Once a year Vanity Fair publishes its list of the top 100 Information Age powers. And while this year is no exception, just like the economy, VF’s annual ranking has been truly shaken up, with new blood emerging. Who’s in? Who’s out? And who’s top? Below are the top 5.

1. Lloyd Blankfein

Company: Goldman Sachs

Last Year’s Ranking: 20.

Stage of Global Conquest: It’s hard to imagine a financial institution that has weathered the economic crisis as well as Goldman Sachs has. Wall Street’s most watched and talked-about erstwhile investment bank took just seven months to shake the government off its back—it repaid its tarp funds ($10 billion) in June—and return to doing what it does best: making money. Goldman’s second-quarter net income of $3.4 billion shocked even the most cynical observers, of which there were many, thanks to the firm’s insidious tentacles, which stretch from Wall Street to Washington. Nevertheless, as several of the Goldman chief’s contemporaries have seen their careers come to ignominious ends in the past 18 months—Lehman Brothers’ Dick Fuld, Bear Stearns’s Jimmy Cayne, Merrill Lynch’s Stanley O’Neal—Blankfein’s grip on power at his own firm has only gotten tighter.

Humble Beginnings: Blankfein, 55, is the son of a Brooklyn postal worker.

Big Cool Friend: Warren Buffett. The Oracle of Omaha stepped into the breach with an injection of $5 billion into Goldman in October 2008 in exchange for preferred shares that pay a 10 percent annual dividend.

Nemesis: Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi, who gathered every single conspiracy theory that has ever been uttered about Goldman into a July barn burner called “The Great American Bubble Machine,” in which he described the bank as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.”

Questionable-Taste Alert: Just days before reports surfaced in The New York Post of Blankfein calling for his bankers to put an end to conspicuous consumption and lay low, his wife, Laura, reportedly made a fuss in the Hamptons after she and another Goldman Sachs wife were asked to wait in line with other ticket holders before the doors opened for Super Saturday, a charity event for ovarian cancer.

Should Be Ashamed Of: In 2008, the firm earned $2.3 billion and paid a mere $14 million in taxes, an effective tax rate of 1 percent, the result of what Goldman calls “changes in geographic earnings mix.” Critics say this could be offshore tax havens, a charge that Goldman denies.

The Hits Keep Coming: Goldman faced another round of criticism in late August after The Wall Street Journal revealed that the bank’s analysts supply stock tips to their biggest spending clients, leaving their smaller investors in the dark.

On the Record: “We regret that we participated in the market euphoria and failed to raise a responsible voice.”

Year Ahead Projection: →

2. Steve Jobs

Company: Apple

Last Year’s Ranking: 4.

Stage of Global Conquest: The world’s most iconic businessman makes some of the world’s most iconic products. Since retaking the reins of Apple in the late 1990s, Jobs has redefined the way we think about computers, music, and phones. His Macs are the computers of choice for anyone who can afford their high-end price tag. His iPods vaporized the album format but helped keep the music industry alive, and his iPhones are now the industry standard for high-end smartphones (he sold 5.2 million devices in a three-month stretch this year and has been steadily increasing its market share). Along the way, Jobs also found time to help create Pixar, the world’s most successful film studio, which, with 10 movies so far, has yet to produce a dud, or even a misfire. Up, the most recent, is another critical and commercial success.

Health Watch: Jobs, 54, is both a master showman and intensely private, which fuels endless speculation about his plans, his motives, and, more recently, his well-being. After months of speculation about his frail appearance and declining health, Jobs stepped away from his company in January to treat a “hormone imbalance”; later, news leaked that he had received a liver transplant. He’s supposedly recovering and is back in the office.

Crib: After a five-year fight, the city of Woodside, California, has finally allowed Jobs to take down a 14-bedroom mansion he bought in 1984 but hasn’t lived in since the mid-90s. A Silicon Valley investor has agreed to harvest pieces of the building’s exterior.

The New New Thing: Technology handicappers are convinced that Apple’s next big product will be an “iTablet”—a touch-screen device that’s bigger than an iPhone and smaller than a Macbook and combines both machines’ functions.

Year Ahead Projection: ↑