World's Highest IQs: No CEOs But Plenty of Chess Grandmasters

With CEOs making millions and even billions of dollars, it's easy to ponder whether they're among the greatest minds of their generation. They're certainly rewarded as if they were. But if we look at that old measure of intelligence - the IQ ranking - we don't see a lot of business leaders at the top of the heap. In fact, according to a list we've compiled of the world's highest IQs, four are chess Grandmasters, two are actors and only one comes from the business world. That would be Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, though he could be considered a computer programmer first, businessman second.

Nowadays, few people put much stock in IQ tests, with the exception of people who are obsessed with them, like Elias Katsioulis, who has developed a website devoted to celebrating his genius. Most people find fault with IQ tests, regarding them as insufficient to measure something as complex as intelligence. Guinness used to include 'world's highest IQ' in their Book of World Records, but discontinued it in 1990, and the practice of testing for intelligence went out of fashion about the same time. Nonetheless, a World Genius Directory exists for those among us who want to prove their smarts to the rest of the world (the aforementioned Katsioulis is in first place).

Nonetheless, people love lists and allowing for some inaccuracies, we've come to our own conclusions based on reported IQs. Our list consists of people you've already heard of, who score well above 140, the cutoff for genius level intelligence. Click on the photo below to see our choices for smartest living people.

SLIDESHOW: CLICK PHOTO TO LAUNCH A GALLERY OF THE SMARTEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD