premise: Unlike the 1980s, when the economy's leading figures often seemed to be people like Michael Milken and Boone Pickens, who were speculators in that classic populist sense of the word, the people who get the most attention and respect today are almost all businessmen who spend their time making things, not playing with other people's  Bill Gates, Michael Dell, or whoever.
hypothesis: The economy's leading figures are usually people like Boone Pickens who are populists that like to get attention from TV shows.