Meet the men and minds that have ignited the greatest decade of deal making in the history of business

In the 1980s Tom Wolfe coined the term "masters of the universe" for hard-charging Wall Streeters. In the '90s, that term is applied broadly to the takeover pros behind a decade of stunning mergers and acquisitions. The decade produced more than $8 trillion in M&A, far more than the $2.4 trillion in the "decade of greed." Daniel J. Kadlec, Time magazine's Wall Street columnist, quizzed nine top guns about the strategies they used to pull off the greatest deals in history. The...