The man behind the web phenomenon Craigslist is 51-year-old introvert Craig Newmark. His network of local portals offering personal ads, job listings, and other local-interest lists in 45 major cities worldwide is in the top 20 of U.S. portals, putting it with the likes of Yahoo!, MSN and AOL.

The shy celeb can’t write a personal ad (much less navigate that awkward social scene), but still puts a lot of stock in connecting people: “My feeling is that something connecting people to fix the world over time is the deepest spiritual value you can have.”