The 2010 TIME 100

I first met Ashton Kutcher when we were both on MTV. He was doing Punk'd, and I was doing Making the Band. For a while, with Jamie Foxx, we were a rat pack, hanging out, going to clubs. I remember one night he was with Demi, maybe for the first time, and a couple of weeks later he called to tell me he was in love. That was the end of our clubbing.

But we are still friends. Not that cliché of "Let's make a movie, let's do a deal." He is a sounding board for me. Like me, he's a mogul — a new-media mogul. But we are yin and yang: I am in your face, but he is understated, cool, suave.

Most of us want to make as much money as we can, but Ashton, 32, is out to make the world a better place. He is smart — smart enough to leave Punk'd when he could still be making money at it. He has to have a heart in what he does. What he and Demi do with Twitter is a good example. Most people use it to promote themselves, but he uses Twitter to connect, to strike up conversations, to send positive messages to the millions of people who read his words. This guy will show us the future. And it's gonna be a blast.

Combs is a producer, an artist and an entrepreneur

TIME 100 Social-Networking Index: 6,390,600

See behind-the-scenes pictures of Ashton Kutcher.