HAUTE 100: Isha and Asim Abdullah, John Arrillaga, Katherine August-deWilde and more

Ray Dolby

CATEGORY: Billionaires

COMPANY: Dolby Laboratories

INDUSTRY: Technology

WHAT MAKES THEM HAUTE?

His genius mind is what makes Ray Dolby haute. This audio genius was the inventor of the noise reduction system known as Dolby NR and co-invent audio and video tape recording. In 1965, he founded Dolby Laboratories, from which he is now retired – thought he still is the Director Emeritus. Dolby himself holds an impressive 50 patents.

John Doerr

CATEGORY: Billionaires

COMPANY: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Google

INDUSTRY: Venture Capitalism

WHAT MAKES THEM HAUTE?

This haute lister is a longtime board member of Internet giant Google and is a general partner at venture capital firm General Partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a post he has held since 1980. He was previously the director of Amazon.com and is on the board of Amyris, Inc. and is also on its Nominating and Governance Committee.

Jack Dorsey

CATEGORY: Thinkers

COMPANY: Twitter

INDUSTRY: Technology

WHAT MAKES THEM HAUTE: As a young child, the founder of Twitter was busy designing dispatch routing software. In 1999, he dropped out of NYU to move to Silicon Valley, where the idea for Twitter was born. Jack Dorsey then partnered with co-creator Biz Stone to create Twitter. The world has been busy concocting 140-character-updates ever since. Since Twitter’s founding and subsequent unrivaled success, Dorsey has since founded Square. He is the Executive Chairman of Twitter and CEO and co-founder of Square.

Clint Eastwood

CATEGORY: Entertainers

COMPANY:

INDUSTRY: Film

WHAT MAKES THEM HAUTE?

This San Francisco native has firmly established himself as a film icon and a haute-lister. While he’s best known for appearing on the Silver Screen, Eastwood also owns the extremely private, invitation-only Tehama Golf Club in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and is an investor in the Pebble Beach Golf Links. Eastwood has also been running his own production company, Malpaso Productions since 1967, which produced most of his films.

Daniel Ek

CATEGORY: Entrepreneurs

COMPANY: Spotify

INDUSTRY: Technology

WHAT MAKES THEM HAUTE: He may be Swedish, but his U.S. influence radiates from the Bay Area.  The creator of Spotify, the legal music streaming service that offers users free access to a 15 million-song library, launched his ultra-successful European site in the San Francisco area, thanks to alliances with power players like Sean Parker who helped facilitate the U.S. launch of the music service and its vital integration with Facebook.

Larry Ellison

CATEGORY: Billionaires

COMPANY: Oracle

INDUSTRY: business hardware and software systems

WHAT MAKES THEM HAUTE?

We can sum up his haute factor in one word: Oracle. The billionaire entrepreneur is CEO of the business hardware and software systems company and he used to count the likes of Steve Jobs as a weekend pal. He’s recently found a new passion for philanthropy, giving millions to health and education causes. Ellison is worth a staggering $33 billion.

Archie Aldis “Red” Emmerson

CATEGORY: Billionaires

COMPANY: Sierra Pacific

INDUSTRY: Lumber

WHAT MAKES THEM HAUTE?

He might be one of the most dressed-down billionaires on our list, possibly because he is in the business of cutting down trees. Time spent in the woods can do that to a person. As of 2009, his company, Sierra Pacific, owned 1.7 million acres of forestland in California and Washington, holdings that allowed it to take the title as the second-largest producer of lumber by volume in the U.S.

Dianne Feinstein and Richard Blum

CATEGORY: Power Couples

COMPANY: U.S. Senate/Blum Capital

INDUSTRY: Government/Banking

WHAT MAKES THEM HAUTE: She’s the Senator from California, he’s an investment banker worth millions and together they could rule the world. Feinstein has been in the Senate since 1992 and served as Mayor of San Francisco for ten years. Most recently, she’s been spending her professional time looking for solutions to the escalating US debt crisis. Blum founded Blum Capital in 1975, a highly successful equity investment management firm of which he is still the president and chairman. Like his wife, Blum spends plenty of time trying to better the world and is the founder and chairman of the American Himalayan Foundation.

David Filo

CATEGORY: Billionaires

COMPANY: Yahoo

INDUSTRY: Technology

WHAT MAKES THEM HAUTE?

In true haute list form, Yahoo co-founder David Filo still works for the Internet giant, but banks just a $1 salary. Not that he needs it. This billionaire ranked No. 375 on the Forbes 400 and No. 879 on the Forbes Billionaires List. Filo donated a staggering $30 million to Tulane University, his alma mater, in 2005.