The new Ted Turner misses the old

Sir Isaac Newton could see as far as he did, he said, because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Ted Turner, it seems, has footprints on either side of his neck, while the likes of Rupert Murdoch get to enjoy the view. Father of the 24-hour cable news industry, Turner is now on the sidelines with but a few billion dollars of his fortune left, no media company to call his own and only the memory of sharing a bed with movie star Jane Fonda.

Turner "feels like a dummy," he tells Bloomberg News, despite the fact that he's now "working on issues that are life or death for us," through his role as co-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative -- a job he shares with former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. Once a media mogul, Turner has put the world of News Corp (NWS), Time Warner (TWX) and Viacom (VIA) behind him. Now, he's reinventing himself in the government policy arena and focusing on challenges of greater importance.