The Next Establishment

The likely heirs—in some cases, literally—to New Establishment power, the Nexters are working their generation's hot spots, from music sharing to fashion to eco-ventures

ROBERT ALLBRITTON Politico, his agenda-setting newspaper-and-Web-site hybrid, covers Congress, the Wliite I louse, and K Street. Synergy is part of Allbritton's recipe: he's lined up partnerships with television and radio stations to promote Politico content, a formula he thinks could be the future of media. ★

HERBERT ALLEN III Allen & Co.'s young head seems to be winning over to his father's venerable firm a new generation of media barons, schmoozing the up-and-coming Internet moguls among them fellow Nexters Max Levchin and Peter Thiel at the company's Sun Valley confab.

ISAAC BERZIN The Israeli-born chemical engineer has come up with one of the most promising green-fuel ideas ever: grow a bunch of algae next to power plants and let it absorb the CO, emissions, turning it into valuable biofuel. The best part is, it actually works! ★

GEORGINA CHAPMAN AND KEREN CRAIG They're still the new kids on the runway (their whimsical Marchesa label is only four years old), but the 32-year-old designers expect to top $50 million in sales next year, thanks in part to a new bridal collection.

ANDERSON COOPER The Vanderbilt heir is among the best journalists on TV. Plus, the audience for CNN's AC360, unlike its host, has not gone completely gray; it may not be long before he is poached by one of the big networks. ★

WENDI DENG Rupert Murdoch is relying heavily on his Chinese-born third wife as he expands into China. She is said to have introduced the News Corp. chief to Chinese elites and is tasked with making MySpace China a success. ★

CHRIS DEWOLFE AND TOM ANDERSON The MySpace co-founders cut a deal with the major music labels that will give the site exclusive artist profiles, free music downloads, and retail opportunities and turn their social network into a music-marketing machine.

STACEY BENDET EISNER AND ERIC EISNER Eric, son of former Disney boss Michael, is forging a career as a film producer he sold Hamlet 2 for a princely sum at Sundance. His new wife, Stacey, is founder of the fun. flirty fashion line Alice & Olivia. ★

LAPO ELKANN Having helped turn around his family's Fiat brand, the Agnelli xr heir has struck out on his own. designing shoes and sunglasses, and founding the luxury brand Italia Independent and the advertising firm Independent Ideas.

TINA FEY The first woman to score the head writing position at Saturday Night Live now writes, produces, and stars in NBC's 30 Ruck, which earned a recordbreaking 17 Emmy nominations this year. She also starred in Baby Mama. Up next: a leading role in This Side oj the Truth. ★

NICOLAS GHESQUIERE The 37-year-old designer has been touted as one of the most important and most copied designers of this generation. His presence can be felt everywhere from High Street (where he popularized gladiator sandals and skinny pants) to Canal Street (where vendors peddle knockoffs of his Lariat tegs). ★

JARED KUSHNER Real-estate scion Kushner, 27, purchased The New York Observer in 2006. for $10 million, but missed out on buying Long Island's Newstlay earlier this year. He's now rumored to be interested in acquiring the Newark Star-Ledger. should it ever go up for sale. ★

DAVID LAUREN The son of iconic American designer Ralph Lauren, David. 36. has been a senior vice president at his dad's multi-layered brand portfolio since 2001, where he oversees the company's advertising budget.

JOHN LESHER After the former Endeavor agent shepherded the Oscar hits sjir There Will Be Blood and An Inconvenient Truth for Paramount, Lesher was made president of the studio's film division. ★

MAX LEVCHIN The PayPal alum's latest start-up. Slide, is a popular slide-show application supported by today's "It" dot-coms—Facebook and MySpace. ★

ROBIN LI The 40-year-old founded China's leading Internet search engine.

Baidu. The Web company's earnings are expected to grow 76 percent in 2008—and that's after it shattered Wall Street's targets in 2007. ★

SETH MACFARLANE Having conquered the world of broadcast TV he recently signed a reported nine-figure contract with Fox the Family Guy creator is now setting his sights on the Internet, with a series of quick-hit cartoons to be distributed by Google to thousands of Web sites. ★

JOSHUA MICAH MARSHALL Marshall's much-lauded TalkingPointsMemo has changed many people's perception of what a blog can be. with in-depth news and original reporting. His coverage of the U.S.-attorney firings scandal won him a 2008 George Polk Award. ★

MARKOS MOULITSAS Success and a mainstream-media job (writing for Newsweek) haven't mellowed the determined DailyKos founder, who has said that he plans to mount more primary challenges to take down centrist Democrats.

ELISABETH, JAMES, AND LACHLAN MURDOCH Three of Rupert Murdoch's grown children are active in business. Elisabeth runs the TV production outfit Shine Group. James oversees News Corp.'s operations in Asia and Europe, and Lachlan teamed up with James Packer to try to buy Consolidated Media Holdings. ★

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ELON MUSK The PayPal co-founder has poured $100 million into space exploration, but his company, SpaceX, has yet to reach orbit (the third attempt to launch his rocket. Falcon I, failed in August). Musk is also the primary backer and force behind the first-ever all-electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster.

ALI PARTOVI AND HADI PARTOVI The 36year-old twins know a thing or two about Web entrepreneurship: before founding iLike, an online music-sharing service, they each sold their Internet start-ups. LinkExchange and Tellmc Networks, to Microsoft for $265 million and $800 million, respectively. ★

NANCY PERETSMAN The managing director at Allen & Co. specializes in mergers and acquisitions. She advised Google on its 2004 public offering, helped out Rupert Murdoch on his acquisition of Dow Jones, and is the only investment banker whom Oprah has ever worked with. ★

TYLER PERRY The actor-directorplaywright's comic melodramas have found a fanatical following among the underserved demographic of older, churchgoing African-Americans. ★

ZAC POSEN The 28-year-old designer is a favorite of the young Hollywood set. Now. backed by Sean "Diddy" Combs, Posen is planning a men's-wear collection.

BRETT RATNER Having closed the book on one cop-comedy trilogy. Rush Hour, the hitmaking director plans to put his stamp on another, with Beverly Hills Cop IV. In between signing on to helm a Hugh Hefner biopie and a comic-booksuperhero franchise called Harbinger. Ratner also started his own branding consultancy.

ROGEN AND EVAN GOLDBERG Judging by the success of Superhad and Pineapple Express, childhood chums Rogen and Goldberg along with their progenitor, Judd Apalow may be the biggest thing to hit comic screenwriting since Mel Brooks. Oh. and Rogen acts too. ★

DAVID DE ROTHSCHILD The 30-year-old British eco-voyager (and Nat Rothschild's cousin) runs Adventure Ecology, which teaches schoolchildren about the environment. De Rothschild plans to sail across the Pacific Ocean in 2009 in a boat he built from plastic bottles and recycled materials. ★

NAT ROTHSCHILD Even though he comes from European banking royalty. Rothschild, 37. is a self-made billionaire. His $20 billion Atticus Capital hedge fund was up 26 percent at the end of 2007.

MIKA SALMI Two years ago MTV paid $200 million for his Web video company. Atom Entertainment, and appointed him president of global digital media. Now he oversees the channel's 300-plus Web sites and can lake some credit for the MTV-owned hit video game Rock Band. ★

rT^JOSH SCHWARTZ Every television pilot that Schwartz touches seems to turn into a cult-hit show: Fox's The O.C.. his producing debut, became a teenage smash, and the insanely addictive Gossip Girl is a prime-time sensation. ★

DMITRY SHAPIRO Shapiro's Vcoh is not the only company trying to become a superior version of YouTube, but it's the best, offering licensed content from TV networks, high-quality full-screen videos, and a TiVo-like recommendation system. No wonder such old-media moguls as Michael Eisner. Tom F'reston, and Jonathan Dolgen have invested heavily in him. ★

QUINCY SMITH Every TV network aspires to become a major Web destination as well, but none has had as much success as CBS. which hired Smith, a former online-media deal-maker for Allen & Co., to head its electronic-media operations. ★

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN The 31-year-old journalist, who started writing for The New York Times when he was in high school, now edits DealBook, the paper's online business section. Sorkin not only breaks news, he was one of only a few journalists invited to Herb Allen's mogulfest, in Sun Valley, Idaho. ★

OLIVIER THEYSKENS In 1997 the * designer debuted his collection in Paris and made such a splash that Madonna's stylist had him dress the star for the Academy Awards. He's now at the helm of the Nina Ricci label, which he was brought in to revive in 2006. ★

PETER THIEL The PayPal co-founder is now working his magic at Clarium Capital Management, a $6.4 billion hedge fund, and the Founders Fund, his venture-capital vehicle, which made a prescient bet on Facebook. ★

IVANKA TRUMP In addition to designing her own jewelry line, the Donald's daughter oversees the construction and manag agement of a handful of hotels for the Trump Organization. inization. ★

CASEY WASSERMAN The 34-year-old wants to be to sports what his grandfather the legendary MCA chief Tew Wasserman was to the movie business: the top power player. His Wasserman Media Group is already one of the world's biggest sports agencies. ★

EVAN WILLIAMS Do people really need to tell the world exactly what they're doing via text-message-length updates? Apparently so. The number of Twitter users has more than doubled in the past year, to about 1.5 million.

ANDREW ZOLLI The organizer of PoplTech, a kind of techie Davos held every October in Maine, wants to harness human ingenuity to create a better future. But Zolli is no starry-eyed idealist, instead offering hard-nosed forecasts and real-world solutions to the major companies lining up for his consulting services. ★

JESSICA FLINT

MATT PRESSMAN