The co-founder of the Zagat Survey with his wife Nina, Tim has his last name stamped on the front of about a billion little burgundy books around the globe.

Tim and Nina met and married at Yale Law School, and moved to New York to pursue careers as corporate lawyers. Their transition to the publishing biz was accidental: On a whim, they started compiling their impressions of various New York eateries in a journal, soliciting the input of friends, and distributing their homemade "ratings guide" via a photocopied packet. The hobby became a business in the fall of 1982, when they published their first guide and sold 7,500 copies at local bookstores. When the guide sold 40,000 copies in its third year, Tim had quit his job to focus on the business full-time. The company soon expanded to other cities and later branched out to market segments like hotels, stores and clubs and has continued to expand, and today spans more than 90 cities around the world, covering everything from theater to golf to movies.

The Zagat Survey was once the sine qua non of restaurant guidebooks. Aside from a review in the paper, the survey's 30-point scale for food, service, and décor—and its quirky comments submitted by readers—was pretty much all that mattered to restaurateurs. While the book's ratings are still highly influential—and while the company remains highly profitable—the guide is no longer the indispensable possession it once was and it's clear that its influence has waned in recent years with the rise of foodie messageboards and apps stealing Zagat's thunder.

In case you've ever wondered just how to pronounce his last name, it rhymes with "cat in the hat." [Image via Getty]