TIME magazine has revealed its much-awaited list of the world’s 100 most influential people for 2025 and Demis Hassabis, the Greek-British scientist, and Ted Sarandos, the Greek-American Netflix co-CEO, are among them, recognized as some of the leaders shaping the world today and defining its future.
The two men of Greek heritage are among a prominent group of world leaders, US political figures, athletes, entertainers, fashionistas, visual and literary arts icons, and business, technology and innovation leaders.
“Demis Hassabis is reshaping what’s possible in science,” Jennifer Doudna, a Nobel prize-winning biochemist and a professor at the University of California in Berkeley wrote in TIME magazine. “His work at DeepMind—most notably the development of AlphaFold, which earned him a share of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry—is already accelerating discoveries across biology and medicine.”
This is the second time Demis Hassabis has featured on TIME’s 100 most influential people list.
Ted Sarandos, a Greek-American whose family hails from the Greek island of Samos, has been credited as the visionary executive who reshaped how, when and where we watch entertainment, and helped Netflix become the streaming powerhouse that it is today.
Sarandos’ grandfather, Alex Karyotakis, migrated to the United States and changed his name to Sarandos. Ted Sarandos has spoken proudly about his Greek-American heritage and how his Greek roots shaped his upbringing and work ethic.
“Fearless. That’s the only way I can describe Ted Sarandos,” Shonda Rhimes, an Emmy-nominated writer and producer, and CEO of Shondaland, writes of him in TIME. “Fearlessly smart, fearlessly innovative, fearlessly truthful. In an industry quick to offer platitudes, he leans into the truth.”
Some of the other names that stand out are those of US President Donald Trump, who is on the list for the seventh time, Bill Gates, Malala Yousafzai, Marco Rubio, Ed Sheeran, Stella McCartney, Mark Zuckerberg, Serena Williams, Simon Biles, Javier Milei, Demi Moore and Miuccia Prada.
Olympic swimmer Leon Marchand, at 22 years old, is the youngest person on this year’s list, and Chief Adviser of Bangladesh Muhammad Yunus, 84, is the oldest.
In October 2024, Demis Hassabis was among the three scientists who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on predicting the structure of proteins using artificial intelligence.
Hassabis was honored with the prestigious award along with his colleagues David Baker and John Jumper.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced half of the prize to Baker “for computational protein design” and the other half jointly to Hassabis and Jumper “for protein structure prediction.”
Baker works at the University of Washington in Seattle, United States, while Hassabis and Jumper both work at Google Deepmind in London.
Demis Hassabis, born to a Greek Cypriot father and a Singaporean mother in London, was a child prodigy in chess from the age of 4. He reached master’s standard at the age of 13 with an Elo rating of 2300, and captained many of the England junior chess teams.
Hassabis became a video game AI programmer and designer, and an expert board games player. He is the chief executive officer and co-founder of DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs, and a UK Government AI Advisor.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and has won many prestigious awards for his work on AlphaFold, including the Breakthrough Prize, the Canada Gairdner International Award, and the Lasker Award. In 2017 he was appointed a CBE and listed in the Time 100 most influential people list. In 2024 he was knighted for services to AI.
