Ping Li, Accel Partners

Ping Li
The guy from Accel Partners who usually tops these sorts of lists is Jim Bryer, who's on the board of Facebook.

So what's up with Ping Li? Two words: big data. That's a bit of a buzz phrase nowadays used to talk about all the data businesses and consumers are generating by the nanosecond and the opportunity to make sense of it all. In November, Accel carved out $100 million to create the Accel Big Data Fund, and Li is the key partner investing the money.

I've heard the Big Data Fund criticized as a marketing effort because Accel hasn't raised new money. But Li, who's been with Accel since 2004 and has already made smart cloud computing investments, dismissed such talk, arguing that he's undertaking a big effort to fuel innovation around big data. And while this might not be as sexy as another app play, the payoff should be bigger. "An entirely new ecosystem of companies is going to be built," said Li.

December 20, 2011 4:00 AM PST

Photo by: Accel Partners

| Caption by: Paul Sloan