NYMag cover story: 26 quietly powerful people shaping the future of AI
ShakeelHashim · x · 2026-11-03
New York Magazine's cover story, produced with ReadTransformer, profiles 26 overlooked engineers, founders, and thinkers who are actually determining AI's future.
Key framing:
- AI has minted a new power structure: a few private companies command the wealth of small nation-states with mostly self-governance, and dozens of employees are on the brink of becoming centimillionaires
- Some power brokers avoid the limelight; others are too eccentric or too deep in suddenly pivotal niches to be widely known
- The backdrop includes the Altman–Amodei AGI race and Huang/Sacks lobbying on regulation
The print issue is on newsstands, with AI-generated technologist portraits by Simon Denny.
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