CES 2013

"Head Monster" Noel Lee is known as a shrewd, successful businessman, but I think that if he had taken a different career path he could have made a great evangelist. His CES press conferences have very much feeling of revival meetings, and, like an evangelist, he works hard at whipping the crowd into a frenzy. Given the largely skeptical audience of media representatives, Lee is not always successful in this, but you certainly can't fault his enthusiasm. (Consumer electronics journalists are a tough crowd.)

Monster started in the cable business, but, except for a brief mention of powered HDMI cable, there was no mention of wires—but lots of mentions of wireless. That and headphones. From the amount of time devoted to discussing and presenting headphones at the press conference, headphones now seem to be the major part of Monster's business. Monster also makes effective use of celebrity endorsements, like legendary boxer Sugar Ray Leonard in the photo above.