BEING an influential man in this world means you have to contribute more to society than a rant.

Many guys on our Top 49 Most Influential Men of 2013 used star power and entertainment to get to the top, but some of the names on the list who aren’t as well known are responsible for major discoveries that have changed our world. Heavy stuff. Check out this list of the 10 biggest discoveries and the men behind them.

Riccardo Zacconi







Riccardo Zacconi, No. 37 on our 2013 Top 49 list, broke into the extremely lucrative gaming industry this year, and not through a game for PlayStation or Xbox. Zacconi’s company, King, and its flagship game Candy Crush for Facebook and mobile mined millions of hours from humankind this year and it made Zacconi and his company very wealthy. King even started selling Candy Crush merch, like socks. We knew it when Angry Birds blew up, but Candy Crush really proved that the public has a sweet tooth for simple and addictive games. Zacconi had the genius of harnessing it.



Garrett Camp







It’s good to be known for investing in one successful product, but what about two, three or more? People are calling Garrett Camp (No. 34 on our 2013 Top 49 list) a serial developer for inventing StumbleUpon, the ultimate way to procrastinate online, while in graduate school and the first ever on-demand car service app called Uber in 2009. This year, Camp founded Expa, a company that will use his expertise to jumpstart new products like BlackJet, a private jet ridesharing app (seriously). We’re excited to know what Camp will be up to next, and you should be, too.

Alexis Ohanian







If you get frustrated when your friends post days-old stories on Facebook or Twitter, you probably use Reddit. The front page of the internet is a hub for the newest and most interesting things on the net. (It’s also home to some of the worst people on the planet, but we digress.) Alexis Ohanian (No. 14 on our 2013 Top 49 list) started it with Steve Huffman while at the University of Virginia in 2005. At only 30 years old, Ohanian is not done creating just yet. He understands the immediacy of the internet (as he explains in this TED talk about a whale) and has plenty of exciting new ideas up his sleeve.

Mark Cerny

Unlike the newest phone, computer or tablet, a new version of a gaming system comes around about as often as a comet (well, maybe not that long, but still pretty long). PlayStation 3 was released to the world way back in 2007 and, now, on November 15th, PlayStation 4 will be out. If it’s a success, Sony has video game consultant Mark Cerny (No. 29 on our 2013 Top 49 list) to thank. No matter what, PS4s are going to fly off shelves this shopping season, but Cerny’s success will ultimately be judged on whether the PS4 beats Microsoft’s Xbox One or not.

Sam And Dan Houser







You think Hollywood blockbusters make a lot of money? Ha! Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V brought in $800 million on the day of its release and upwards of $1 billion in sales in just three days. That roaring first day smashed the previous record for media launches (including films) held by Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 by a whopping $300 million. Sam and Dan Houser (No. 15 on our 2013 Top 49 list), the owners of Rockstar, have been known to live the high-life, sporting expensive jewelry and living in multimillion dollar mansions. They have also invited strippers in Catholic school uniforms to staff parties. (Hey, guys, don’t forget that Grand Theft Auto is a video game. This is real life.)

Bre Pettis

Despite being around for years in manufacturing, 3D printing has blown up recently and is continuing to rise. Critics warn that 3D printing could be used to print guns, while advocates say that 3D printing will relieve the reliance on foreign-made manufacturing and boost the economy. There’s even the possibility that we could be 3D printing our dinners. Wherever 3D printing goes, expect Bre Pettis (No. 48 on our 2013 Top 49 list) and his company, MakerBot, to be associated with it. MakerBot is one of the biggest players in the 3D-printing game and has done the all-important feat of bringing 3D printing to your home desktop. At a 3D printer store in New York, MakerBot took 3D scans of your head that you could turn into a design of whatever you want. Who doesn’t want a plastic print of their head on their mantle?

Reed Hastings

The idea of watching what you want when you want is revolutionary when you're talking about TV. Netflix puts the power in your hands -- and consumers have gobbled it up. Reed Hastings, the company's CEO, (No. 8 in our Top 49 list) has got the service in a good place, and the latest news is that Netflix wants to stream movies just 30 days after they hit theaters, and is working out a deal with Marvel for some original content. It’s hard to believe that Netflix’s House of Cards was the first web show to win an Emmy, but you can bet there will be more to come.

Satoshi Nakamoto

Don’t you wish you bought a few Bitcoins back in 2008 or 2009? Heck, don’t you wish you bought some a couple of months ago? The idealistic cyber-alternative to common currency has more than doubled in value over the last month to about $270 after dropping to $110 when the FBI shut down the online black market Silk road in October (which is back now, by the way). Think Bitcoin is still on the fringe? One hundred thousand dollars has already been bought and sold through a Bitcoin ATM that popped up in Vancouver after just eight days of operation. If Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin (No. 30 in our Top 49 list) is a real person, he (or she) is a genius.

Sergey Brin

If you are searching the internet, checking where to go with Google maps, accessing your Gmail, watching YouTube or browsing the web on Chrome, you are living in Sergey Brin’s (No. 18 in our Top 49 list) world. Along with Larry Page, Brin cofounded the technology empire that is Google. With insanely cool new projects like Project Ara, Loon, driverless cars, robots (?!) and a mysterious man-made island off the coast of San Francisco, Google’s relevance in our everyday lives is only getting bigger -- and more crazy. Oh, there’s also that Google Glass thing, which a couple of people were talking about this year -- and we know you don’t want to own.

Ed Snowden





Yo, I’m really happy for you and I'ma let you finish, but Ed Snowden was the most influential man of 2013. Edward Snowden (No. 20 on our 2013 Top 49 list), the NSA scandal whistleblower not only made the biggest discovery of 2013, but one of the biggest discoveries of the 21st century. While conspiracy theorists have hemmed and hawed for years about the government having its eye on us, Snowden’s leaks gave us proof. Now the “Five Eyes” (U.S., Canada, New Zealand, England, Australia) have their tails between their legs trying to explain why they broke privacy laws. Snowden’s discovery has begun an extremely important conversation about our privacy on the internet and how far we want our government to go for our safety.



This story was originally published on Askmen.

Originally published as The men behind world's biggest inventions