What do Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Marissa Mayer, Ginni Rometty, Bill Gates and Vivek Wadhwa – a WRALTechWire Insider as a columnist and contributor – all have in common? They are among the “40 Most Influential Minds in Tech” as selected by Time Magazine.

Wadhwa, a former entrepreneur in the Triangle who now describes himself as an “academic” who is involved with several universities and has become a widely published columnist as well as author, pinched himself when he heard the news.

“I was completely, utterly, blown away this morning to find myself on Time’s list of the “’40 Most Influential Minds in Tech,'” Wadhwa wrote friends and colleagues in an email.

”Can’t believe who I am on this list with.”

Sam Gustin of Time wrote: “Over the last decade, technology executives, startup founders, and venture capital investors have become America’s new rock stars. …In a series called the TIME Tech 40, we’re highlighting the most influential figures in technology. From the top CEOs and startup entrepreneurs to the most respected venture capitalists and tech ‘big thinkers,’ we’ll call out the individuals changing the landscape of American business.”

The list:

  • Chris Anderson, 3D Robotics
  • Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz
  • Julian Assange, WikiLeaks
  • Steve Ballmer, Microsoft
  • Jeff Bezos, Amazon
  • Danah Boyd, New York University
  • Jim Breyer, Accel Partners
  • Leah Busque, TaskRabbit
  • Brian Chesky, Airbnb
  • Ron Conway, SV Angel
  • Tim Cook, Apple
  • Dick Costolo, Twitter
  • Susan Crawford, Cardozo Law School
  • Jack Dorsey, Twitter/Square
  • Daniel Ek, Spotify
  • Larry Ellison, Oracle
  • Bill Gates, Microsoft/Gates Foundation
  • Theresia Gouw, Accel Partners
  • Reid Hoffman, Greylock
  • Drew Houston, Dropbox
  • Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post
  • Travis Kalanick, Uber
  • Jaron Lanier, Microsoft Research
  • Marissa Mayer, Yahoo!
  • Mary Meeker, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
  • Sascha Meinrath, New America Foundation
  • Yuri Milner, Digital Sky Technologies
  • Michael Moritz, Sequoia Capital
  • Elon Musk, Tesla/SpaceX
  • Larry Page, Google
  • Bre Pettis, MakerBot
  • Ginni Rometty, IBM
  • Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook
  • Eric Schmidt/Jared Cohen, Google
  • Peter Thiel, Founders Fund
  • Vivek Wadhwa, Singularity University
  • Meg Whitman, HP
  • Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures
  • Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe
  • Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

Wow, That is quite an impressive group, to say the least.

Wadhwa, who remains actively involved with Duke University, was cited for his work as a “big thinker.” The magazine’s comments about Vivek: 

“Vivek Wadhwa, Singularity University

“Vivek Wadhwa has become a leading voice in debates over technology policy, particularly with respect to entrepreneurship, innovation and immigration. Wadhwa holds academic appointments at Singularity University, Stanford University, and Duke University, and last year was named to Foreign Policy magazine’s list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. An Indian-born U.S. citizen, Wadhwa worked at Credit Suisse First Boston earlier in his career, where he helped develop technology for creating computer-aided software-writing systems. He would later found software firm Relativity Technologies.

“In his recent book, The Immigrant Exodus: Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent, Wadhwa describes how the U.S. is now telling the best immigrants to go home, due to a lack of immigration visas. As a result of this “reverse brain drain,” as Wadhwa and his colleagues call it, highly skilled workers and professionals are increasingly looking to other global markets to locate their businesses.

“We’re seeing a boom in technology entrepreneurship in India, China, and even Russia, because the U.S. won’t let people stay here,” Wadhwa recently told TIME.

A look at Wadhwa’s list of associations and posts listed in his email signature indicates quite clearly how internationally known Wadhwa has become. 

The resume:

  • Vice President of Innovation and Research, Singularity University
  • Fellow, Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford University
  • Director of Research, CERC, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University
  • Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Halle Institute of Global Learning, Emory University
  • Columnist/contributor: Washington Post, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, ASEE Prism Magazine
  • Website: www.wadhwa.com , Research: http://ssrn.com/author=738704 Twitter: @wadhwa
  • Author: The Immigrant Exodus—an Economist Book of the Year, 2012

Congratulations, Vivek!