Who is the next Steve Jobs?

For most commentators, the magic of Apple founder Steve Jobs centres on three key qualities: he was a visionary genius, a product perfectionist with an unmatched design sense and most of all, was such a showman that he could convince us to buy a gadget before we even knew we needed it.

Much success can be derived from having any one of these qualities, but Jobs had all three, and he used them to transform multiple industries: personal computers, music, mobiles, animation, and content distribution, for a start.

Some say someone like Jobs only comes once in a generation. "We've lost something we won't get back," said Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Jobs in a Silicon Valley garage in 1976.

Sydneysider Ben Keighran, who is now living in Silicon Valley as the CEO and co-founder of app search engine Chomp, said: "It's very unlikely we will have another Steve Jobs but we will continue to have great entrepreneurs ... I don't see anyone in the industry looking anything like him."

While that may be true, the tech industry is now crying out for a new Messiah and we've polled the gurus for their picks on who could be the next Steve Jobs.

Elon Musk

A relative elder of Silicon Valley at 40, Musk has a resume to match. He started an online publishing company, Zip2, in the mid-90s with his brother Kimbal and sold it in 1999 for over $US300 million.

Musk then went on to be one of the founders and the single largest shareholder of PayPal, the payments behemoth that was gobbled up by eBay in 2002 for $US1.5 billion in stock.

But he didn't stop there. He also started Tesla, which built the first production electric car, and Space X, which is leading the way in private space travel. Space X's Falcon craft are designed to replace the now-defunct US space shuttle program and the company is designing the first reusable launch vehicle.

"Space X vehicles might even be used for interplanetary missions in future. This is truly an astounding effort," said Australian-based Freelancer.com CEO Matt Barrie.

Ryan Junee, a serial Australian entrepreneur who sold his first company, Omnisio, to Google for a rumoured $US15 million, said Musk was more of a visionary than a product guy. "He has big visions and executes on them (electric cars, space flight, solar power)."

Mark Zuckerberg

At just 27, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg sits at the helm of one of the web's biggest success stories. The social networking site he created in 2004 is pushing up towards a value of $US100 billion and counts over 800 million users worldwide.

Zuckerberg was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2010. He became the world's youngest billionaire in 2008 and his net worth now stands at $US17.5 billion.

Junie said the defining characteristics of Jobs were his "unmatched sense of design, his willingnesss to take risks and an unwillingness to accept anything less than perfection".

"Rather than being 'data driven' and asking what the market wants, he decided what the market wanted, and he was right," said Junee.

"With this in mind, Mark Zuckerberg came to mind. He runs Facebook in the same way. He's very involved in every aspect of the product and he makes bold changes on the site (which users always complain about but inevitably grow to love)."

Ruslan Kogan, founder of online electronics retailer Kogan.com.au, said Zuckerberg was in an industry that was changing the world nearly as much as personal computers did and has a clear vision for how people will socially interact in the future.

And he's fast developing his presentation skills after early missteps such as when he unleashed a torrent of perspiration while being grilled on stage about Facebook's privacy policies.

"He's starting not to mind the limelight and if you want to change things significantly and have the sort of aura that Steve Jobs had you need to be able to talk on a stage," said Kogan.

Sean Parker

This charismatic party boy, played by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network, took on the music industry with Napster in his younger years and lost after being hit with a torrent of legal action.

But it looks like the 31-year-old may get the last laugh. Parker joined the venture capital firm Founders Fund in 2006 and in 2010 joined the board of directors of Spotify, an online music streaming service that is part of a growing trend transforming the music industry. Parker, who joined Spotify after Founders Fund invested in the service, said it was "the answer to piracy" – ironically, a problem he helped to create.

"He was rumoured to have put together a $2.5 billion bid for the Warner Music Group – ironically one of the labels that led the charge which crushed Napster," said Barrie.

Parker also started online address book service Plaxo, which he was kicked out of, and between 2004-2005 he was a key advisor at Facebook. Parker was Facebook's first president and he received 7 per cent of its stock when it incorporated but he was again forced out after being arrested on suspicion of cocaine possession.

Parker has been a billionaire for some time but continues to be one of the key players in Silicon Valley. "Sean is now a rockstar of the tech community and has a fire in his belly to transform the very industry that took down his first company," said Barrie.

Junee said: "His skill seems to be an uncanny ability to see things that others don't. He seems to be very good at spotting the 'next big thing'."

Jeff Bezos

Bezos, 47, created the goliath online retailer Amazon and transformed the industry, acquiring or killing competitors like Borders that stood in his path.

Most Americans have an Amazon account and a billing relationship with the company and Bezos is using this, plus a huge server farm and media library, to take on the dominant iPad and iTunes ecosystem with the new Kindle Fire tablet, which undercuts the iPad with its price tag of $US199.

Amazon also brought e-readers to the mainstream with the regular Kindle line.

"It's now the dominant player in cloud computing with something like 95 per cent market share – running websites like Twitter, Foursquare and Freelancer.com," said Barrie.

"Jeff even channeled Jobs at the launch [of the Kindle Fire]: 'now I've got one more thing to show you'."

Barrie said around 40 per cent of Amazon's revenue came from books, music and movies and the company was rapidly going digital.

"Bezos might even beat Apple at its own game," he said.

Larry Page

With Sergey Brin, Page formed Google as a research project in 1996 when the pair were PhD students at Stanford University. It is now the internet's dominant player, acting as a gatekeeper for content and providing the means for monetisation for many websites, in addition to a plethora of popular web tools.

The young Google founders brought on an experienced pair of hands, Eric Schmidt, to be chief executive for much of Google's early years but in April this year Page took over the Job. He has an estimated personal wealth of $US16.7 billion.

Kogan said while Brin and Page may be computer science visionaries they lack the showman qualities that made Jobs great.

"Have I ever quoted any of them or remembered seeing them speak? No, so they lack the showman and the marketing aspect," he said.

"But in terms of science ... they're awesome people who are visionary and changed the way in which we sought information."

But Junee said Page had always been like Jobs, demanding nothing less than perfection and possessing a keen product sense. Page, Junee said, is still very involved with the minute details of Google products.

"He's going to do some amazing things now that he is back at the helm of Google," said Junee.

"When Larry and Sergey were first searching for a CEO for Google (before Eric), the man they really wanted was Steve Jobs. Since Larry returned as CEO, Jobs reached out to him and has been a mentor."

This reporter is on Twitter: @ashermoses