单挑世界500强的15位年轻人

贾斯汀•比伯发布新专辑《Purpose》几周前，跟踪数据表明音乐榜单第一位之争非常激烈。2008年在YouTube上发现这位流行歌星并一直担任其经纪人的斯科特•布劳恩可不会让这张新专辑落败。他在洛杉矶的临时新闻发布会上抛出了一系列“粉丝体验”活动，一半是音乐会，一半是自白，从而把音乐会门票和专辑销售捆绑在了一起。布劳恩迅速预定了斯坦普斯中心，比伯通过社交媒体发布了活动公告，《Purpose》则成为一年多以来首周销量最高的专辑。这就是布劳恩最新的神来之笔。这位34岁的大学辍学生通过唱片把艺人们（及其经纪人）放在了平等的位置上，并由此改变了音乐行业。

在布劳恩创立的SB Projects，艺人名册就像百大最热门明星通讯录，其中有黑眼豆豆、托莉•凯利、卡莉•克劳斯以及the Wanted。这家公司还把业务延伸到了影视领域，比如CBS的电视剧《天蝎》以及比伯的音乐会电影。不过，其中不包括体育项目，原因是布劳恩太过痴迷于体育运动。他说：“对我来说体育仍是纯粹的”。布劳恩透露，曾有运动员想让他当经济人，“我就像斯派克•李，一直看现场比赛。无论多少钱也不会改变这一点。”接下来就是投资基金Ithaca，媒体报道称这只规模1.2亿美元的基金为Spotify和优步等科技初创企业提供了支持。《财富》杂志了解到，Ithaca远不止是风投基金，它还是SB Projects的控股公司，并且控股了七家规模领先的美国音乐管理公司。由此可见，布劳恩的影响力（和他赚到的钱）要远高于此前外界所知的水平。

布劳恩说，他的商业运作灵感来源于自己的曾外祖父欧文•斯拉文。后者是俄罗斯移民，用口袋里的几个美元在卡茨基尔开始了房地产生意。布劳恩说：“以前他每个月都看《财富》。他工作努力，而且实现了自己的梦想。如果他的曾孙子能以创业者的身份出现在这本杂志里，嗯，那会是相当精彩的一页。”

Weeks before Justin Bieber will release his new album, Purpose, the tracking numbers suggest a dogfight for No. 1 on the charts. Scooter Braun, Bieber’s manager since discovering the pop star on YouTube in 2008, can’t let the comeback fall flat. He calls an impromptu meeting in Los Angeles, where he suggests a series of “fan experience” events—part concert, part confessional—that would bundle tickets with album sales. Braun quickly books the Staples Center, Bieber announces the event via social media, andPurpose goes on to have the best first-week sales of any album in more than a year. It was the latest masterstroke from Braun, a 34-year-old college dropout who has upended the music industry by placing artists (and their managers) on equal footing with record labels.

The artist roster for Braun’s SB Projects reads like a who’s who of the Hot 100: Black Eyed Peas, Tori Kelly, Karlie Kloss, the Wanted. It has also expanded into television and movie projects, such as the CBS program Scorpion and a Bieber concert film. But not sports—Braun’s too big a fan. “For me it’s still pure,” he says, adding that he’s been approached by athletes seeking representation. “I’m like Spike Lee, sitting courtside. No amount of money is worth taking that away.” And then there is Ithaca, which reports have described as a $120 million investment fund through which SB Projects has backed tech startups like Spotify and Uber. Fortune has learned that the entity is about much more than venture capital: Ithaca also acts as a holding company for SB Projects and previously unreported ownership interests in seven of the nation’s largest music management companies. The structure allows Braun’s influence (and earnings) to be much stronger than previously known.

Braun says his business hustle is inspired by his great-grandfather Irving Slavin, a Russian immigrant who moved to the Catskills with a few dollars in his pocket to start a real estate business. “He used to read Fortune every month,” Braun says. “He worked hard and lived out his dream. If his great-grandson can be in Fortune for being an entrepreneur, well, that’s pretty cool.” —Dan Primack

Code2040联合创始人劳拉•韦德曼•鲍尔斯和特里斯坦•沃克都出生在纽约市，但他们的背景差异巨大。鲍尔斯来自曼哈顿的中产家庭。沃克则是土生土长的皇后区人，父亲在他3岁时被杀。Code2040让他们走到了一起。这个非营利组织的工作是把黑人和拉丁裔学生推荐到大型科技公司（最近的合作伙伴包括苹果和谷歌）。两位创始人的目标是让科技行业真正变得多元化。31岁的沃克说：“他们会带动更多的人到硅谷来。”

Laura Weidman Powers and Tristan Walker, co-founders of Code2040, both hail from New York City—yet their backgrounds couldn’t be more different. Powers is a middle-class Manhattanite. Walker is a Queens native whose father was killed when he was 3 years old. They unite behind Code2040, a nonprofit organization that places black and Latino students inside large technology companies (recent partnerships: Apple AAPL -1.91% , Google) GOOG -1.56% . The co-founders seek true diversity in the tech industry. Says Walker, 31: “These are the folks who will inspire more people to participate in Silicon Valley.” —Jonathan Chew

阿妮娅•波格哈里安的500美元透析机已经引起了比尔•克林顿和非营利性医疗研究中心Cleveland Clinic的注意。波格哈里安现年18岁。当她听说传统透析机的成本为30万美元时感到很吃惊，她觉得这对一种救命的机器来说实在是太昂贵了。波格哈里安制作的原型机能在25分钟内透析四升血液，速度远高于需要四个小时的普通透析机。她正在制作第三台原型机，并且开始为自己的发明制定商业规划。与此同时，她还得为自己的大学一年级生涯做准备。

Anya Pogharian’s $500 dialysis machine has captured the attention of Bill Clinton and the Cleveland Clinic. Pogharian, 18, was shocked at the $30,000 cost of conventional dialysis machines—a price she felt was far too high for a lifesaving treatment. Pogharian’s prototype is able to filter four liters of blood in 25 minutes, much faster than the usual four hours. She’s working on a third prototype and a business framework for her invention, all while preparing for her first year of college. —Laura Lorenzetti

相当多的独角兽初创公司都在2015年遇到了阻力，但Slack仍在加速前进。去年，这家商业通信软件公司的价值上升到了28亿美元，员工人数增至350人，付费用户人数提高了47万。它甚至成立了一只8000万美元的投资基金，以支持为自身平台开发软件的公司。开发者提交了如此多的app，以至于Slack的审核系统都崩溃了。42岁的巴特菲尔德说：“这真的让人感到鼓舞。”

Plenty of startup “unicorns” hit speed bumps in 2015, but Slack stepped on the gas. The business-communication software maker last year raised its valuation to $2.8 billion, boosted its headcount to 350, and added 470,000 paid users. It even formed an $80 million investment fund to back companies building software for its platform. Developers submitted so many apps that Slack’s review process broke down. Says Butterfield, 42: “That’s really encouraging.” —Erin Griffith

2003年创立以来，网络服装零售商Revolve的成长一直很慢，但它也一直从容不迫而且处于盈利状态。去年，这家设在洛杉矶的公司售出了价值4.40亿美元的商品，包括70年代风格的波西米亚连衣裙、低胸紧身衣和高跟凉鞋。如果你从未听说过Revolve，那是因为他们有意为之。被400名员工称为“麦克兄弟”的联合创始人迈克尔•门特（35岁，上左）和麦克•卡拉尼古拉斯（37岁）从未跟风过科技博客网站上的炒作，也从未借助风投资金来实现增长。这项策略行之有效。Nasty Gal和Gilt Groupe等竞争对手曾经声名显赫而且资金充裕，但最终都经历了裁员，并以此前高估值的零头易主。此时的Revolve则拿出了超过预期的业绩。该公司2015年收入比自身预测值高10%，而且预计2016年增速将达到40-50%。门特说：“我们想打造一项长期事业，一家我们想一直拥有的公司。”两人希望Revolve的规模达到10亿美元。但要提醒大家的是，他们说的不是价值，而是销售额。

Since it was founded in 2003, online apparel retailer Revolve has grown slowly, deliberately, and profitably. Last year the Los Angeles company sold $440 million worth of 1970s-style bohemian dresses, low-cut bodysuits, and stacked-heel sandals. If you’ve never heard of Revolve, that’s by design. Co-founders Michael Mente, 35 (above left), and Mike Karanikolas, 37, known to their 400 employees as “the Mikes,” haven’t chased tech-blog hype or venture-capital-fueled growth. The strategy has worked. As buzzy, well-funded competitors like Nasty Gal and Gilt Groupe endure layoffs and change hands for a fraction of their soaring valuations, Revolve beats expectations. It topped its 2015 revenue projection by 10% and expects to grow 40% to 50% next year. “We’re trying to build a business for the long term,” Mente says, “a business that we want to own forever.” The Mikes hope Revolve becomes a billion-dollar company. Not in value, mind you—but $1 billion in sales. —Erin Griffith

制片人莫伊拉•迪莫斯（上右）和劳拉•里西亚迪去年12月在Netflix推出的迷你剧《制造杀人犯》大受欢迎，而且触及了敏感话题。两人花了10年时间来追踪威斯康辛州的史蒂文•艾弗里，后者曾蒙冤入狱18年（如今又因犯下重罪而再次成为囚犯）。她们曾向HBO推销自己的剧本，但最终将版权卖给了Netflix。该剧播出后，已有数万人向政府请求释放艾弗里。

Filmmakers Moira Demos (above right) and Laura Ricciardi touched a nerve when their wildly popular TV miniseries, Making a Murderer, was released on Netflix NFLX -4.52% in December. The duo spent a decade following Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man wrongly sentenced to 18 years in prison (and now serving time for another gruesome crime). They pitched the documentary to HBO and eventually sold the rights to Netflix. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have petitioned for Avery’s release. —Michal Lev-Ram

布莱思•马斯特斯不再仅仅是华尔街最有影响力的女性之一，她也成了区块中最有影响力的女性之一。这个“区块”就是“区块链”中的区块，区块链则是比特币等数字货币采用的分布式记账技术。这位摩根大通前高管是20世纪90年代创立信用违约互换的先锋人物（无论此举的影响是好还是坏）。如今，她又建立了一家合资公司，名叫Digital Asset Holdings，其目标是探索怎样把为数字货币提供便利的协议用到金融服务行业的其他领域。46岁的马斯特斯说，区块链有望消除债券、股票等资产的交易后处理冗余、延迟和误差，从而节省数十亿美元的成本。这样的抱负不会不引起银行方面的关注。Digital Asset Holdings已经从世界上最大的15家金融和科技企业那里筹集了6000万美元资金，并且已经开始在摩根大通进行项目测试。

Blythe Masters is no longer just one of the most powerful women on Wall Street—she’s one of the most powerful women on the block too. That’s “block” as in “block chain,” the distributed ledger technology that powers digital currencies like Bitcoin. The former J.P. Morgan JPM -0.70% executive who (for better or worse) helped pioneer the creation of credit default swaps in the 1990s has returned with a new venture, Digital Asset Holdings, that is exploring how to apply the cryptocurrency-friendly protocol to other parts of the financial services industry. Masters, 46, says the block chain could eliminate billions of dollars’ worth of redundancy, latency, and error costs in the post-trade processing of assets like bonds and equities. That aspiration has attracted no shortage of attention in the banking world: The company has raised more than $60 million from 15 of the world’s biggest financial and tech firms and has begun a trial program with her former employer. —Robert Hackett

如果老牌餐饮公司可以从头再来，其中大多数就有可能想效仿Sweetgreen。这家高档沙拉连锁店具备了当今餐饮业的所有正确要素——健康、新鲜、有机而且就在身边。在它背后是史蒂夫•凯斯、丹尼•梅耶尔和丹尼尔•布鲁德等大牌投资人。Sweetgreen的菜式吸引了众多食客，他们会在Sweetgreen的40家店面外排起长龙。此外，传统餐饮连锁企业还可以从该公司的联合CEO身上学到做菜以外的东西。作为乔治城大学的同班同学，三人在科技领域一直是领跑者，而且Sweetgreen的三成生意都来自互联网或移动app。他们还在不断地重新考虑管理策略。为了接近消费者，Sweetgreen几乎全面关闭办公室的情况每年都会出现五次，这样每个人都可以到它的餐厅中工作。

If legacy restaurant companies could start from scratch, most of them would want to look like Sweetgreen. The high-end salad chain, backed by big-name investors like Steve Case, Danny Meyer, and Daniel Boulud, hits all the right notes in today’s food industry—healthy, fresh, organic, and local. The recipe has resonated with diners, who keep lines long at Sweetgreen’s 40 locations. But traditional chains could learn about more than just food from the company’s co-CEOs. The Georgetown University classmates have been tech pioneers, and 30% of Sweetgreen transactions are made through its website or mobile app. The trio are also rethinking management strategies. To stay close to customers, Sweetgreen almost completely shuts down the corporate offices five times per year so that everyone can work in its restaurants. —Beth Kowitt

29岁的乔希•布鲁诺离开了贝恩资本风险投资公司，推掉了哈佛商学院的邀请，随后创立了Hometeam。这家设在纽约市的公司已有两年的历史，而且手握3850万美元风投资金，其目标是重新思考老年人住家保姆的管理方式。布鲁诺没有采用常见的独立合同方式，而是把保姆作为正式员工，为他们提供医保和养老金，还有职业发展规划。Hometeam的待遇比保姆行业的标准时薪高30-50%，并用软件来为老年人寻找合适的保姆。

Twenty-nine-year-old Josh Bruno quit his job at Bain Capital Ventures, turned down a Harvard Business School offer, and founded Hometeam. With $38.5 million in venture capital, the two-year-old New York City company aims to rethink how in-home care is administered to senior citizens. Bruno rejects the popular independent-contractor model and instead employs caregivers as W-2 workers with health benefits, 401(k) plans, and a career progression path. The startup pays 30% to 50% more than the hourly industry standard and uses software to match caregivers with seniors. —Polina Marinova

数据分析正在改变公司进行商业决策的方式。派拉耶•尤塔斯•贝姆相信，它也可以改变个人的决定，比如是否要孩子。贝姆的初创公司Celmatix推出的软件叫做Polaris，它处理了数百万女性的医疗数据，进而可以准确预测哪种方法可以成功受孕，比如体外受精或是冷冻卵子。在美国，生育困难女性接近七百万，这使辅助生殖产业的规模达到90亿美元。使用Celmatix软件的美国辅助生殖机构已超过12个，它们的目的是帮助数千病人成功受孕。接下来贝姆准备干什么呢？那就是开发出前所未有的基因测试方法来预测不孕不育。

Data analytics is changing how companies make business decisions. Piraye Yurttas Beim believes that it could change personal decisions too—like whether to have a baby. Beim’s startup Celmatix makes software called Polaris that crunches medical data from millions of women to accurately predict which treatments, from in-vitro fertilization to freezing one’s eggs, will result in pregnancy. Nearly 7 million American women have trouble conceiving a baby, resulting in a $9 billion fertility industry. More than 12 fertility clinics in the U.S. are using Celmatix software to help tens of thousands of patients become pregnant. Next up for Beim? Developing the first-ever genetic test that will predict infertility. —Leena Rao