Curated playlist
21st-century American philanthropists
- Michael JacksonMichael Jackson bought a music catalog with most of the Beatles's material in 1985. He paid 47.5 million dollars.
- Taylor SwiftEvery record label in Nashville turned Taylor Swift away when she was 11. She kept going and began writing songs.
- Whitney HoustonWhitney Houston sold more than 220 million records and carried a nickname that needed no first name: "the Voice". She was born in 1963 and died in 2012. In between, she became one of the most awarded performers in history. In 2023, Rolling…
- BeyoncéOn the 13th of December 2013, Beyoncé released a complete album on the iTunes Store with no warning and no promotion. Within six days it had sold one million digital copies, a record for any album on iTunes at the time. The artist behind…
- Kobe BryantKobe Bryant scored 81 points against Toronto in 2006, the second-highest NBA game total ever.
- Tim DuncanTim Duncan was a swimmer until a hurricane destroyed his island's only Olympic-sized pool.
- Jennifer AnistonJennifer Aniston, the American actress, once approached a television executive at a Los Angeles gas station and asked him for reassurance. She was depressed. Four of her television shows had failed, and she wanted someone in the business…
- Tom BradyTom Brady was once drafted by the Montreal Expos as a catcher. He chose football at Michigan instead.
- Mark ZuckerbergIn January 2024, Mark Zuckerberg turned to families of harmed children at a Senate hearing and apologized.
- Denzel WashingtonIn 2025, on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the actor Denzel Washington said that the emphasis in his first name belongs on the first syllable. His mother had moved it to the second syllable so that young Denzel would answer to her call and not his…
- Muhammad AliMuhammad Ali refused three times to step forward for his Army induction in 1967. He lost his boxing title that same day.
- Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018, the first for a piece outside classical and jazz.
- Bill GatesBill Gates and Paul Allen wrote software for a computer they did not have. Their Altair demo worked the first time.
- Robert RedfordRobert Redford died in his sleep at his home in Sundance, Utah, on the 16th of September 2025. He was 89 years old. After a private funeral, he was buried on his own property there. The man who ended his days in a place that carried his…
- Chris PrattChris Pratt once lived in a van and a tent on a Maui beach. A restaurant shift there led to his first acting role.
- Warren BuffettWarren Buffett's yearbook photo called him a future stockbroker. He was seventeen and liked math.
- Barbra StreisandBarbra Streisand once filed a lawsuit that sent a crowd of strangers to look at a single photograph. In 2003 she claimed that a website documenting coastal erosion had invaded her privacy. Among its more than 12,000 images, one happened to…
- Ben AffleckBen Affleck directed Argo, and for it he collected the Golden Globe, the Directors Guild Award and the BAFTA for Best Director without ever being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. No director had done that before him. The…
- Gordon MooreMoore's law began as a ten-year forecast that Gordon Moore wrote for a magazine. He never meant it as a law.
- Jennifer LopezJennifer Lopez wore a plunging green Versace silk chiffon dress to the Grammy Awards in February 2000, and a single outfit changed how people used the internet. The dress became the most popular search query in Google's history. That flood…
- Selena GomezIn 2016, Selena Gomez became the first person to reach 100 million followers on Instagram, a milestone Time later singled out in its Firsts series. Gomez is an American actress, singer, songwriter, businesswoman, and producer, born in…
- Scott BessentScott Bessent won Senate confirmation as United States secretary of the treasury on the 27th of January 2025, by a vote of 68-29. On that same day, a man carrying several Molotov cocktails and a knife, who intended to murder him, was…
- Jensen HuangJensen Huang founded Nvidia in a Denny's booth, where he once worked as a dishwasher. Three engineers pooled $600.
- Sam AltmanSam Altman was fired as OpenAI's CEO in November 2023. Most of the staff threatened to quit, and he returned.
- Jim SimonsJim Simons, born James Harris Simons, once explained his dislike of publicity by borrowing a line from Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm. "God gave me a tail to keep off the flies. But I'd rather have had no tail and no flies. That's kind…