Noah Wintroub

As a 20-something-year-old banker with the San Francisco firm Hambrecht & Quist, Wintroub never went anywhere without his self-styled laminated map of the burgeoning Internet industry. He wasn’t just out to make a buck; he had an infectious desire, an almost evangelical need, to convince everyone this tech thing was going to be big. It was. And now so is Wintroub, the youngest-ever vice chairman of JP Morgan Chase, which bought H&Q. Today Wintroub, a close protégé of the late, revered J.P. Morgan banker Jimmy Lee, heads the firm’s “Internet and digital media” practice. Still based in San Francisco, he’s advised Internet titans like Facebook, Alibaba, and LinkedIn. And he’s still preaching about the possibilities of the Internet, having been around since before these now-established behemoths existed.