Beyond clean energy, Khosla and his venture capital firm fund a nonprofit trust that backs work in areas such as microfinance, education, health, and affordable housing.

As for the company he helped found 25 years ago? "Sun has plenty of strategies through which it could emerge as a powerhouse again," Khosla said.

-- Paul Roberts

Bill Joy: Thinking big about the future

Bill Joy had earned his spot in the computer hall of fame even before he helped found Sun in 1982. While working as a graduate student at UC Berkeley in the late 1970s, Joy is credited with creating and disseminating the first Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) of the Unix operating system, and adding the TCP/IP stack to Unix, an act which earned him the sobriquet "father of the Internet."