Nadiem Makarim

Industry: Tech

Makarim’s roughly $10 billion company takes its name from ojek, the Bahasa Indonesian word for motorcycle taxis, millions of which swarm through cities like Jakarta. In 2010, at age 26, Makarim created Go-Jek as a way to connect those buzzing drivers with passengers. He decked out 20 drivers in Go-Jek’s now signature green jacket and used dispatcher equipment to direct them all. When the company was still a fledgling, Makarim’s insight was to encourage his drivers to take on odd jobs during nonpeak hours. Drivers began delivering food and parcels. When the official app launched in 2015, after Makarim returned from studying for an MBA at Harvard Business School, Go-Send and Go-Food sat alongside Go-Ride as mainstays of Go-Jek’s business. Makarim has added many more services to Go-Jek (yes, there’s even a Go-Massage) while the company’s payment features and third-party credit services have introduced finance options to Indonesia’s millions of unbanked citizens.