Power 50: Shepard Smith

Courtesy of AppleSince coming out publicly in 2014, the Apple CEO has vocally supported diversity, most recently donating iPads and Macs in 29 states as part of a $100 million commitment to improve technology in public schools with minority students. Once intensely private, Cook appeared last September on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert to explain why he decided to discuss his personal life: "It became so clear to me that kids were getting basically discriminated against, kids were even being disclaimed by their own parents, and that I needed to do something." It wasn't product launches, but rather Apple's standoff with the FBI that has been the biggest risk of Cook's tenure. He decided the company wouldn't comply with a federal court order to help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists, arguing that doing so could set a "dangerous precedent that threatens everyone's civil liberties." Keep Reading →

Photo: Chris Pizello/Invision/APDeGeneres was also named one of 2015's most powerful women in the world by Forbes, which cited her $75 million in earnings last year. A highlight of the latest season of her talk show (which has raked in dozens of Daytime Emmys) was when she confronted Caitlyn Jenner on the former Olympian's gay marriage views, an exchange that prompted a shift in Jenner's position. This summer, DeGeneres will reprise her popular voice role in the much-anticipated Disney/Pixar film Finding Dory. Keep Reading →

Photo: Chuck Burton/APCue the rousing strings-and-trumpets election music! In this unpredictable year, MSNBC's Maddow has become the locus of all things politics during the network's wall-to-wall coverage. Her eponymous tentpole show focused laser-like on the Flint, Mich., lead-poisoned-water crisis, prompting national outrage, a Democratic primary debate in that beleaguered city, and a Michigan gubernatorial recall campaign. Keep Reading →