is No. 1. I am proud to have been there, but not because some other people went there. I don't care to adorn myself with borrowed plumes. Getting my degree at MIT allowed me to do a lot of things in my later life which would not have been possible otherwise. And that is important. Ben Bernanke had nothing to do with it.
Carolyn Zerkle
Wed, 02/04/2015 9:49pm
Wow! They are missing Charles McMillan, Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory
Reid Sheftall MD
Wed, 02/04/2015 6:54pm
''Most successful MIT Alumni''. That's a tough one... even impossible.. what about the 30-plus Nobel Prize winners? The 40 astronauts. The founders of DEC and TI? Tom Perkins of kleiner, perkins, . Jim Simon founder of Renaissance Technologies? Its sill y to name the thousands more... I am so proud to be a small part of the MIT alumni Association.
L. Alberto Can…
Wed, 02/04/2015 4:52pm
Impressive list! I would add Jimmy Doolittle for consideration, based on his contributions to instrument flight and his namesake raid.
Respectfully,
Al
Tom
Wed, 02/04/2015 4:04pm
Well said Mr Pearlman
Also - being Prime Minister of Israel only gets you number 8 ??? How many of the ones above him have control of a nuclear arsenal?
Eliot J. Pearlman
Wed, 02/04/2015 11:59am
From Wikipedia: "Douglas enrolled in MIT. He received his Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering—the first person to receive such a degree from MIT—in 1914, completing the four-year course in half the time; he remained there another year as an assistant to Professor Jerome Hunsaker."
Perhaps, Business Insider never heard of Donald Douglas and the DC 2-10 aircraft, especially the DC-3 or Dakota as the first really viable commercial airplane and of immortal fame in WWII, but MIT should have!
I remember vividly sometime in the 1950s when DD, Sr. flew in for MIT Class Day and landed on the Charles. Wow! Beats a G-5 any day! Yes, he was in a sea-plane. What an impression on a Tech teenager! What was even more impressive was the pilot's skill in aborting his takeoff before heading into the Mass. Ave bridge.
Youngsters, what do they know?
Eliot