Al Gore, Businessman

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Blood is not specific about where they will invest but theorizes, for instance, that BP might have an edge over other oil companies, thanks to its interest in green technologies; Costco would be a better long-term bet than Wal-Mart because it keeps its workers happier. He and Gore even see potential for making money fighting international scourges like AIDS and malaria. "There are risks associated with these issues," says Blood, "but they are also opportunities if businesses can think about them."

Gore estimates he spends about three-quarters of his workweek on Current TV and most of the rest of his time on Generation Investment, where he helps the firm's stock pickers identify long-term issues that could drive the markets. He also serves as an adviser to Google--he "has helped us understand the geopolitical role we play, the importance of building community," says CEO Eric Schmidt--and sits on the board of Apple Computer. At Apple's last quarterly meeting, the former Vice President led a discussion on stock-option "burn rates" and other esoterica of employee compensation. He keeps all those commitments alongside a busy schedule of speaking engagements, often about one of his greatest passions: the environment. His hour-long multimedia presentation on climate change is being translated into Chinese so that he can present it in Beijing later this summer.

It's clear to see in Gore's business ventures some of the same instincts that, for better or worse, shaped his political career: an ability to discern the future, an appetite for complexity, a faith in the egalitarian forces of technology--and an impulse to take a big risk. Those traits are what had Gore worried about global warming decades ahead of almost everyone else and running for President before his 40th birthday. Under Bill Clinton, he pushed to reinvent the massive federal bureaucracy and wire every classroom to the Internet. In his unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign, Gore once even considered bypassing his high-priced consultants and enlisting ordinary voters to make his campaign commercials--an approach that looks very much like the cable network he is about to launch. "He's a visionary," says Joel Hyatt, the attorney-entrepreneur who is his partner in the cable venture. "He's doing things that are new, daring, difficult, just as he tried to do as a public servant."

But will they work? "We want to be the 'television home page' for the Internet generation," Gore has said. But there's no small amount of skepticism that his cable channel will be able to break out of the pack. If Gore is on to something with this idea of turning consumers into media programmers, so are a lot of other people. Korea's Ohmynews boasts a stable of 38,000 "citizen journalists." Pictures and video from bystanders' cell phones played a starring role in the mainstream media coverage of the terrorist bombings in London. There are already 70 million blogs around the world, 500 video logs, up to 10,000 podcasts.