Mark Zuckerberg Is the 9th Most Powerful Man Alive

Forbes has published its yearly Most Powerful People in the world list. As you'd expect, US President Barack Obama sits at the top of the list, followed by Russia's Prime Minister and de facto leader Vladimir Putin.

But you don't have to look too far down the list to see that, among the politicians, tech people are quite as powerful as well.

Bill Gates, for example sits on the fifth place, below German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

And it's not just the old Guard, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is listed at number nine, quite a move up from last year's number 40.

A bit further down the list, tied for the 30th spot, are Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Even further down is Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, at number 40. Baidu CEO Robin Li is at number 42.