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upon Diller’s purchase of Connected Ventures, the Little Big Picture The internet’s biggest video stars rule separate 49 parent of lowbrow comedy site CollegeHumor. The fiefdoms—gamers on Twitch, dancers on TikTok, $30 million deal included the comedy studio, its LIVING THE STREAM celebrities on IGTV—and have larger followings than CONTRARIAN • INNOVATION companion merch site BustedTees—and Vimeo, major media outlets. Here are the most popular the web player for CollegeHumor’s sketches. “We TWITCH: accounts and the year each first signed on. bought Vimeo almost by accident,” says IAC’s Levin. For much of the subsequent decade, the Ninja 17M FOLLOWERS (2011) company tried to make money off viewers through an iTunes-like on-demand service, and later the ill- YOUTUBE: 109M SUBSCRIBERS (2010) fated studio and streaming channel. Nothing really worked. “Vimeo always had an identity crisis,” Sud PewDiePie 111M FOLLOWERS (2019) says. “We had an amazing brand and platform, but it was hard to see what to do with it.” TIKTOK: 273M FOLLOWERS (2012) Sud certainly had the smarts and the credentials Charli D’Amelio to give Vimeo a makeover. She grew up the daugh- ter of two immigrant doctors in a tight-knit Indi- INSTAGRAM IGTV: an community in Flint, Michigan. After her pub- lic school lost its accreditation, Sud applied to 12 Cristiano Ronaldo boarding schools and got into Massachusetts’ elite Phillips Academy Andover. Next came a Wharton content studio sputtered. It was impossible to degree and then a few years doing mergers at Sa- compete against deep-pocketed giants like Ama- gent Advisors. Sud later attended Harvard Business zon Prime Video and Netflix, which were plowing School and did stints at Amazon as a toy buyer and billions into movies and shows. In the summer of in marketing at Diapers.com before joining Vimeo. 2017 Levin told Sud that Vimeo was dropping the studio and going all-in on software—with Sud as A year into the job, Sud began seeing short CEO. “It never occurred to me that they would of- advertising clips and product demos posted be- fer me the position,” Sud says. “I asked, ‘Is this a side Vimeo’s usual documentaries and art-house joke?’ and then immediately tried to play it cool.” flicks. “It was everything from mom-and-pops to tech startups to the marketing department of Already growing fast—revenue increased 27% large corporations,” she says. “They were so di- in the last quarter of 2019—Vimeo saw demand verse, it had to be a trend.” stoked by the pandemic. “Overnight, video went from nice-to-have to need-to-have,” Sud says. As us- She discovered the new customers were using age soared, she hired quickly to scale Vimeo’s tech Vimeo to post marketing videos on Facebook, Twit- and customer service. Today it has more than 700 ter, Instagram and their own websites. “There was employees, about half in R&D and the rest spread a huge group of users that no one was serving.” Her across sales, marketing and customer support. team developed tools for businesses to upload lo- gos, insert buy-now buttons and add email capture Sud is now building for a post-Covid hybrid work to their videos. After a year of solid growth, IAC world in which she expects video’s dominance to added 50 more people to Sud’s skunkworks. accelerate. She wants to make virtual events and meetings more interactive, intimate and collabor- While the software business soared, Vimeo’s ative. Vimeo is also testing AI to edit raw footage into slick marketing content for industries such as JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES Spin Doctor restaurants and real estate. IAC founder Barry Then there’s the impending spin-off. Sud says Diller (net worth the move will make it easier to recruit talent, $4.2 billion) made make acquisitions, promote the brand and sell millions as a Holly- services to large corporations. (And access capital wood mogul in the in a market that values software firms at around 1970s and ’80s, and 40 times earnings.) As for going from a market- billions off the internet ing director to CEO of a publicly traded compa- in the decades since. ny in less than four years? “As a woman, a mother “Once you focus and a tech CEO, I’m unique in the software world,” with clarity, if your Sud says. “I’m excited to bring my perspective and base idea is good, style to the industry. It’s going to be fun.” you thrive,” he says. “Vimeo has thrived.” FINAL THOUGHT “WHATEVER GOOD OR BAD FORTUNE MAY COME OUR WAY, WE CAN ALWAYS GIVE IT MEANING AND TRANSFORM IT INTO SOMETHING OF VALUE.” —Hermann Hesse APRIL/MAY 2021 FORBES.COM

CONTRARIAN STRATEGIES By Chris Helman Photograph by Jamel Toppin for Forbes American Sun 50 CONTRARIAN • STRATEGIES DEAN SOLON built a multibillion-dollar fortune in solar energy by manufacturing precisely the sort of commodity gear that can be made more cheaply in China. His secret: higher prices for higher quality. A At Shoals Technolo- gies’ 100,000-square-foot factory in APRIL/MAY 2021 Portland, Tennessee, Dean Solon’s quest for simplicity starts with the color- coded shirts, inspired by Sesame Street, that his workers wear. “The SunPower logo was yellow, so that’s Big Bird. First Solar was red, for Elmo,” he says. Those working on an order for Blattner Ener- gy, a big solar contractor, sport Cookie Monster blue. “And then we have the Count, in purple. He’s always counting. Those are the quality control people.” Shoals’ nonunionized workers at four factories in Tennessee and Alabama make the guts for big solar installa- tions—basically, everything you need other than those shiny photovoltaic panels and the inverters necessary to feed power onto the grid. They craft cable assemblies, combiner boxes, exter- nal fuses. It’s exactly the sort of unsexy manufacturing that nearly everyone thinks fled to China years ago. Indeed, most of Solon’s competitors are Chinese companies like GCL Sys- tem Integration and Wuxi Sun King. The Chinese-made components are FORBES.COM

cheaper than Shoals’, but Solon has an edge: His cess as foolproof as he can. Screens mounted on 51 stuff is seen as safer, more reliable and easier to the front of each machine show workers how to install. That means companies are willing to pay HOW TO PLAY IT do each task—from stripping and crimping wires CONTRARIAN • STRATEGIES 5% to 10% more for it, believing they’ll make to installing fuses and finishing cable assemblies— up for it in lower labor and maintenance costs. According to with cycle times measured not in man-hours but HOW TO PLAY IT BY CHRIS HELMAN. PARTICK WELSH FOR FORBES Last year, that premium added up to earnings of Lucas White man-seconds. It’s a “Pavlov’s dog” world, Solon $34 million on $176 million in sales. After a Janu- says, in which workers are trained to self-correct ary IPO, the 57-year-old Solon is worth some “If you want to when a light atop their station starts blinking, in- $2.2 billion, thanks to his 40% stake in the compa- overhaul the dicating they’ve slipped behind schedule and have ny and after-tax proceeds from prior equity sales. electric grid, you about 15 minutes to sort it out before the blink- need copper,” says ing gets faster and “maintenance” is summoned. To keep that made-in-America premium as low Lucas White, natu- They’re told never to worry about messing up. “If as possible, Solon makes the manufacturing pro- ral resources and this process makes something wrong, shame on climate-change us—we designed it wrong, we didn’t bulletproof APRIL/MAY 2021 portfolio manager enough for you not to make mistakes,” he says. at $63 billion (as- sets) GMO, based Plant managers sit above the factory floor on a in Boston. Solar, mezzanine platform Solon calls Pride Rock, after wind and electric the prominent slab in The Lion King. They rarely vehicles all need get involved; teams help one another sort out prob- more of it than lems, because if one person slows down for too fossil-fuel plants: long, the next in line runs out of parts. “Don’t yell “Copper is the at anyone; let them have a self-win,” Solon says. oil of the clean- “I don’t need to squeeze another 10 seconds out of energy economy.” them. If the green light is on, we’re making money.” White likes Grupo Mexico, Solon has taken his family to Disney World a conglomer- twice a year for decades and has long been in- ate—controlled by spired by the park’s orchestrated perfection. “On billionaire German the surface everything is calm and happy and se- Larrea Mota rene, but underneath there’s hundreds of people Velasco (net worth making sure the magic is right.” On a recent trip to $27 billion)—that Orlando, however, he’s headed not to Disney but has a 90% stake in to a nearby solar field owned by Origis Energy. On Southern Copper, sunny days, this 270-acre installation generates 60 which has mines megawatts—enough to provide around a quarter in Mexico and the of the Magic Kingdom’s power needs. Michael Andes mountains Eyman, managing director of Origis Services, says of southeastern Shoals products “are not always the cheapest, but Peru. Also attrac- always the best.” Origis tried installing competi- tive is Sandfire tors’ gear, “and without exception they all failed in Resources Ltd., a their warranty period.” western Australia gold-and-copper Shoals’ “plug-and-play” hardware eliminates the miner. U.S. inves- need for a crew of expensive electricians out in the tors can buy both field stripping wires and crimping millions of con- stocks over the nections by hand. “We don’t turn our customers’ fields into our proving grounds,” Solon says, show- counter. ing off a wall of five testing chambers, fridge-size boxes where he can subject prototypes to 40 days Wire Work and nights of heat, cold and 100% relative humidity. Dean Solon, founder Solon is the named inventor on 30 granted and of Shoals Technologies, pending patents. He owns at least that many pairs designed this Portland, of jean shorts, his preferred uniform, along with a Tennessee, factory, black Shoals collared T-shirt. He prides himself on where each day 500 being so uninterested in bean counting and SEC fil- of his employees ings that 15 months ago he handed the CEO reins make enough cable to longtime chief technical officer Jason Whitaker. to rig “megawatts upon megawatts” FORBES.COM of solar power.

American Sun Cont. Insider Info “I’M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!” Solon remains on the board of directors, focusing Dean Solon got hooked on the Magic Kingdom on new products. Shoals’ chairman, Brad Forth, as a kid in the 1970s and most years takes his is also a senior advisor to Oaktree Capital, which family twice. Here are some of his favorite corners of the Orlando paradise. bought more than half the company from Solon in Carousel of Progress 2017 and cashed out $2 billion in the recent IPO. “Walt’s creativity was all over it. The 52 Now that it’s public, is there any impetus to squeeze ride is all about America innovating and moving into the future with hope out a few more margin points by loosening some of and optimism. We need more of that.” Solon’s obsessions? “We are never going to sacrifice quality or reliability for anything,” says Whitaker, 41, “because it’s built into the process itself.” CONTRARIAN • STRATEGIES Contemporary Resort ALAMYSolon prefers to sleep inside the park at the 655-room luxury hotel famous Solon got his start at age 8 carrying a toolbox for the monorail running through The “Utilidors” for his dad, who did air conditioning and refriger- its lobby. “I’m captivated by the “Underneath the whole park is a maze enormous mural by a Disney designer, ation repair and taught at the vocational school in Mary Blair, who was instrumental in of passageways and shortcuts via Gary, Indiana. Young Dean took apart everything making the ‘It’s a Small World’ ride.” utilidors”—short for utility corridors. to see how it worked and put it back together, Liberty Tree Tavern “I would love to go on a tour of them, but it might destroy some of the from lawnmowers to V8 engines, sometimes with This Frontierland all-you-can-eat magic—like seeing behind the curtain.” a few pieces left over. By 16, he had his own cli- joint is one of Solon’s faves. “One time The Gift Shops I asked a worker what they do with ents and his own truck. He studied engineering at all the leftover food. Turns out they “I’ve had Fendi and Gucci wallets, Purdue but dropped out. He quit an internship at convert it into biodiesel—that’s why but the best one, which I’ve been Inland Steel when it refused to give him credit for when you’re behind a bus at the park carrying for 10 years, is my $11.95 sometimes it smells like French fries.” Mickey Mouse murse.’’ innovations he had developed. By the late 1980s he was engineering and selling automotive parts for a joint venture between General Electric and I would retire making car parts.” Instead, he in- Bosch. He made a point of cutting his commis- troduced manufacturing perfectionism to the sion in order to keep customers coming back for “Ph.D. thinkers and basement tinkerers” of solar, more—then quit when his bosses resented that he who had no idea how to efficiently scale up their was still making more money than they were. output. “All I knew was scale.” In 2003 he got a call from First Solar, which The solar revolution is still in its early days. needed some wiring and junction boxes to con- In 2020, U.S. solar power generation grew 25% nect solar panels. Soon Cypress Semiconductor to 130 gigawatt hours, but renewables, excluding wanted the same gear for its SunPower solar spin- hydroelectric, still account for only 12.5% of total off. “I’d been a gearhead my whole life—I thought domestic energy supply. Beyond higher quality, there’s another window of opportunity through which native players can shine: In late 2019, Chi- na’s Huawei shuttered its U.S. solar business after Here Comes the Sun Congress made public its concerns that Huawei’s AT LESS THAN 3 CENTS PER KILOWATT HOUR, SOLAR IS THE equipment could serve as vectors for cyberattack. CHEAPEST SOURCE OF NEW POWER—AND THE FASTEST-GROWING, For someone so process-driven, it’s refreshing UP 25% LAST YEAR. IT’S STILL EARLY DAYS: SOLAR PROVIDES that Solon remains dedicated to the human ele- JUST 3.3% OF AMERICA’S ENERGY. ment of his business. Animatronics might be fun 100k at the theme park, but not in Shoals’ factories. Concentrating-mirror solar “It’s cool that a robot can work 24/7, but the robot 80k Utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) doesn’t go home to a family and have to feed it at the end of the evening,” Solon says. “I could install Commercial PV automation and do this completely robotically, Residential PV this whole factory. But then I’m just a jerk.” 60k 40k 20k FINAL THOUGHT 0k 2020 “THERE IS SCARCELY ANYTHING IN 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 THE WORLD THAT SOME MAN CANNOT Installed solar generation capacity, in megawatts of direct current. MAKE A LITTLE WORSE AND SELL S O U R C E : Solar Energy Industries Association/Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables A LITTLE MORE CHEAPLY. THE U.S. Solar Market Insight 2020 Year in Review. PERSON WHO BUYS ON PRICE ALONE FORBES.COM IS THIS MAN'S LAWFUL PREY.” —John Ruskin APRIL/MAY 2021

She was watching the water but looking out for me. By the time I found out there was a water leak at my property in Palm Springs, Brandi had already discovered it and had the leak fixed. It would’ve caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage by the time I discovered it because I never go out there. Neither does Brandi, for that matter. Why would she? She’s my financial advisor. But she noticed the water bill was high so she drove out there to see why. If paying bills and fixing plumbing don’t seem like the job of a wealth management firm, maybe yours should be doing more. Because a big picture approach to wealth management starts with the little things. — John, Los Angeles CONTACT TIM MCCARTHY | 626.463.2545 | WHITTIERTRUST.COM/FORBES $10 MILLION MARKETABLE SECURITIES AND/OR LIQUID ASSETS REQUIRED. Investment and Wealth Management Services are provided by Whittier Trust Company and The Whittier Trust Company of Nevada, Inc. (referred to herein individually and collectively as “Whittier Trust”), state-chartered trust companies wholly owned by Whittier Holdings, Inc. (“WHI”), a closely held holding company. This document is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended, and should not be construed, as investment, tax or legal advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results and no investment or financial planning strategy can guarantee profit or protection against losses. All names, characters, and incidents, except for certain incidental references, are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

TOGETHER WE ARE The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) challenged these executives to raise UNSTOPPABLE. $10,000 or more. Together they raised over $12 million to help LLS fund life-saving research and provide support to blood cancer patients and their families. CHALLENGER NICOLE ALBSTEIN DAVID SHEVSKY ERIKA SCHIMMEL-GUILES BASSIL DAHIYAT HEATH MELTON Mount Sinai Hospital Ally Financial San Diego Gas & Electric Xencor, Inc. The Howard Hughes Corporation BECKY MANCUSO-WINDING CHUCK CUDA CHRISTINE FINLEY JEFF SHAW DWAYNE WILSON UCLA Health OPES Commercial Real Estate Entrepreneur Bridge Investment Group Salesforce Michael Adelman, Goldman Sachs Kim Carpico, Salesforce Omotayo Fasan, Novant Health Allison Adler, BeiGene Nancy Carr, Claims and Risk Management Services Scott Feighner, Colliers International Michael Agostino, Hy-Vee, Inc. Steve Castleman, Spectrum Environmental Services, Inc. Al & Jackie Fernandez, ANF Group Tom Alban, Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives Patrick Chairs, Prudential Financial, Inc. Sanford Feuer, Best Buy Co., Inc., VP Retiree Rob Allred, UBS AG Mark Chao, Gilead Sciences Mark Fitlin, The Clearing House Leslie C Amendola, Johnson and Johnson Paul Chodak III, AEP - American Electric Power James Fitzgerald, MarketOne Builders, Inc. Tamara Amini, Bank of America Dan Church, DairyChem, Inc. Earlene Fontana, Brinkley Farms Jeffrey Anbinder, Attorney Mike Clark, “Quittired” Adam Ford, Salesforce.com Paul Anbinder, Retired Founding Publisher and Billy Classen, KFW Engineers Jim Forker, Robert Paul Properties Richard Cole, Cole, Scott & Kissane, P.A. Karel Foti, Florida Paradise Properties/ Berkshire President of Hudson Hills Press Bob Cole, Kimray, Inc. Amy Anderson, Manchester Memorial Hospital Ronda Conger, CBH Homes Hathawat Home Services EWM Realty Adam Andolina, KeyBank David Conway, Morgan Stanley Andrew Frankenfield, Exscribe, Inc. Ashley Arbolino, HITT Nikki Copas, Bristol Myers Squibb Allie Fujarski, Paycom Steve Armstrong, MSC Industrial Supply Co. Elizabeth Cote, The Long Group Patricia Gallagher, Science Rocks!! Greg Armstrong, The Signorelli Company Ari Crandall, Premier Wealth Advisors Steve Garcia, Patriot General Engineering, Inc. Norman Armstrong, King & Spalding David Crow, SailPoint Technologies Hillary Gelfman, Kellogg’s Aubrey Arreola, Viticus Group Jeannie Cullen Schultz, JP Cullen Bobby Ghoshal, ResMed Colton Austin, The Signorelli Company Daniel Damon, US Bank Shelly Glenn, Florida Cancer Specialists Mark Bachleda, Bristol Myers Squibb Thuy Dancik, Team Dancik Linda Glover Derek Baden, Citrix Systems John Daniels, TI - Texas Instruments Bob & Lynn Goldschmidt, DKMG Consulting Martin and Terrill Bahar, USC Shannon Dauchot, Parallon Revenue Cycle Point Tamara Grabowski, San Diego Gas & Electric Mario L. Barnaba, Barnaba & Marconi LLP Rick Gray, The Wynn Las Vegas Dave Barnhart, The Signorelli Company Solutions Division Dustin Greene, HCA Healthcare Tedd Barr, Converze Media Eric Davis, Messer Construction Dayton John Greene, Salesforce Lisa Barton, AEP - American Electric Power Steve Dearborn, Miller Paint Jim Griffin, Citrix Systems Missy Bass, C & F Mortgage Corporation Heather DeBolt, CombOver, LLC Brad Grimsley, Carter’s, Inc. Jeff Beall, Digital Commercial Systems Steve DeMattos, Xencor David Grish, Acurity/Premier Zane Beard, The Signorelli Company Vince DeRose, Peak Resources, Inc. Albert Guida, Guida&McCubbin Financial Consultants Lynda Bennett, Lowenstein Sandler Joseph DeSabia, Barclays Tami Gunsch, Berkshire Bank Scott Bennett, Colliers International Janice Deverell, AT&T Melinda Hancock, VCU Health System Seth Berkowitz, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Jeff Dewese, The Signorelli Company Ava Handel, MaskUp4BloodCancer Laura Berra, Wells Fargo Advisors Karl Dicker, Capital Bank Alison Handel, MS, Bristol Myers Squibb Scott Birkhead Robert Dickinson, Dickinson Fleet Services Kathryn Hansen,The Leukemia &Lymphoma Society Thomas Black, BMC Jimmy Diehl, MassMutual Financial Group Jeff Hare, JH/PR Michael Blackman, Retired, IBM Executive Donald Dixon, Retired, Deloitte Sam Haskel, Goldman Sachs Barry Blanton, Blanton Advisors Mary Cushing Doherty, High Swartz, LLP Holly Heer, Barnes & Thornburg LLP Dave Borkowski, Harkins Builders, Inc. Tom Doll, Subaru of America Jeff Hennessy Tom Bosch, Avera Rebecca Dooley, SSC Operations, Parallon Ed Hetherington, Doosan Financial Solutions Marsha Bourque, Marsha Bourque and Associates Jim Doyle, RSM Marlow Hicks, Thermo Fisher Scientific Charles Boyd, HCA Healthcare Tam Driscoll, City of Gresham Donnie Hill, Precision Manufacturing Co, Inc. Mike Brannock, WorkForce Unlimited, LLC Allie Dudenhoeffer, Centene Corporation Paul Hoelscher, Horizon Therapeutics Harris Brett, Gibson Energy James Dugan, Novant Health Bill Hollett, Cousins Properties Adam Brock, Brock Built Homes Martin Einhorn, Retired-Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer Juliet Hommes, Bristol Myers Squibb James Brown, Barclays Bill Eisig, BDO USA, LLP Mike Hunsaker, BMC Kristin Brown Jason Ellington, Brasfield & Gorrie Harry Irwin, Electric Supply, Inc. Karen Burns, Sensiba San Filippo Jesse Essex, Hendrick Motorsports Brian Jaramillo, Tilden-Coil Constructors, Inc. Erich Cabe, Compass Realty Glenn Falk, Falk, Waas, Hernandez, Solomon, Heath Jehlik, The Signorelli Company Maria Caldwell, National Association of State Brett Jenkins, Intel Corp Mendlestein & Davis, P.A. Elizabeth Jordan Boards of Accountancy Mike Farmer, BMC

Become a 2021 Executive Challenger LightTheNight.org Maxwell Kagan, WellStar Medical Group Chris Pacchiana, Aerotek Mike Simons, EY David Kahn Joanna Palmieri Jason Sirek, Fox Television Stations - Fox 9 Mpls Dan Kaplan, Sierra Land Group Brett Panter, Panter, Panter & Sampedro Keith Sitzman, Skanska Gary Kaplan MD, Virginia Mason Health Systems Pranav Parekh, Apigee | Google Cloud Kelly Sizemore, Kimley-Horn Aaron Kaplowitz, Johnson and Johnson Dr. Taral Patel, Zangmesiter Cancer Center Brad Slomsky, Towne Properties Amy Kappen, Best Day Ever Foundation Dr. Debra Patt, Texas Oncology Amy Smedley, Huntsman Corporation Jennifer Keating, Cisco Sara Patterson, Belk Colette Smiley Harold Keer, Astex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Stan Patterson, IQVIA Mike Smith, The Rockport Group Jared Keller, Financial Independence Planning, LLC Daniel Patton, SailPoint Technologies Steven Smith, Leopardo Companies, Inc. Sumeet Khemani, ComplySci Martha Pavlakis, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Kathy Smith, Passion Growers Jimmy Khun, Florida Cancer Specialists Keith Pence, Caler, Donten, Levine, Cohen, Porter&Veil, P.A. Monte Smith, Terumo BCT Kevin Kieran, Exelon Debra Perelman, Huntsman Corporation Johnese Spisso, UCLA Health David & Louise Kingsley Nicki Perrin, Salesforce Clark Spoden, Burr & Forman LLP Jennifer Kipphut, Fortitude Fitness Tracy Peters, Lument Don Stamas, Defender Capital Stuart Klein, CPA, Self Employed Leanne Peterson, Southland Electric, Inc. Lisa Stark, American University Nicole Kline, Merck & Co. Jennifer Petresky, Natural Designs Landscaping Jeffrey Stern, Houlihan Lokey Grant Knowles, Ardon Health Ginger Phelps, Dominion Energy Ralph Stingo, Bernhard Bryan Kocher, WESCO Dominic Pitocco Jayne Stockton Tyler Kowal, Pitch CPA, LLC Chris Pitrof, FIS Global Karen Stoffiere, Cleveland Clinic Lynn Kuckelman, LK Design Group, Inc. Kevin Pohle, Energy Reps Steve Stouthamer, Skanska Emily LaMarque, Emily LaMarque Design Studio Blake Pond, Johnson and Johnson Suzanne Strothkamp, SSM Health Legal Affairs John Lambert, US Bank Ryan Pratt, Ernst & Young Heather Stubblefield, Florida Power &Light Company Andrew Larew, Larew, Doyle & Associates Andy Priddy, Merrill Lynch Jennifer Swanton, Ritoch-Powell & Associates Ralph Lawson, LLS National Board of Directors and Matthew Pruitt, PharmD, Walgreens Larry Sweeney, Citrix Systems Ron Pusey, Corbett Techonology Solutions, Inc. Jason Swift, Best Egg Loans at Marlette Funding Navigant Healthcare Timothy Quick Shandell Szabo Jim Lazzari, Best Day Ever Foundation Randy Quickel, UFCW Local 1059 Alberto Tano M.D., Kidz Medical Services Glenn Leier, Wespac Construction, Inc. Meg Quigley Karen Terry, Memorial Health Robert Lemaster, Bilbrey Construction Gene Rapisardi, CIGNA Corporation Melissa Thomas, VyStar Credit Union Michelle Leon Cordova, Intuit Ryan Rehmann, Dynamic Systems, Inc. Larry Thornton, Thornton Enterprises, Inc. Alanna Levine, Boston Children’s Health Physicians Steve Reiss, Willis Towers Watson Jay Tilley, Costco Wholesale Corporation Ross Lissuzzo, CIBC BANK USA Rich Reynolds, PwC Michael Tooley, Tooley Oil Company Judith Lofurno, Headquarters Physical Therapy Bob Reynolds, Brady Ware Michael Touloupas, Touloupas Dentistry Brad Lontz, CopperPoint Insurance Companies Paul Ricci, Best Egg Loans at Marlette Funding Kelly Trahan, Bridge Investment Group Bailey Lyden, TrueNorth Raul Rios, RSM US LLP Beth Trammell, 5280 Gymnastics Amanda Maggiotto, Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center Paul Rittman, Helsinn Therapeutics Greg Trayer, Trayer’s Troop Fred Magnanimi, Luca + Danni Cole Robertson, BP Energy Partners Barry Treahy, Terumo BCT Carol Markway, Markway Strong Debra Robinson, Centennial Revenue Management Winselow Tucker, Bristol Myers Squibb Ryan Martin,U.S.Bank-Community Banking South Dakota Emily Robinson Gorelik, CBC Specialty Beverage Bryce Unger, CG Schmidt Jordan Mayer, Katz, Sapper & Miller Patrick Rohan, Medical City Frisco Michelle Urban, Nabriva Therapeutics John T. McCauley, Wells Fargo Advisors Richard Rohrbaugh, Retired, Kimley-Horn Dave Van Brunt, Van Brunt Consulting, LLC Scott McClintock, Fifth Third Adam Romero, Sehlke Consulting Ada Varchola, Goldman Sachs Mark McCullough, AEP - American Electric Power Kimberly Ross, United Parcel Service (UPS) John Venable, McKesson Corporation Mark Merz, FIS Neal Roth, Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen Adam Viente, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) Steve Mikulcik, PayPal Seth Rubin, Stifel Financial Corp. Ginger Villanti, Broadcom Jason Miller, Citizens Bank Dr. Peter Ruehlman, OHC - Retired Elizabeth Vlassopoulos, Swinerton Builders Kenneth Miller, Federal Home Loan Bank Kim Rupert, SAIC (Science Applications Jen Wahl, Sun Life Financial Jud Miller, Woodforest National Bank Stephen Wall, Dell Technologies Brad A. Molotsky, Duane Morris LLP International Corporation) Whitney Wall, Wells Fargo Michael Mondin, Bristol Myers Squibb Randy Rusing, Sundt Construction, Inc. Eric Ward, Parallon Business Performance Group Brandon Moore, JE Dunn Construction Amanda Salas, Fox 11 Los Angeles Jason Ware, MCI USA Courtney Morgan, SIMON Markets Maggie Sandwith, Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis Bob Weintraub, Industrial Controls Supply Ken Morris, Business Environments Pierce Sandwith, UBS Jonathan Wells, McGriff Insurance Services Emmalee Morris, Skanska Sahil Sanghvi, Boston Consulting Group Melissa Wilkinson, CBH Homes Sarina Moss, Florida Power & Light Company Manolis Saridakis, US Bank Greg Williams, Carruthers & Roth, P.A. Cliff Mossberger, Cliff’s Corner/Halloween Town Tracey Sawyer, Mission Pharmacal Barry Willis, Costco Wholesale Corporation Sonya Arnold Motes, Merrill Lynch Bryan Schachter, Watermark Retirement Communities Allie Wilson, Dutch Bros Coffee Patrick Mulloy, RSM US LLP Robert Schmid, The Schmid Group, LLC Meron Winkler, Twilio, Inc. Monica Mulvihill, Marex Spectron Mike Schmidt, Generac Power Systems Niels Winther, Think Patented Lee Murphy, Glaukos Laura Schmitt, Desert West Surgery James Wishbow, James P Wishbow Company Jamie Myers, Premier Companies Terry K. Schmoyer, Jr., Schmoyer And Company, LLC John Wright, RSM US LLP Swati Navani, Seattle Genetics Michael Schnee, Goldman Sachs Group Brian Wulfestieg, Toll Brothers Seattle Division Marjie Nealon, Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod LLP Brian Schneider, Phyl-Mar Electrical Susan Yaeger, Merrill Lynch Robert Newton, Morgan Stanley Eduardo Schur, Ernst & Young Chuck Yagla, Kirk Gross Company Jim Noles, Barze Taylor Noles Lowther, LLC Jennifer Sciarra, Team CharLouRi Michele Yakovee, Humana Mike Norcia, Integrated Copy Solutions, Inc. Helena Scott, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Jim Yancey, The Clearing House Mark Nylander, Nylander + Associates Chad Scripps, Black Lake Capital Ken Yoder, Baker Tilly US Susan O’Brien, MD, UCI Health Chao Family Chad Sehlke, Sehlke Consulting Mark Yoffe, MD, UNC Health Faisal Shaikh, Deloitte Wael Younan, Goldman Sachs Comprehensive Cancer Center Heather Shaw, Saks Fifth Avenue Melissa Young, Corporate Incentives, Inc. Matthew OBryan, KLA Laboratories, Inc. Cory Shaw, Nebraska Medicine Archie Ojeda, Blue Line Construction Co.

CONTRARIAN CIO NETWORK By Martin Giles Photograph by Christie Hemm Klok for Forbes The Road Less Traveled 56 CONTRARIAN • CIO NETWORK Most tech unicorns are the product of Silicon Valley’s well-oiled VC machine. Not CLOUDINARY. The maker of marketing software was profitable from day one and has bootstrapped its way close to a billion-dollar valuation. I Itai Lahan is ada- mant that ambitious entrepreneurs APRIL/MAY 2021 should certainly fill their coffers with venture capitalists’ money if they get the chance. “The only consistent way to get to be a billion-dollar company is to go the VC route,” the Cloudinary CEO declares. “That, hands down, will always win.” In a classic case of “do as I say, not as I do,” though, Lahan has repeat- edly turned down venture funding since launching Cloudinary in 2012. Instead, he and his fellow Israeli co- founders, Nadav Soferman and Tal Lev-Ami, have bootstrapped their Santa Clara, California–based startup to near unicorn status. The company makes software that helps the CIOs of almost 7,500 customers, including household names like Nike, Peloton and Neiman Marcus, manage their online marketing content—think vid- eos, logos and product photographs. Photo Finisher Cloudinary CEO and cofounder Itai Lahan stands outside a folding door at its California headquarters, which was once leased to a Nissan R&D center. Almost a million developers now use his software. FORBES.COM

Our advisors listen, so you know you’ve been heard. When you talk to a Dell Technologies Advisor, they’re focused on you — to provide tailored solutions on everything from laptops to the cloud, to keep your Small Business ready for what’s next. Call one today at 855-341-5261 Dell.com/SmallBusinessPartner Vostro 15 5502 with up to an 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 processor Starting at $799 Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Copyright © 2021 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell Technologies, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners. 390685

The Road Less Traveled Cont. Revenue grew by some 40% last year, to around sian and Qualtrics, the Utah data analysis com- $70 million, and the company is worth at least pany that was ultimately acquired by SAP for $900 million. Cloudinary has appeared on the $8 billion, bootstrapped themselves to a consid- Forbes Cloud 100 list each of the last three years. erable size before going public. If cloud start- Lahan says the company simply never needed ups find a core group of fans early on, word- 58 venture money. The founders came up with the of-mouth marketing can keep costs low, says idea for the business while running a consult-CONTRARIAN • CIO NETWORK HOW TO PLAY IT Jason Lemkin, CEO of SaaStr, a venture firm: ing firm in Israel that built technology for other “Once you get to a few million of revenue . . . startups. The clunky software they had to use PATRICK WELSH FOR FORBESBy Jon D. Markman you can be cash-flow positive because your [cur- to manage videos and photos convinced them rent] customers will create a stream of future to create something better. Their consulting cli- One of the best customers for you.” ents were Cloudinary’s first customers, which ways to play the enabled it to turn a profit as soon as it opened growth in digital Few startups are that lucky, which is why its doors. Since then, it has generated enough content manage- Lahan thinks nearly all entrepreneurs should money—cash flow as measured by Ebitda last ment is Adobe take venture capital as they hunt for revenue. year was an estimated $6 million, or about 9% Systems. The San of sales—to finance its growth plans every year Jose, California, “It’s a numbers game,” he says. “It’s well and to build a 300-person team. company makes thought-out. [Venture financing has] tons of software tools to pluses, an incredible amount of pluses.” “We were lucky enough early on to grow re- help customers ally fast,” Lahan says. “We were getting money create, manage There are minuses, too. Startups often have from our customers, and it was more than to put up with investors on boards directing enough to hit our next-year goals, which were and promote them along a tight track toward a hoped-for incredibly high.” digital media. Its public offering. That’s not something Cloudi- Experience Cloud nary’s founders have had to worry about. (The Cloudinary’s software automates the drudgery company doesn’t even have a board.) After the of resizing and reformatting digital content for platform lets pandemic began, they pulled back on hiring devices and web browsers, and it ensures that businesses and but didn’t fire anyone. They also cut the com- videos and photos load lightning-fast—a must brands measure pany’s 2020 revenue target by almost $8 mil- in an era when consumers will click elsewhere the effectiveness lion to take some pressure off staff and help upon encountering the slightest delay. Cloudi- of and monetize customers in financial distress by postponing nary also uses artificial intelligence to suggest that content. It’s payments and offering discounts. Lahan says the best way to present photos and videos to a powerful com- he’s not sure a board would have supported capture people’s attention. The more digital raw bination. Adobe those moves. material that churns through its algorithms, reported record which currently process between 500 and 2,000 quarterly revenue Another key advantage of not having outside pieces of content a second, the better they get at of $3.91 billion in investors is that the three founders still own just predicting what will attract eyeballs and clicks. March, up 26% over half of the business. Some of the remain- year-over-year. ing equity is held by staff; Cloudinary has orga- It protects brands as well as promotes them. Earnings per share nized a couple of secondary transactions to let Companies like Bleacher Report use Cloudinary’s grew 33% year- employees sell shares. That has enabled two VC software to comb through videos uploaded by over-year to $2.61. firms, Bessemer Venture Partners and Salesforce people to determine if they contain pornographic As more businesses Ventures, to get their fingers in the pie, although images or other offensive material. their collective holding is small. reach out to To get CIOs hooked, Cloudinary offers a customers, online Still, Lahan might finally be willing to take his own advice. “I’m confident we will need [out- sales may grow further. Shares could reach $580 within 12 months, a gain of 29% from a recent $451. Jon D. Markman is president of Markman Capital Insight and editor of Fast Forward Investing. free service with strict volume limits. It makes side] funding,” he says. “The moment we need money by charging heavy users. Annual deals it, if an IPO is the right way forward, we’ll do an can reach high-single-digit millions of dollars. IPO.” But he hints at other options, including the At the end of 2018, it managed 25 billion digital possibility of tapping late-stage venture funds. If assets; by the end of last year, that figure had Cloudinary does pursue that route, it will be a vaulted to 50 billion—and should keep growing case of Lahan taking a lot of money from where even if the pandemic-fueled e-commerce boom his mouth has been. subsides. In 2020, total U.S. online sales hit $813 billion, a 42% year-over-year increase, ac- FINAL THOUGHT cording to Adobe, which forecasts they’ll pass $1 trillion for the first time in 2022. “THE FIRST OF EARTHLY BLESSINGS, Some other notable cloud companies, includ- INDEPENDENCE.” ing project-management software maker Atlas- —Edward Gibbon FORBES.COM APRIL/MAY 2021



CONTRARIAN MONEY & INVESTING By Nathan Vardi Illustration by Israel G. Vargas for Forbes The Teflon Trader 60 CONTRARIAN • MONEY & INVESTING Wall Street legend CARL ICAHN is on a seven-year losing streak that has cost him billions, but the market still loves his stock. I In October 2013, FORBES.COM when Carl Icahn started selling his large position in Netflix, many be- lieved the vaunted billionaire inves- tor had done it again. The company had successfully transitioned from a DVD-by-mail rental service to video streaming, and Icahn had made a 457% return in just 14 months. “As a hardened veteran of seven bear markets,” Icahn announced, it was time for him “to take some of the chips off the table.” Icahn’s son, Brett, begged his father not to sell. By 2015 Icahn was out, making a tidy $2 billion profit on Netflix. But since his departure the stock has appreci- ated another tenfold. Had Icahn held onto it, his profit would have been $19 billion. Icahn’s Netflix miss isn’t just a fluke. Last year, while the U.S. stock market returned 18% during a vola- tile pandemic bull market, Icahn’s hedge fund plunged by 14%. In 2019, The Raider’s Rough Ride Carl Icahn’s fund has lost money in five of the last seven years. He hopes to turn things around with big bets on Occidental, Bausch Health, Cheniere Energy, Newell Brands and Xerox. APRIL/MAY 2021

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The Vault By the mid-1980s, corporate raiders like stock has returned six times more than the Carl Icahn, Ron Perelman and T. Boone S&P 500 over the last 20 years. BOND JUNKIES Pickens had invaded Wall Street—fueled by junk bonds issued through Drexel Burnham Icahn’s recent trading problems stem from 62 Lambert’s Michael Milken. Forbes was first being overweight energy and short the mar- to shine a light on Milken’s money machine ket, including growth stocks. His short posi- CONTRARIAN • MONEY & INVESTING and the cast of “buccaneers” it bankrolled: tions alone have produced $7 billion of losses in five years. “I got too concentrated in some “Are there common threads among special of the energy stocks—they were dirt-cheap and Drexel customers? Only that all are aggres- management was not good, and I just kept pil- sive, are outsiders to the conventional finan- ing in,” Icahn says in the unmistakable accent cial community, have a trading mentality of someone born in Brooklyn and raised in a and can make quick multimillion-dollar in- working-class Queens neighborhood. “The bot- vestments without going through a corporate tom fell out of the energy market. You grit your bureaucracy. A conventional observer would teeth and you come out of it.” say they tend to be buccaneers, much more interested in money than in running businesses. An admirer would call them financial entre- preneurs, redeployers of capital.” —November 19, 1984 Icahn also insists the net asset value of Icahn Enterprises understates the intrinsic value of it tumbled by 15%. In fact, the great trader has his company’s assets. Take Icahn Automotive lost more than $5 billion trading over the last Group. Icahn is quick to point to the current seven calendar years. His hedge fund has suf- takeover talk surrounding Mavis Tire Express fered so much that its average annual return Service, which is in a similar business and since its inception in 2004 has fallen to 3%, has a similar number of stores. Mavis is being versus 10% for the S&P 500. priced at $6 billion, nearly four times the value Icahn’s struggles illustrate a major shift oc- Icahn Automotive is listed for on Icahn Enter- curring on Wall Street. In the era of Amazon, prises’ balance sheet. Tesla, GameStop and Bitcoin, growth, momen- Even big energy bets like Occidental Petro- tum and investor psychology are the most im- leum are beginning to look more promising as portant drivers of success. But at 85, Icahn is the price of U.S. crude has risen from effective- sticking to fundamentals. He is one of the last ly less than zero during the pandemic to $60 a remaining OG corporate raiders on Wall Street, barrel recently. In February, Icahn took a major and he still likes asset- and cash-rich compa- stake (and two board seats) in Ohio’s First- nies in need of a shake-up. “I am a value guy, Energy, a utility whose performance tumbled and the activism model is still the best model if after one of its subsidiaries became embroiled you can find a company with hidden value and in a federal racketeering case. Icahn wants it the board is not taking advantage of it,” Icahn to settle quickly. Another new buy for Icahn is insists from his new office digs in Florida. “It Canadian medical device and pharmaceutical is still the best on a risk-reward basis, but you company Bausch Health, which owns eye care need a lot of patience.” and contact lens giant Bausch & Lomb. Bausch Wall Street still believes. Shares in Icahn’s has been in the midst of a turnaround since most important asset, Nasdaq-listed Icahn En- 2013, when it went by the name Valeant Phar- terprises, which invests in Icahn’s hedge fund maceuticals. Icahn wants to split the company and holds companies like oil refinery CVR En- in two. “In positions like Bausch Health and ergy and auto-parts retailer Pep Boys, trade FirstEnergy, we are on the board and can help at around $60, up some 20% over the last 12 make a difference,” he says. months. The underlying assets, as measured by Icahn is spooked by America’s massive fed- net asset value, are worth only $14.70 a share. eral spending but thinks there are still oppor- Icahn Enterprises’ net asset value has tumbled tunities in this market. “We are in uncharted from $9.1 billion at the end of 2013 to $3.5 bil- waters and will pay a price for huge deficits lion. Meanwhile, Icahn has mostly been taking and loose money in the future,” he says, “but dividends in shares, doubling the share count. that time is not here yet—and while I am some- Icahn’s 92% stake in Icahn Enterprises what hedged, I am fairly bullish.” amounts to most of his estimated $15.8 bil- lion net worth. Had Forbes used IEP’s net asset value for his net worth instead of its market FINAL THOUGHT price, Icahn would be worth $6 billion today. “THANKS TO GOD THAT HE The rest is the Icahn premium. And in the long GAVE ME STUBBORNNESS WHEN run it makes total sense: Icahn Enterprises’ I KNOW I AM RIGHT.” —John Adams FORBES.COM APRIL/MAY 2021

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AMERICA’S TOP WOMEN WEALTH ADVISORS GUTTER CREDIT BY JASON BISNOFF AND SHOOK RESEARCH APRIL/MAY 2021 FORBES.COM

The wealth managers honored on the fifth annual Forbes Top Women Wealth Advisors list have offered 66 exemplary service and prospered in a year of unprecedented challenges. Featured below are 250 of 1,000 that have been selected by SHOOK Research after undergoing extensive interviews covering areas such as client service, compliance and investing process. Find the full list at forbes.com/top-women-advisors. AMERICA’S TOP WOMEN WEALTH ADVISORS 1. Rebecca Rothstein 13. Mary Deatherage 25. Christiane Olsen 36. Donna Joyner ILLUSTRATIONS BY MICHAEL HOEWELER FOR FORBES Merrill Private Wealth Morgan Stanley Private JENNIFER MARCONTELL No.6 UBS Private Wealth Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Wealth Management Management Management LITTLE FALLS, NJ EDWARD JONES NEW YORK, NY BEVERLY HILLS, CA $3B Baytown, Texas $7.1B ALPHARETTA, GA $3.3B $982M 14. Debra Brede “Before I joined the industry, I went to a 26. Gillian Yu 2. Cheryl Young D.K. Brede Investment financial planner with my husband and it was Morgan Stanley Private 37. Leslie Lauer Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Company a really bad experience. He spoke only to my UBS Private Wealth husband—and I was the one who had stock options Wealth Management Management NEEDHAM, MA that I needed to do something with. He never SAN FRANCISCO, CA Management LOS GATOS, CA $1.1B addressed me. After reading about financial ATLANTA, GA advice, I thought it was something I could do. $7.9B $1.2B 15. Sharon Oberlander $3.5B Merrill Lynch Wealth So I decided to launch my business.” 27. Judith McGee 3. Susan Kaplan Mercer Advisors 38. Maria Lipton Kaplan Financial Management PORTLAND, OR Morgan Stanley Private CHICAGO, IL Services $758M Wealth Management NEWTON, MA $1.5B MIAMI, FL 28. Melissa Corrado $699M $2.2B 16. Mary Mullin Harrison Merrill Lynch Wealth 39. Inna Kelly 4. Colleen O’Callaghan UBS Private Wealth Morgan Stanley Wealth JPMorgan Wealth Management Management Management BOSTON, MA DENVER, CO Management NEW YORK, NY $1.1B SAN FRANCISCO, CA $2.1B $2.1B 29. Teresa Jacobsen $1.4B 5. Lori Van Dusen 17. Jacqueline Willens UBS Private Wealth LVW Advisors UBS Private Wealth 40. Jessica Guo PITTSFORD, NY Management Management UBS Wealth $1.9B NEW YORK, NY STAMFORD, CT Management $952M 6. Jennifer Marcontell $779M WELLESLEY, MA Edward Jones 18. Patti Brennan $522M BAYTOWN, TX Key Financial 30. Lisa Detanna $1.2B Global Wealth 41. Kathleen WEST CHESTER, PA Youngerman 7. Laila Pence $1.3B Solutions Group of Morgan Stanley Private Pence Wealth Raymond James Wealth Management Management 19. Pamela Rosenau BEVERLY HILLS, CA CHESTERFIELD, MO NEWPORT BEACH, CA The Rosenau Group $1.6B $449M $1.7B ASPEN, CO $1.2B 31. Karen Altfest 42. Tracey Gluck 8. Louise Gunderson Altfest Personal Wealth J.P. Morgan Wealth UBS Private Wealth 20. Emily Rubin UBS Private Wealth Management Management Management NEW YORK, NY LOS ANGELES, CA NEW YORK, NY Management NEW YORK, NY $1.3B $1.5B $959M $2.1B 32. Judy Fredrickson 43. Lee DeLorenzo 9. Elaine Meyers UBS Private Wealth United Asset Strategies J.P. Morgan Wealth 21. Melissa Spickler Merrill Lynch Wealth Management GARDEN CITY, NY Management MINNEAPOLIS, MN $1.1B SAN FRANCISCO, CA Management BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI $2.2B 44. Louise Lane $3.3B William Blair $1.3B 33. Marcie Behman CHICAGO, IL 10. Shannon Eusey Merrill Private Wealth $1.6B Beacon Pointe Advisors 22. Kimberlee Orth Ameriprise Financial Management 45. Pauline Chu NEWPORT BEACH, CA BOSTON, MA UBS Wealth $10.9B Services Management WILMINGTON, DE $1.5B 11. Johanna Walters SAN FRANCISCO, CA Merrill Lynch Wealth $1B 34. Linnell Sullivan $718M Merrill Lynch Wealth Management 23. Margaret Starner 46. Patricia Bell BLUE BELL, PA The Starner Group of Management Merrill Lynch Wealth CINCINNATI, OH $5.1B Raymond James Management CORAL GABLES, FL $1.8B SHORT HILLS, NJ 12. Christina Boyd Merrill Lynch Wealth $1.1B 35. Ali Phillips $743M Obermeyer Wood Management 24. Valerie Houts Investment Counsel 47. Gail D. Reid WAYZATA, MN Merrill Lynch Wealth Ameriprise ASPEN, CO $1.5B Management $1.9B Financial Services SAN FRANCISCO, CA GLENDALE, CA $1.2B $36.5B FORBES.COM APRIL/MAY 2021

48. Kim Hoffman 68. Susan Kingsolver 115. Christi Edwards 134. Holly Wallace 67 Morgan Stanley Private Merrill Lynch Wealth Edward Jones VIRGIL KAHL No.52 Morgan Stanley Wealth AMERICA’S TOP WOMEN WEALTH ADVISORS WILSON, NC Wealth Management Management Management NEW YORK, NY SPRING RIDGE FINANCIAL GROUP NASHVILLE, TN NEW YORK, NY $410M $1.8B Wyomissing, Pennsylvania $1B $538M 49. Jennifer Ellison 69. Elizabeth Armitage “Unlike some other industries, wealth 116. Michele O’Connor Bingham, Osborn Merrill Lynch Wealth management is very fair with gender equity in Morgan Stanley Wealth 135. Helen Dietz Management pay, because fees are fees—and whether you’re Aspiriant & Scarborough CINCINNATI, OH male or female, you can set your own fees when Management REDWOOD CITY, CA $2.7B BOSTON, MA MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA you have your own business.” $12.5B $4.8B 70. Nazie Saffari-Moini $274M Merrill Lynch Wealth 88. Jenny Tsai 97. Meredith Parrish 106. Elizabeth Lockwood 136. Linda Stephans 50. Diana Menaker Management Morgan Stanley Private 117. Kellie Sheryak Morgan Stanley J.P. Morgan Wealth BEVERLY HILLS, CA Morgan Stanley Private UBS Wealth UBS Private Wealth Graystone $705M Wealth Management Wealth Management Management CHICAGO, IL Management PASADENA, CA WEST DES MOINES, IA HOUSTON, TX Management $5B NEW YORK, NY 71. Susan Kim $589M $1.2B LOUISVILLE, KY Ameriprise $2.2B 137. Kristina Van Liew $830M 89. Beth Rosenwald 98. Deb Gandy $976M Morgan Stanley Financial Services RBC Wealth Chevy Chase Trust 107. Catherine Chen Graystone 51. Donna Di Ianni VIENNA, VA Management RBC Wealth 118. Elizabeth CHICAGO, IL Merrill Lynch Wealth $685M BETHESDA, MD Management Palomeque $5B BALTIMORE, MD $702M First Republic Management 72. Christine McGinley $511M SAN FRANCISCO, CA Investment 138. Sherry Verburgt ASPEN, CO UBS Wealth 99. Barbara Archer $1.7B Management UBS Wealth $1.4B Management 90. Kristin Nicholson Hightower Wealth SAN FRANCISCO, CA Management First Republic 108. Eileen O’Connor HOUSTON, TX 52. Virgil Kahl MOUNT LAUREL, NJ Investment Advisors Hemington Wealth $408M $902M Spring Ridge $892M Management ST. LOUIS, MO Financial Group Management 119. Ronya Corey 139. Barbara Finder WYOMISSING, PA 73. Joni Abalos SAN FRANCISCO, CA $829M FALLS CHURCH, VA Merrill Lynch Wealth Morgan Stanley Wealth Merrill Lynch Wealth $605M $883M 100. Sherri Stephens $710M Management Management Management 91. Liz Weikes Stephens Wealth WASHINGTON, DC CHICAGO, IL 53. Deborah HOUSTON, TX JPMorgan Wealth 109. Roya Cole Montaperto Management Group/ Morgan Stanley Private $782M $443M Morgan Stanley Private $1.6B Management Raymond James Wealth Management NEW YORK, NY FLINT, MI Wealth Management 120. Rebecca DeCesaro 140. Christina Collins NEW YORK, NY 74. Aimee Cogan $562M NEWPORT BEACH, CA First Republic Northwestern Mutual Morgan Stanley Wealth $3.2B Investment $11.7B 101. Emily Bach $1.3B Management CHICAGO, IL Management 92. Danielle Prunier Morgan Stanley Wealth PORTLAND, OR $898M 54. Ann Marie Etergino SARASOTA, FL Merrill Lynch Wealth 110. R. Jo Kaufman $1.5B RBCWealth Management Management Morgan Stanley Wealth 141. Judith Chipps $1.1B Management ORINDA, CA 121. Annukka Mikkola Merrill Lynch Wealth CHEVY CHASE, MD CENTURY CITY, CA Management Merrill Lynch Wealth $1B 75. Alyssa Moeder $1.1B BOCA RATON, FL Management Merrill Private Wealth $1B Management ENCINO, CA 55. Christine Heim 102. Anne Golden $640M BELLEVUE, WA Merrill Lynch Wealth Management 93. Beth Scanlan First Republic $648M NEW YORK, NY Morgan Stanley Wealth Investment 111. Cindy Katz Morton $764M Management Management Morgan Stanley Wealth 142. Lisa A. Petrie FLORHAM PARK, NJ $4.6B Management 122. Audree Begay Wells Fargo Advisors SAN FRANCISCO, CA SAN FRANCISCO, CA Management Ameriprise INCLINE VILLAGE, NV $495M 76. Xi Qiao $692M BOCA RATON, FL UBS Wealth $487M Financial Services $265M 56. Kathleen Roeser Management 103. Carlette McMullan $640M HOUSTON, TX Morgan Stanley Wealth SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94. Diane Hart William Blair $562M 143. Betsy Pakenas UBS Wealth CHICAGO, IL 112. Maria Colucci Morgan Stanley Wealth Management $1.3B Management $1.6B Merrill Lynch Wealth 123. Ting O’Connor CHICAGO, IL Merrill Lynch Wealth Management 77. Alma Guimarin PASADENA, CA 104. Megan Bailey Management FREDERICK, MD $1.5B Morgan Stanley Wealth $641M Merrill Lynch Wealth NEW YORK, NY Management SAN JOSE, CA $976M 57. Nicole Christians Management 95. Theresa Ward Management $847M Merrill Lynch Wealth SAN JOSE, CA Merrill Private Wealth BLUE BELL, PA $567M 144. Lisa Chapman 113. W. Janet Dougherty UBS Wealth Management $1.1B Management $5.1B Cresset 124. Thais Piotrowski Management FARMINGTON HILLS, MI MINNEAPOLIS, MN Ameriprise 78. Rachel Gottlieb 105. Mercedes Paratje CHICAGO, IL SEAL BEACH, CA $2.2B UBS Wealth $686M Morgan Stanley Private $921M Financial Services $912M Management BOCA RATON, FL 58. Corina Davis 96. Carrie Coghill Wealth Management 114. Eileen Berman 145. Nina Abelman Merrill Lynch Wealth NEW YORK, NY Coghill Investment NEW YORK, NY UBS Private Wealth $477M Merrill Lynch Wealth $932M $3.6B Management Strategies Management 125. Maureen Raihle Management SEATTLE, WA 79. Nadine Miller PITTSBURGH, PA WEST PALM BEACH, FL First Republic BELLEVUE, WA Morgan Stanley Wealth Investment $739M $344M $1B Management $622M Management 59. Courtney Liddy MIAMI, FL PALM BEACH, FL 146. Deborah Johnston UBS Wealth $755M $776M UBS Wealth Management Management 80. Deborah Danielson 126. Karen Breed SAN DIEGO, CA Danielson UBS Wealth MINNEAPOLIS, MN $1.3B Management $476M Financial Group 60. Patrice Cresci LAS VEGAS, NV CINCINNATI, OH 147. Liz Angelone Team Hewins $1.3B Merrill Lynch Wealth $312M REDWOOD CITY, CA 127. Elisabeth Management $2.2B 81. Lorna Meyer Andreason GREENWICH, CT Merrill Private Wealth 61. Kathy Grasmeder Morgan Stanley Wealth $1.1B Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Management SAN FRANCISCO, CA 148. Carryn McLaughlin Management WALNUT CREEK, CA UBS Private Wealth GLENS FALLS, NY $1.9B $575M Management NEW YORK, NY $1.2B 82. Anouchka Balog 128. Patricia Kummer $1.8B Morgan Stanley Wealth Mariner 62. Debbie Jorgensen 149. Casey Kriedman Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Wealth Advisors UBS Private Wealth LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA HIGHLANDS RANCH, CO Management Management SAN FRANCISCO, CA $727M $438M NEW YORK, NY $1.9B 83. Sharon Sager 129. Julia Bishop $1.8B UBS Private Wealth Merrill Lynch Wealth 63. Louise Armour 150. Jill Kremer JPMorgan Wealth Management Management Merrill Lynch Wealth NEW YORK, NY FLORHAM PARK, NJ Management Management PALM BEACH $4B $1.8B NEW YORK, NY GARDENS, FL 84. Anna Winderbaum 130. Deniz Franke $640M $932M Morgan Stanley Private Ameriprise 151. Sara Saxe 64. Lisa Colletti Wealth Management Financial Services UBS Wealth Aspiriant NEW YORK, NY WEST DES MOINES, IA Management $1.8B NEW YORK, NY $375M MENLO PARK, CA $12.5B 85. Sara Rajo-Miller $598M Miracle Mile Advisors 131. Christine 65. Diane Compardo Armstrong 152. Cheryl Smith Moneta LOS ANGELES, CA Merrill Lynch Wealth $1.8B Morgan Stanley Wealth ST. LOUIS, MO Management Management $1.6B 86. Jennifer Garcia BOSTON, MA WALNUT CREEK, CA Wells Fargo Advisors $596M 66. Michelle Mayer $440M Merrill Private Wealth ENCINO, CA 132. Kit Jackson $1B First Republic 153. Diane Doolin Management Investment Morgan Stanley Wealth NAPLES, FL 87. Sharon Klein Management $1.2B Wilmington Trust NEW YORK, NY Management $770M PASADENA, CA 67. Wendy Holmes NEW YORK, NY UBS Private Wealth $2.4B 133. Teri Conklin $517M UBS Wealth Management Management NEW YORK, NY NORTHBROOK, IL $1.4B $1.5B APRIL/MAY 2021 FORBES.COM

154. Shirley 173. Elizabeth Evans 213. Valerie Dugan 232. Denise Roberts Quackenbush Evans May Wealth Morgan Stanley Wealth Morgan Stanley Wealth Merrill Private Wealth INDIANAPOLIS, IN Management Management Management $744M HARTFORD, CT NEWPORT, RI NEWPORT BEACH, CA 174. Catherine Fang $377M $612M $700M Morgan Stanley Wealth 214. Judi Aber 233. Nichole 155. Barbara Bruser Management Merrill Lynch Wealth Raftopoulos First Republic MENLO PARK, CA Management Nvest Financial Group Investment $495M PUNTA GORDA, FL PORTSMOUTH, NH Management $464M $252M 175. Kathleen Sullivan LOS ANGELES, CA Morgan Stanley Wealth 215. Mara Bralove 234. Jill Bobigan $479M Morgan Stanley Wealth UBS Wealth Management Management 156. Katie Larsen WALNUT CREEK, CA Management Merrill Lynch Wealth BETHESDA, MD NEW YORK, NY $637M $779M Management $594M 176. Traci Richmond 68 SEWICKLEY, PA Raymond James 216. Rebecca 235. Lisa Kent $604M Financial Services Loyd-Frazier Merrill Lynch Wealth 157. Laura Linger BETHESDA, MD Merrill Lynch Wealth Management William Blair $407M Management PRINCETON, NJ AMERICA’S TOP WOMEN WEALTH ADVISORS CHICAGO, IL 177. Carla Thompson KINGSPORT, TN $611M $597M UBS Wealth $406M 236. Andrea Management Berardino Bevis 158. Rebecca Lerner FORT WORTH, TX 217. Patricia Johnson UBS Private Wealth Merrill Lynch Wealth UBS Private Wealth $2.1B Management Management Management NEW YORK, NY 178. May Chong LOS ANGELES, CA BOSTON, MA $883M $786M UBS Wealth $408M Management 237. Sheila Shaffer 159. Nancy Daoud PASADENA, CA 218. Christina Bater Ameriprise $516M Barrett Asset Janney Montgomery Financial Services Management Scott 179. Kim Luu-Tu OXFORD, CT Ameriprise NEW YORK, NY WASHINGTON, DC $656M $2.2B $637M Financial Services 160. Sharon VIENNA, VA 219. Jennifer Hartmann 238. Emily Van Cunningham $373M Morgan Stanley Wealth Hoorickx Morgan Stanley Wealth 180. Sarah Cammiso ILEANA DOMINGUEZ No.384 Management UBS Wealth Management Merrill Lynch Wealth NEW YORK, NY Management NEW YORK, NY SAN JOSE, CA $462M Management $3.1B VIENNA, VA $8.7B 161. Kimberly Hunter 220. Fern Schwartz Wells Fargo Advisors $460M Merrill Lynch Wealth 239. Hanane Lemlih Wells Fargo Advisors 181. Nadine Wong Management SANTA ROSA, CA Morgan Stanley Private UBS WEALTH MANAGEMENT PITTSBURGH, PA MCLEAN, VA $750M Wealth Management Henderson, Nevada $380M $1.5B 162. Paula Connell NEW YORK, NY 221. Julie Shechtman 240. Gina Bolvin UBS Wealth $609M Morgan Stanley Wealth Bernarduci Management 182. Jennifer Haggerty “After beating my head against the wall for 10 years, Management Bolvin Wealth I’ve learned that men keep close relationships with Management Group PADUCAH, KY Merrill Private Wealth GLENVIEW, IL $934M Management $331M BOSTON, MA 163. Robin Reich PITTSBURGH, PA their managers. They go golfing, they tell them what 222. Cherie Bond $305M $1.5B they have going on and so forth. Women expect that Merrill Lynch Wealth if they do a great job they will be recognized and that Morgan Stanley Wealth 241. Shelley Richardson Management 183. Stacy Francis Management UBS Wealth Francis Financial Management NEW YORK, NY GLENVIEW, IL NEW YORK, NY they should be afforded the opportunities that the $1.2B $343M men are. If you don’t tell them what you have going on $573M LOS GATOS, CA and brag about yourself, it’s out of sight, out of mind. $1.2B 164. Deborah Moses 184. Emmeline Swanson That realization was the biggest change in my career 223. Lana Engen Morgan Stanley Wealth Merrill Lynch Wealth Ameriprise 242. Barb Steffen Management because it taught me how to leverage the firm and Finley Management NEW YORK, NY show the firm that we can deliver.” Financial Services BOSTON, MA $36.5B ROCKFORD, IL Morgan Stanley Wealth 193. Mary 200. Lee Corey 207. Jane Rojas $362M Management $529M 185. Kimberley DiChristofano MADISON, WI Hatchett Morgan Stanley Private Morgan Stanley Wealth Morgan Stanley Wealth 224. Janet Franco $904M 165. Sarah Mercurio Wealth Management Management Management Gordon William Blair Morgan Stanley Private CHICAGO, IL TUCSON, AZ 243. Stacey Barrins CHICAGO, IL Wealth Management ALEXANDRIA, VA $573M Morgan Stanley Wealth Morgan Stanley Wealth $690M NEW YORK, NY $3B $798M Management $829M 208. Jana Lisle Parham Management 166. Robin Krasny 194. Robin Aiken 201. Mary E. Owens UBS Private Wealth CORAL GABLES, FL CHICAGO, IL Morgan Stanley Wealth 186. Judy Colvin Homrich Berg Owens Estate and Management $905M UBS Wealth ATLANTA, GA Wealth Strategies NASHVILLE, TN $735M Management Management $7.6B Group/Raymond James $390M 225. Anh Tran NEW YORK, NY GRASS VALLEY, CA SageMint Wealth 244. Linda Modico MENLO PARK, CA 195. Wanda Austin 209. Kimberly Maez UBS Wealth $867M $965M Morgan Stanley Wealth $377M Ameriprise ORANGE, CA Management $275M 167. Edye De Marco 187. Dianna L. Smith Management 202. Hilary Giles Financial Services NEW YORK, NY Merrill Lynch Wealth Morgan Stanley Wealth NEWPORT NEWS, VA Merrill Private Wealth ENGLEWOOD, CO 226. Theo Schwabacher $2.7B Morgan Stanley Private Management Management $522M Management $577M 245. Alli McCartney PROVIDENCE, RI LEAWOOD, KS PALO ALTO, CA Wealth Management UBS Private Wealth 196. Carina Diamond 210. Christina SAN FRANCISCO, CA $1B $1.4B Dakota Wealth $1.4B Cleveland Management Management $1.1B NEW YORK, NY 168. Geri Eisenman Pell 188. Suzanne Killea AKRON, OH 203. Joan Valenti Merrill Lynch Wealth Ameriprise Merrill Private Wealth $1.2B LPL Financial Management 227. Gibson Wilkes $1.6B White Pine Wealth Financial Services Management 197. Christy Covalesky FARMINGTON, CT BOCA RATON, FL 246. Patricia Baum RYE BROOK, NY PALO ALTO, CA Wetherby Asset $533M $501M Management RBC Wealth $637M Management FALMOUTH, ME Management $1.1B 204. Lily Engelhardt 211. Madeleine 169. Catherine Evans SAN FRANCISCO, CA Morgan Stanley Wealth Antekelian $560M ANNAPOLIS, MD First Republic 189. Michele $6B UBS Wealth $1.7B Investment Landa-Brooker Management 228. Rachael Naylor Management Morgan Stanley Wealth 198. Laura Wellon NEW YORK, NY Management Morgan Stanley Private 247. Sheila Cromwell Management UBS Wealth BEVERLY HILLS, CA Morgan Stanley Wealth SAN FRANCISCO, CA NEW YORK, NY Management $415M Wealth Management $720M ATLANTA, GA $1.8B JACKSONVILLE, FL Management $690M $2B 205. Barbara Yee $6.9B PURCHASE, NY 170. Natalea Simmons Morgan Stanley Wealth 212. Christine Merrill Lynch Wealth 190. Mitzi Michaelson 199. Becky Falk Baker-Shuck 229. Holly Hendrix $430M Merrill Lynch Wealth UBS Wealth Management Ameriprise UBS Wealth Management Management NEW YORK, NY Financial Services Management 248. Lisa Hughes ST. LOUIS, MO Management HUNTINGDON, PA Merrill Lynch Wealth BRENTWOOD, TN $394M NEW YORK, NY $394M $361M $3.4B Management $389M 206. Camille Valentine PALO ALTO, CA 171. Jennifer Rupert UBS Wealth 230. Mary Evans Merrill Lynch Wealth 191. Kathy Muldoon Management Raymond James $1.8B Carter Financial Financial Services Management Management/ 249. Sandy Liotta TALLAHASSEE, FL Raymond James EMMAUS, PA Merrill Lynch Wealth DALLAS, TX $256M $280M $1.1B Management 231. Renee Fourcade TOWSON, MD 172. Kara Boccella 192. Angeline Newman UBS Wealth Camden Capital UBS Private Wealth Management $832M CENTURY CITY, CA Management LOS ANGELES, CA 250. Mary Jo Metro $2.1B $2.9B Raymond James Financial Services FLORHAM PARK, NJ WAYZATA, MN BOSTON, MA CHELMSFORD, MA $358M $553M $1.3B $304M FORBES.COM APRIL/MAY 2021 For the full ranking, please visit: forbes.com/top-women-advisors

WEALTH ADVISORS 2021 WEALTH ADVISORS 2021 © 2021 FORBES LLC - USED WITH PERMISSION © 2021 FORBES LLC - USED WITH PERMISSION

THE ESSAY 70 OPER WEALTH Covid-19 brought terrible suffering, economic pain, geopolitical tension—and the greatest acceleration of wealth in human history. Why this pandemic paradox could become a cause for celebration, not concern. FORBES.COM

ATION 71 The World’s Billionaires $13.1 TRIL 2,755 BILLIONAIRES 2500 Combined net worth (billions) $12,000 2000 Number of billionaires worldwide 1500 $9,000 1000 500 $6,000 $295 BIL $3,000 140 BILLIONAIRES $0 0 1987 2021 SPEED BY RANDALL LANE FORBES.COM

list—a newly minted billionaire every 17 But as miraculous vaccines chart a hours. Rising asset prices vaulted an- course back to normalcy, the factorsTHE ESSAY other 250 previous drop-offs back over driving these numbers conjure a differ- the ten-digit mark. Amid widespread ent emotion: optimism. The pandemic’s economic insecurity, precious few bil- most enduring positive legacy will turn lionaires fared worse financially: Just out to be as an accelerant, compressing 61 dropped off the list for reasons oth- decades of change into one year. And er than death, representing the lowest the newly super-rich, proxies for oppor- 72 percentage of drop-offs for any year on tunity, or lack thereof, have never felt record. All told, Forbes estimates that more different, looked more different or there are now 2,755 billionaires globally, acted more different. It’s worth spend- up from 2,095 last year, and the notion ing some time to deduce why. that the rich get richer has never been We’re at that rarest of inflection more apt: They’re worth, in aggregate, points—the kind that’s apparent even $13.1 trillion—a staggering $5.1 trillion as it happens. Vaccines will wash across more than at the start of the pandemic. the planet at the same time the glob- These figures will engender end- al economy seems primed to roar back. less amounts of consternation, most of And while the initial reaction to the bil- O it justified. There’s no getting around lionaire surge of 2021, a newcomer tally a collective $5 trillion wealth surge 70% larger than any we’ve logged before, during a pandemic, when most of the will lean toward outrage, the underlying world felt scared, sick, besieged. Capi- trends offer a road map to greater pros- On March 18, 2020, the United States talism, the greatest system ever for perity for all. Like anything else salvaged registered its 150th coronavirus- generating prosperity, rests upon a so- from a once-a-century plague, we just related death while trying to gauge, cial compact of expansion, unequal by need to be brave enough to harness it. along with most of the world, just design, ultimately lifting all boats. The what was happening. Major market Covid-19 economy has strained that indices fell 5% after jumping 6% the concept; yawning economic disparity For pretty much all of human history, previous day. Spring breakers partied poses arguably the greatest threat to wealth has been dynastic. The John D. blithely in Florida while officials de- modern social order. Rockefellers and Henry Fords of a cen- cided to close the border with Can- ada. And a statistical team at Forbes locked the numbers for our 34th an- nual ranking of the world’s billion- aires, unwittingly creating a snapshot Asia Ascendant of global wealth at the precise moment the world lurched into its most disrup- Total Worth (in billions) 2011 tive 12 months since World War II. $5,000 2021 Over the ensuing year, those 150 U.S. deaths swelled to 550,000; some 3 mil- lion souls were lost worldwide. Tens of millions of jobs evaporated, along with $4,000 hundreds of thousands of small busi- nesses. Remote work went from exot- $3,000 ic to standard. The suburbs went from dull to desired. The death of George Floyd triggered a reckoning concerning $2,000 race and social justice. The presidential election tested democratic norms. Si- multaneously, though, many individu- $1,000 als, industries and investments thrived. One year after that fortuitously timed snapshot, we repeated our March bil- $0 Europe Middle East The Americas United States lionaires audit, taking the measure, at Asia-Pacific & Africa the point of the pyramid, of the past 299 year’s seismic changes. The results defy Profile Count 332 628 89 76 413 hyperbole. Over the past 12 months, 2011 1,149 85 169 724 493 people worldwide joined the Forbes 2021 FORBES.COM APRIL/MAY 2021

tury ago launched the first era of en- 73 trepreneurship, but even those suc- cesses turned into entrenched family THE ESSAY wealth. The very first Forbes 400 list BRENT HUMPHRIES of the richest Americans, in 1982, re- John Arnold, “Give How do these more meritocratic, mained chock-full of their progeny, While You Live” more dynamic, more diverse billion- as well as plenty of Mellons, DuPonts aires run their companies? In ways that and the like—some 63% of that inau- “The real joy isn’t are better for all of us. Forbes contract- gural Rich List pretty much inherited putting money into a ed with our partners at JUST Capital, it. Many of the rest had a background foundation,” says the which measures corporate citizenship, that involved starting life on first, sec- billionaire, who wants to gauge the civic performance of the ond or third base, in the mold of Ru- his peers to give away 88 new self-made U.S. billionaires. We pert Murdoch or Donald Trump. at least 5% of their took the companies that drove each bil- wealth each year. “It’s lion-dollar fortune and, leaning on in- The technology revolution changed putting in money to dustry averages, calculated each score that dynamic, here and around the make the world better.” based on how they treat their work- world. By 2002, a slim majority, 52%, ers, their customers and the environ- of the Forbes global billionaires were turn changed what a billionaire looks ment, among other factors. The net re- self-made, including 59% of Amer- like. While women continue to have sult: Not only did these new billion- icans. Ten years ago, that total had a far harder time getting good ideas aires found or run companies that rank jumped to 69% globally. funded than men, they’ve nonetheless above average in terms of the three fac- steadily nudged up the tables and now tors mentioned above, but they’ve also The 493 new members of the Covid encompass 11% of global billionaires, improved in each of these categories Newcomers of 2021, however, are in a 12% of American billionaires and 13% when measured against the new bil- class by themselves: 84% of them are of new billionaires, all high-water lionaires of 10 years ago. self-made (including 90% of Ameri- marks. More importantly, female en- cans), swelling the figure among bil- trepreneurs now account for 4% of all Take Chris Britt, who in eight lionaires overall to 72%—a record in billionaires, more than double the per- years has built Chime into one of the each case. People like Whitney Wolfe centage even five years ago. Herd, who flipped the script on dating apps by empowering women; Tyler And while in America extreme suc- Perry, who started producing his own cess remains disproportionately white, movies and television shows in Atlan- the global business aristocracy in- ta because no one would give him a creasingly reflects the world itself. Chi- break in Hollywood; and Uğur Şahin, na alone, including Hong Kong, added the Turkish immigrant to Germany a staggering 210 billionaires this past whose BioNTech helped produce a year. Factor in 19 new faces from In- Covid-19 vaccine in months rather dia, 14 from Japan and multiple de- than years—all embody economic dy- buts from seven other Asian countries, namism, not bloodline dynasties. and people of color made up a majori- ty of new billionaires worldwide. Opportunity stems from this dyna- mism, as these new billionaires illus- trate. A decade ago, the median length of time it took a new billionaire in America to create his or her fortune, according to our data, was 18 years. Historically speaking, that’s extraordi- narily fast. Among this year’s 88 new self-made Americans, that number has decreased drastically, to 13 years. The ability to rapidly translate ideas into riches helps level the playing field. Code (intellectual resources) trumps capital (accumulated resources), with the latter desperate for the former. A generation ago, fortunes went to those with the luck or pluck to secure fund- ing; today, a good concept chooses which funding to accept. That increased opportunity has in APRIL/MAY 2021 FORBES.COM





world’s largest digital banks. In a fee- where they lived or refinanced with based industry that’s often adversar- record-low interest rates. Equally in- Founding Fortunes ial to those who need it most, Britt credibly, he’d never taken on partners grabbed market share during the pan- or investors, so he and his family owned 2001 demic with low-risk, customer-cen- 100% of the company going into the tric gestures. “We’re on the front line,” pandemic. When he took the compa- Total worth: $1.8 trillion Total number of billionaires: 565 he says. “We see how Americans are ny public this January through a SPAC, INHERITED: stressed out.” Leveraging customer pushing his net worth at the time to $489.9B 76 records, Chime comfortably advanced $12.6 billion, he carved out $35 million 140 billionaires people against their stimulus checks in stock for his 8,000 workers. INHERITED at no cost, and offered overdraft pro- “We all won together as a company,” & GROWING: tection via a program called SpotMe. (By comparison, payday-loan compa- says the former Michigan State basket- $452.5B nies lend against things like stimulus ball player. Well, to some degree. Throw- checks at usurious interest rates as ing your employees about one-quar- 147 billionaires ter of 1%—an average payout of about SELF-MADE: $881.3B 278 billionaires THE ESSAY high as 650%.) Such customer-friend- $4,000—when you’re sitting on 99.7% VIRGILE SIMON BERTRAND FOR FORBES ly policies, Britt says, help him recruit and almost 11 digits seems exceedingly 2011 better employees—his payroll has tri- paltry. But it’s also progress. Go back to pled to 800 in a year—which leads to that original Forbes 400 list from 1982, Total worth: $4.5 trillion better returns. “You get those pieces and you’ll find hundreds of tycoons who Total number of billionaires: 1,209 right, with a good business model, the didn’t think of their employees as much INHERITED: equity shareholders will manage just more than a cost or liability. fine.” Apparently so. As of September, $669.7B Chime was valued by venture capital Others took stands for their home- investors at $14.5 billion, with Britt’s towns, including Jeff Lawson, the co- 160 billionaires stake worth $1.3 billion. founder of surging cloud communica- tions business Twilio, who hit the list INHERITED & GROWING: $904.6B 220 billionaires Still more new billionaires are taking Sam Bankman-Fried, “Effective Altruism” SELF-MADE: steps to support their employees. Mat Ishbia, the 41-year-old CEO of United “I want to figure out how I can have the most $2.92T Wholesale Mortgage, had an incredible positive impact on the world,” says the 29-year- past 12 months, as millions changed old, who has promised to put virtually all of his 829 billionaires $8.7 billion fortune into causes he believes in. 2021 Total worth: $13.1 trillion Total number of billionaires: 2,755 INHERITED: $1.56T 281 billionaires INHERITED & GROWING: $2.33T 499 billionaires SELF-MADE: $9.20T 1,975 billionaires FORBES.COM this year at a cool $2.2 billion. Silicon Valley saw many companies and lead- ers decamp from the Bay Area, Elon Musk and Larry Ellison most nota- bly. Lawson felt that he had an obli- gation to his community, which is an- other factor measured by JUST Cap- ital. So he publicly declared in Janu- ary that his company would stay in San Francisco. Another civic booster, Rocket Mortgage founder Dan Gil- bert, whose net worth exploded past $50 billion over the last year, recent- ly committed $500 million from his APRIL/MAY 2021

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interview about this initiative. “Let Routes to Riches this generation handle this genera- tion’s problems.” How the 88 new self-made American billionaires got on the list. The Give While You Live concept is a more time-urgent spin on the Giving Stock Increase Pledge, which has admirably pushed bil- 44 lionaires to publicly commit to give away Traditional IPO 17 half of their wealth while they’re still 78 11 alive—or after they die. “It hasn’t neces- sarily spurred giving in the short term,” Private Company THE ESSAY Crypto 8 says Arnold, a Giving Pledge signatory. SPAC 4 Pretty much every new billionaire Forbes spoke to, while expressing general sup- VC Funding 4 port for the Giving Pledge and an open- 0 10 20 30 40 ness to committing to it, focused instead on what they can do immediately. Over the past 12 months, the world’s third-richest woman, MacKenzie Scott, company and his personal founda- That group evolved into the Initia- who joined the Forbes Billionaires list tion to bolster low-income residents tive to Accelerate Charitable Giving. last year after divorcing Amazon’s Jeff of Detroit, where he’s headquartered, Its primary targets: the $142 billion in Bezos, went on a giving spree as nota- which included wiping out the prop- donor-advised funds, or DAFs, which ble as anything in recent philanthrop- erty-tax debt of 20,000 homeowners. allow donors to take upfront tax de- ic history. Rather than endow a founda- “Our commitment to Detroit is abso- ductions for parking money in com- tion, Scott enlisted advisors to generate lute,” Gilbert tells Forbes. munity foundations or financial-ser- data on the ways her money can help vices firms, even if there’s no mandate the most people now. Then, in July and or visibility for when or how the mon- December, she transparently wrote 500 All this acceleration comes with a ey goes to the public good; and perpet- checks, totaling $5.8 billion, no strings heightened realization among those at ual foundations that try to end-run an- attached, to grantees in all 50 states, the very top about the obligations that come with extreme success—and the possible repercussions, from confisca- RATHER THAN ENDOW A tory tax regimes to social unrest, that FOUNDATION, SCOTT GOT DATA could follow inaction. It’s not hard to read the tea leaves—altruism, in this ON WHERE HER MONEY HELPS case, mirrors self-interest. Speaking with a half-dozen members of the new- THE MOST PEOPLE RIGHT NOW. comers of 2021, along with a hand- ful of younger billionaires, the post- pandemic attitude change is palpable. John Arnold sensed a shift as the nual minimal giving requirements by many of whom were utterly surprised pandemic approached. While the path sliding in expenses when they report. when the money arrived. he took to his estimated $3.3 billion But Arnold also feels the super- “The pandemic has been a wrecking fortune—trading energy contracts for rich need to go further individually. ball in the lives of Americans already disgraced and defunct Enron—won’t So he became the first billionaire to struggling,” Scott wrote in a public earn him any Nobel laurels, he and his get behind a new “Give While You statement. (She hasn’t given an inter- wife, Laura, have spent the past decade Live” promise—a public commitment view since the divorce.) “Meanwhile, it creating a plan to maximize their im- to grant at least 5% of his personal has substantially increased the wealth pact—“the benefit,” he says, “of looking net worth to good causes each year— of billionaires.” at 100 years of great wealth in Ameri- which is being organized by the ad- It certainly increased the wealth of ca.” Alarmed at the state and standing of vocacy group Global Citizen. (Disclo- Jared Isaacman, CEO of Shift4 Pay- philanthropy in the U.S. today, he con- sure: I’m a board member at Glob- ments, a Square competitor that fo- vened a handful of philanthropists, ac- al Citizen.) Merely holding money in cuses on restaurants and hotels. His ademics and foundation heads in New a DAF or a foundation doesn’t cut it, roller-coaster year took him from pre- York in January 2020, posing a ques- nor does the excuse that rich people paring for a public offering to worry- tion: How can we get those sitting on are better off compounding their mon- ing if his customers—and his compa- trillions of dollars to take bigger, faster ey and giving it away later. “Problems ny—would survive, to becoming an in- action, with more accountability? compound too,” Arnold says in his first dispensable tool for his clientele, to FORBES.COM APRIL/MAY 2021

pulling off an IPO after all. ton Children’s Hospital. He also put Speed to Wealth 79 After ringing the bell at the New York about $5 million into a little startup called Moderna—a stake that brings The median number of years after THE ESSAY Stock Exchange, which gave him a $1.4 him onto the Billionaires list this year starting their company that individuals billion net worth, Isaacman, 38, wrote with a net worth of $2.2 billion. a $100 million check to St. Jude Chil- appeared as a newcomer on dren’s Research Hospital. His motiva- Springer has already put forth $30 the Billionaires list. tions mimicked Scott’s. He gave im- million to establish the Institute for mediately after coming into immense Protein Innovation, a nonprofit that 2011 2021 wealth. Rather than set up a founda- creates tools and provides expertise tion, he steered money to people al- for biotech researchers and entre- 18 13 ready doing good work. He did so trans- preneurs. But the urgency of the mo- parently. And he did it with scale, after ment has him rethinking things phil- MacAskill. “You’re not the best leaflet- his business’ brief near-death experi- anthropically—later this year, he says, terer we’ve found.” ence underscored for him how many he’ll announce a bigger donation. He’s people were hurting. “If you had asked coy about it, though he does say he’ll Mission accomplished. Bankman- me before the pandemic, ‘Could you likely be “adding another zero.” And Fried, in pursuing a vocation less imagine writing a $100 million check?’, that’s just the beginning. “I want to than noble—a zero-sum, notoriously I never would have expected it.” give more money. That’s my motiva- cutthroat exc hange in which new- tor to start companies now,” he says. comers face a slew of sharp-elbowed Then Isaacman, who owns and flies “If I’m successful, as I think I could pros—has created a massive source of his own MiG fighter jet, applied some le- be, [with] the scale of things, we could wealth that he promises to deploy al- verage. He announced he would lead the add yet another zero.” most entirely for what he sees as the first all-civilian mission to space, in part- public good. (He says he will keep only nership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. He And if starting businesses de- a few percentage points for himself, would bring a St. Jude frontline work- signed specifically to create billion- and even that might prove too much. er—as well as a random St. Jude donor, dollar charitable windfalls sounds far- “If it’s used to justify buying a few a stunt he hopes will raise another $200 fetched, meet 29-year-old Sam Bank- yachts, that’s pretty bad.”) And while million for the hospital, which he publi- man-Fried, who’s already doing exact- he’s already placing bets, backstop- cized through a Super Bowl commercial. ly that. Perhaps the most interesting ping a few charitable initiatives and He even got Musk, a charitable skinflint new billionaire in the world, Bankman- giving $5 million to help get Joe Biden to date, to commit to St. Jude. Fried started the FTX cryptocurrency elected (Effective Altruists like Bank- exchange two years ago, making a big- man-Fried don’t differentiate much Immunologist Tim Springer’s coro- ger fortune—$8.7 billion—more quick- between nonprofits and politics; they navirus epiphany has been a matter ly than anyone under 30 ever has, Mark merely look at outcome ROIs), he an- of scale. Twenty years ago, he netted Zuckerberg included. ticipates accelerated scale starting in $100 million founding a biotech com- five years, when he’s more liquid. pany, and in turn he made the kinds of From Carnegie to Rockefeller, Gates donations you might see from people to Buffett, philanthropy was always The only reason he won’t give it all at that wealth level, endowing chairs the byproduct of entrepreneurship. away as fast as possible is so that he at Harvard Medical School and Bos- Bankman-Fried is surely the first bil- can keep some powder dry for the mo- lionaire for whom entrepreneurship ment, sooner rather than later, when Rising Grades was the byproduct of philanthropy. He he sees an “outlier opportunity.” embraces a philosophy called Effec- How new billionaires’ companies tive Altruism, which has cropped up “When you find one of those, every- rank (as a percentile) in JUST Capital’s over the last decade and applies ratio- one tends to go too small,” Bankman- nal logic to maximizing good. “It’s for Fried says. “F--king go all in.” categories of corporate citizenship. people who like math and people who like giving,” Bankman-Fried says. Ef- We’re at an all-in moment in histo- Overall Score 2011 2021 fective Altruists try to quantify things ry, actually, and those at the top have Workers 49th 55th like lives saved per dollar. Or wheth- raised their own stakes to a level that’s Environment 53rd 57th er it’s more urgent to quell malaria or unfathomable considering the year Customers 52nd 61st potentially malevolent technologies. we’ve all experienced. Changes are Communities 42nd 52nd Or whether a brilliant MIT student upon us faster than we could possibly Shareholders 49th 49th named Sam should follow his dream have conceived last March. Now is not 45th 47th and become an animal-rights activist. the time for the world’s billionaires, or “Honestly, you should go to Wall Street any of us, to go small. and give it to us,” Bankman-Fried re- members hearing from one of the Eth- ical Altruism movement’s leaders, 34-year-old Oxford professor William APRIL/MAY 2021 FORBES.COM

80 A BILLIONAIRE THIS YEAR, FORBES A DAY TRACKED DOWN A FORBES.COM RECORD 493 NEW BILLIONAIRES— ROUGHLY ONE EVERY 17 HOURS. JUST OVER 40% HAIL FROM CHINA; 20% FROM THE U.S. PROMINENT ROUTES TO NEW RICHES: IPOS, SPACS, CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND COVID-RELATED HEALTH CARE. THE LIST IPOS Matt Moulding $2.9 billion • E-commerce • U.K. Since mid-March 2020, 1,489 IPOs (including SPACs) raised $314 billion His e-commerce empire, The Hut Group, globally. More than half went public in went public in London in September. Two the U.S., where they raised $277 billion. months later he got a $1 billion share bonus These 10 billionaires land on the list as that the board had approved. a result of such public offerings. Tony Xu Pan Dong $2.8 billion • Food delivery service • U.S. $8.3 billion • Consumer goods • Canada The richest woman new to this year’s list, Xu is cofounder and CEO of food delivery she chairs laundry detergent maker Blue company DoorDash, which listed on the Moon Group Holdings, which listed in NYSE in December. It delivers meals Hong Kong in December. Her husband, from 390,000 restaurants in the United Luo Qiuping, is the company’s CEO. States, Canada and Australia. Vyacheslav Kim Jared Isaacman $3.3 billion • Fintech • Kazakhstan $2.3 billion • Payment processing • U.S. Mikhail Lomtadze $3.2 billion • Fintech • Georgia Isaacman, 38, founded payment processing CEO Lomtadze and chairman Kim have firm Shift4 Payments in his parents’ base- steered Kaspi—a payments, e-commerce and ment at age 19 and took it public on the mobile-banking app used in Kazakhstan— NYSE in June. He flies fighter jets for fun, from a small-time retail bank to a London including a Soviet-era MiG-29. public listing. Half of Kazakhstan’s 18 million people use the service. Bang Shi-hyuk $2.3 billion • Entertainment • South Korea Pablo Legorreta $2.9 billion • Investments • U.S. Founder of music label and agency Big Hit The former investment banker founded Entertainment, which represents the wildly private equity firm Royalty Pharma in popular K-pop band BTS, he took the compa- 1996 to buy future revenue streams of ny public on the Korea Exchange in October. pharmaceuticals. He took it public on the Nasdaq in June. Gong Yingying $2.1 billion • Health IT • China She is CEO, chair and founder of health-care analytics firm Yidu Tech, which listed its shares in Hong Kong in January. David Helgason $1 billion • Software • Iceland Helgason cofounded video-game software developer Unity Software in Denmark in 2004 and served as CEO until 2014; the company listed on the NYSE in September. APRIL/MAY 2021

WHITNEY 81 WOLFE HERD $1.3 billion • Dating app • U.S. Wolfe Herd, 31, took her woman-centric dating app, Bumble, public in February—becoming the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. The $582 million (revenue) company has 42 million customers in 150 countries. She cofounded dating app Tinder in 2012. That relationship turned sour, and she settled a sexual-harassment lawsuit with Tinder in 2014. Andrey Andreev, the Russian founder of dating site Badoo, offered Wolfe Herd a $10 million investment and Badoo’s infrastructure, and the duo launched Bumble in 2014. In late 2019, Andreev sold his majority stake to investment firm Blackstone, four months after a Forbes investigation revealed a toxic work culture at its London offices. Badoo denied the allegations. JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES APRIL/MAY 2021 FORBES.COM

82 BILLIONAIRES • NEWCOMERS SPACS AUSTIN MICHAEL PRINCE FOR FORBESSpecial purpose acquisition companies, RUSSELL or SPACs, have become all the rage. $2.4 billion • Sensors • U.S. More than 500 of these “blank-check” Russell, 26, spent his teens companies have gone public in the U.S. doing research at the in the past year, nearly seven times the University of California at Irvine’s Beckman Laser number in the previous year. But only Institute. The lanky 6-foot-4 a handful minted new billionaires. entrepreneur dropped out of Stanford in 2012 to found Mat Ishbia laser lidar (an acronym $9.7 billion • Mortgage lending • U.S. for light, detection and Justin Ishbia ranging) startup Luminar $3 billion • Mortgage lending • U.S. Technologies after getting The Ishbias’ father, Jeff, launched a mort- a $100,000 fellowship from gage firm in 1986. Mat joined the mom-and- billionaire tech investor pop outfit in 2003. He and his brother Justin, Peter Thiel. Its sensors now a private equity investor, eventually bought help self-driving cars of most of their dad’s stake in United Wholesale customers such as Volvo, Mortgage. Now the nation’s second-largest Toyota and Intel’s Mobileye mortgage lender, UWM merged with the see in 3D by bouncing laser Gores Holdings IV SPAC in January; Mat is beams off nearby objects CEO and Justin is a board member. and vehicles’ surroundings. The company listed on the Andrew Paradise Nasdaq via a SPAC merger $2.3 billion • Mobile games • U.S. with Gores Metropoulos in Skillz, the e-sports company Paradise December 2020. Russell, cofounded in 2012, provides a mobile who owns about one-third platform for developers to host daily of it, became the world’s tournaments of games like solitaire and youngest self-made bingo. Its $230 million in revenue comes billionaire overnight. from its cut of users’ entry fees. FORBES.COM William Foley $1.9 billion • Financial services • U.S. The former insurance tycoon was quick to capitalize on the SPAC boom, sponsoring six blank-check companies to date. Two have recently announced mergers—with cloud-based software provider Alight Solutions and digital-payments platform Paysafe—in deals valued at just over $7 billion and $9 billion, respectively. Shalom Meckenzie $1.7 billion • Sports betting • Israel His gambling-technology provider, SBTech, merged with sports betting site DraftKings and went public via a SPAC in April 2020. He serves on the board and is one of DraftKings’ largest shareholders, with a nearly 6% stake. Geeta Gupta-Fisker $1.6 billion • Electric vehicles • U.K. Henrik Fisker $1.6 billion • Electric vehicles • U.S. Famed car designer Henrik Fisker and his wife, Geeta, who has a Ph.D. in biotech, took their eponymous EV maker public in October; production of its first vehicle, a midsize SUV, is planned to start in late 2022. Trevor Milton $1.4 billion • Electric vehicles • U.S. His hydrogen-electric truck startup, Nikola, went public via a SPAC in June 2020. He resigned as chairman in September after allegations by a short seller that he lied about Nikola’s technology to investors, spurring a review by the SEC. Chamath Palihapitiya $1.2 billion • Facebook, venture capital • U.S. After helping open the SPAC floodgates by taking Richard Branson’s space tourism com- pany, Virgin Galactic, public in 2019, SPAC sponsor and venture capitalist Palihapitiya acquired two more firms via SPACs in the past year: homebuying marketplace Open- door and insurance company Clover Health. APRIL/MAY 2021

CHINA 83 The world’s most populous nation boasts a record 626 billionaires (excluding Hong Kong and Macau); its red-hot stock market helped mint 205 new ten-figure fortunes, with half coming from manufac- turing or tech. All but two were self-made. Here are 11 standouts. Chen Zhiping KATE BILLIONAIRES • NEWCOMERS $15.9 billion • E-cigarettes WANG The founder of the world’s largest manufacturer of vaping devices, Smoore $5 billion • E-cigarettes International, Chen took the firm public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last July. One of the world’s youngest self-made female billionaires, Wang, 39, is CEO of Li Hua Chinese vaping company RLX Technology. $7.1 billion • Financial services The Columbia Business School grad got the An early employee at Tencent, Li founded idea for the company in 2017, when she was Nasdaq-listed online brokerage Futu trying to persuade her father to quit smoking. Holdings in 2007. The Robinhood-style “I tried out all the [vaping] products. Most fintech boasts nearly 12 million users. of them were terrible,” she tells Forbes. RLX posted $324 million in sales in the first nine Wang Junlin months of 2020 and listed on the New York $6.3 billion • Liquor Stock Exchange in January. Wang has a 20% The turnaround artist revived two state- stake. Shares fell 54% over three days in late owned companies before arriving at March (after Forbes measured net worths for struggling liquor producer Sichuan the Billionaires list) in response to Chinese Langjiu in 2001. It now churns out more authorities publishing draft rules that would than 40,000 tons of alcohol a year. regulate e-cigarettes as tobacco products. STEFEN CHOW FOR FORBES Wang Ning $6.3 billion • Toys In December, Wang took public his toymaker, Pop Mart, which is known for concealing the identity of its figurines in “blind boxes.” Jian Jun $5.6 billion • Biomedical products Her Shenzhen-listed Imeik Technology Development makes medical cosmetic products like skin fillers and facial implant threads, as well as face and neck masks. Cao Renxian $5.3 billion • Solar power A university professor, Cao founded Sungrow Power Supply in 1997. Its products, used in 150 countries, convert direct-current electricity from solar panels into alternating current for the power grid. Steven Meng Yang $4.2 billion • Electronics A former Google engineer, he founded popular Amazon seller Anker Innovations Technology, known for its battery packs, phone chargers and other electronic accessories. Liu Fangyi $4.2 billion • Medical equipment Stock of his Intco Medical Technology, which makes disposable medical prod- ucts like masks and gloves, shot up 650% in the past year amid the pandemic. Li Xiang $4 billion • Electric vehicles The 39-year-old founded NYSE-listed online car dealer Autohome before creating electric vehicle startup Li Auto, which debuted on the Nasdaq last July. Jin Baofang $3.9 billion • Solar panels Jin is founder and chair of JA Solar, a Beijing- based solar panel producer that boasts 33,000 clients in 135 countries and regions. APRIL/MAY 2021

CRYPTO Boom times (again) in cryptocurrency— Bitcoin has skyrocketed 800% since the middle of March 2020 and Ripple’s XRP is up 200%—have landed these nine fresh faces on the list. 84 Cameron Winklevoss $3 billion • U.S. Tyler Winklevoss $3 billion • U.S. The twin brothers own an estimated 70,000 Bitcoin, plus the crypto exchange Gemini, which processes about $200 million a day in trades. (See story, page 96.) BILLIONAIRES • NEWCOMERS Michael Saylor VIRGILE SIMON BERTRAND FOR FORBES$2.3 billion • U.S. The CEO of software firm MicroStrategy made, and lost, a fortune during the first dot-com bust. He debuts now after snapping up Bitcoin ahead of the boom—for both him- self and his company—pushing its stock up. Jed McCaleb $2 billion • U.S. He created Mt. Gox, the first major Bitcoin exchange, before cofounding Ripple in 2012. He soon left due to reported disagreements with fellow founders but still holds an esti- mated 3.4 billion XRP, Ripple’s token. Fred Ehrsam $1.9 billion • U.S. The former Goldman Sachs trader owns 6% of crypto exchange Coinbase, which he co- founded in 2012 and which is poised to go public on the Nasdaq; he remains a board member. SAM BANKMAN-FRIED Barry Silbert $1.6 billion • U.S. $8.7 billion • U.S. His Digital Currency Group, a conglomerate An MIT grad and former Wall Street trader, Bankman-Fried, 29, is the founder and CEO of of five blockchain-focused companies, quantitative crypto trading firm Alameda, which manages $32 billion in Bitcoin and other includes crypto asset manager Grayscale, major cryptocurrencies as well as their derivatives. He also founded Hong Kong–based which oversees some $44 billion worth of crypto exchange FTX, which achieved unicorn status in January 2020, less than a year after Bitcoin, ether and other assets. its May 2019 launch. The exchange will soon replace American Airlines as the naming-rights sponsor of the home arena of the NBA’s Miami Heat. The vast majority of Bankman-Fried’s Tim Draper wealth is in FTX’s equity and FTT tokens, the native cryptocurrency of FTX. In 2020, he gave $1.5 billion • U.S. $5 million to a pro-Biden super PAC, making him one of the president’s biggest donors. The Silicon Valley VC bought $18.7 million worth of Bitcoin confiscated by U.S. Marshals from the shuttered Silk Road black market in 2014. They are now worth $1.5 billion. Matthew Roszak $1.5 billion • U.S. A longtime crypto evangelist, Roszak worked in venture capital and as an entrepreneur before amassing a portfolio of Bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies starting in 2012. Editor: Kerry A. Dolan Deputy Editors: Chase Peterson-Withorn, Jennifer Wang Country Editors: Graham Button, Grace Chung, Russell Flannery, Naazneen Karmali, Nathan Vardi Wealth Team: Angel Au-Yeung, Kenrick Cai, Deniz Çam, Maggie Chen, David Dawkins, Anastassia Gliadkovskaya, John Hyatt, Max Jedeur-Palmgren, Momina Khan, Sergei Klebnikov, Elaine Mao, Andrea Murphy, Krisztián Sándor, Ariel Shapiro, Giacomo Tognini, Hank Tucker, Lisette Voytko and reporters at Forbes-licensed editions in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. Reporters: Susan Adams, Dan Alexander, Anderson Antunes, Megha Bahree, Nina Bambysheva, Margherita Beale, Madeline Berg, Justin Birnbaum, Tim Boreham, Igor Bosilkovski, Thomas Brewster, Nilgun Cavdar, Shu-Ching Jean Chen, Muhammad Cohen, Lachlan Colquhoun, Lauren Debter, Michael del Castillo, James Dunn, Steven Ehrlich, Amy Feldman, Antoine Gara, Eliza Haverstock, Christopher Helman, Alvaro Hernandez Zorrilla, Jane Ho, Katie Jennings, Jeff Kauflin, Sean Kilachand, Noah Kirsch, Alex Knapp, Alex Konrad, Nicole Lindsay, Katherine Love, Iain Martin, Anis Shakirah Mohd Muslimin, Suzy Nam, Lan Anh Nguyen, Alan Ohnsman, Robert Olsen, Phisanu Phromchanya, Jonathan Ponciano, Anu Raghunathan, Natalie Robehmed, Leah Rosenbaum, Matt Schifrin, Lucinda Schmidt, Leonard Schoenberger, James Simms, Chloe Sorvino, Deborah Steinborn, Jessica Tan, Michela Tindera, Ozer Turan, Elisa Valenta, Yue Wang, Jennifer Wells, Will Yakowicz, Itai Zehorai Research: Sue Radlauer Photo Research: Merrilee Barton, Gail Toivanen Database: Dmitri Slavinsky Acknowledgements: Special thanks to Sara B. Potter, FactSet Research Systems, Orbis by Bureau Van Dijk, PitchBook Data, Real Capital Analytics, Reonomy, S&P Capital IQ, VesselsValue and the other experts who helped us with our reporting and valuations. FORBES.COM APRIL/MAY 2021

COVID-19 SERGIO 85 STEVANATO At least 40 new billionaires join the list BILLIONAIRES • NEWCOMERS this year thanks to their involvement in $1.9 billion • Medical the global effort to fight the Covid-19 packaging • Italy pandemic. Some made their for- tunes developing new vaccines and Covid-19 vaccines promising antibody treatments, are housed in tiny while others sell much-needed glass vials—many diagnostic tests and personal of them made by protective equipment. the family-owned Stevanato Group, where Stéphane Bancel Stevanato, 78, is the $4.3 billion • Biotech • France chairman of the board Shares of Moderna, where he has been emeritus. Stevanato CEO since 2011 and whose Covid-19 vaccine Group is supplying was approved in the U.S. in December, rose vials for about 15% of 319% in the past year. the Covid-19 vaccines tracked by the World Uğur Şahin Health Organization. $4 billion • Biotech • Germany That includes 100 million The Turkish-born physician cofounded vials shipped to a Gates BioNTech, which developed a Covid-19 Foundation–backed vaccine in partnership with Pfizer; his group that’s helping wife, Özlem Türeci, is chief medical officer. to scale 10 different The stock doubled since mid March 2020. vaccines, including those from Moderna Yuan Liping and AstraZeneca. $3.6 billion • Pharmaceuticals • Canada Yuan got a 24% stake in Chinese vaccine Founded on the producer Shenzhen Kangtai Biological outskirts of Venice in Products after her divorce from the com- 1949 by Sergio’s father, pany’s chairman (and fellow billionaire), Giovanni, the Stevanato Du Weimin, last year. Group started out Hu Kun making glass bottles $2.5 billion • Medical devices • China for wine before pivoting Chairman of newly public Contec Medical to the pharmaceutical Systems, which makes pulse oximeters and industry in the 1960s. devices used to check lung conditions. Sergio stepped down as CEO in 2010 but still Noubar Afeyan owns a 68% stake in $1.9 billion • Biotech • U.S. the company; his son The founder of life-sciences VC firm Flagship Pioneering, through which he owns shares in Franco is executive a dozen publicly traded biotech companies, chairman. is also chairman of Moderna. STEVANATO GROUP Carl Hansen $1.8 billion • Biotech • Canada FORBES.COM Former college professor cofounded AbCellera Biologics to identify antibody treatments; it partnered with Eli Lilly, which led to an FDA-authorized Covid-19 therapy. Robert Langer $1.6 billion • Biotech • U.S. One of four new Moderna billionaires, the MIT professor dubbed “the Edison of Medicine” owns a 3% stake in the company, which he helped start in 2010. Arvind Lal $1.5 billion • Laboratories • India Shares of his listed diagnostics chain, Dr. Lal PathLabs, soared 57% amid the pandemic as it ramped up testing for Covid-19. Prathap Reddy $1.5 billion • Hospitals • India A doctor, he runs publicly traded hospital chain Apollo Hospitals Enterprise. Shares doubled in the past year amid the hospitals’ focus on treating and diagnosing Covid-19. Jack Schuler $1.1 billion • Diagnostics • U.S. Former Abbott Labs president, now a biotech investor, he owns 7% of diagnostics firm Quidel Corp., which makes Covid-19 tests. APRIL/MAY 2021



KIDA by Stephen Burks

88 THE PROFILE UDY FAULKNER, THE BILLIONAIRE FOUNDER OF EPIC SYSTEMS, PIONEERED—THEN DOMINATED—ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS. SHE’S BEEN THE INDUSTRY’S LEADING ACTOR FOR DECADES, BUT NOW THE PANDEMIC IS FUELING A DIGITAL HEALTH-CARE RACE THAT MAY FINALLY COST HER THE SPOT LI GHT. FORBES.COM APRIL/MAY 2021

THE PROFILE 89 THE PROFILE BY KATIE JENNINGS PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES APRIL/MAY 2021 FORBES.COM

nicely with others. The company’s product is generally referred to as an electronic health rec- ord, but its reach is far broader, including reve- nue cycle management, customer retention tools and data analytics. Epic’s suite of offerings has proven particular- ly popular among large academic medical cen- ters and children’s hospitals, such as the Cleve- 90 land Clinic, Johns Hopkins and Boston Children’s Hospital. The company’s 564 customers represent THE PROFILE nearly 2,400 hospitals worldwide and 225 mil- lion patients in the U.S., or about two-thirds of the country’s population. This translated into more than $3.3 billion in revenue in 2020, despite what Faulkner estimates to be around $500 million in foregone revenue for Covid-related software it provided free of charge, including infection man- agement tools and extensions for pop-up hospi- tals. “It never seemed right to me to make money off Covid,” she says. Her success has been decades in the making. A victorious swell of brass instruments reverberates across Since Epic’s founding in 1979, the 77-year-old the 1,100-acre Epic Systems campus in Verona, Wisconsin, a Faulkner has steadfastly rejected outside inves- sleepy suburb just outside Madison. It’s February 2020, and tors, Wall Street financing and acquisitions. Epic except for China and a couple of ill-fated cruise ships, there was still just a $500 million (sales) company in are few signs of the coronavirus pandemic that’s about to en- 2007. Ten years ago, it hit $1 billion in revenue, velop the world. It’s certainly business as usual at Epic: The and growth has compounded at an annual rate of familiar strains of a baroque wedding march fill the hallways, 15% every year since. It’s highly profitable: Esti- stopping the health-care software company’s 10,700 employ- mated cash flow as measured by Ebidta is north ees in their tracks. On cue, a new customer announcement of 30%, and the company has no debt. Forbes follows: Florida-based AdventHealth plans to deploy Epic’s estimates Faulkner’s 47% stake in Epic to be electronic health record system across 37 of its hospitals. The worth $6 billion, which makes her the second- full installation will take over three years and cost around richest self-made woman in America. Employees $650 million, not counting ongoing and around a dozen other cofound- maintenance, which will cost mil- ers and initial investors own the lions more annually. “It’s a very long The move-fast-and-break- other 53%. relationship for many of our cus- In 2019, Epic had a 39% share tomers,” Epic’s founder and CEO, things ethos of Silicon of the more than 880,000 hospi- Judy Faulkner, says in a rare inter- Valley doesn’t work in tal beds in the U.S., the health-care view. She got the idea for the wed- IT firm KLAS Research estimates. ding theme from a visit to the Mayo health care: “You can’t The rest of the market is fragment- Clinic several decades earlier, where tell a doctor it’s okay to ed among publicly traded Cern- she heard lullabies play whenever a fail. It’s not okay to fail. er, the Massachusetts-based Medi- new baby was born. A new customer tech and a few other firms, in- “didn’t feel like a new baby,” she says. That’s death.” cluding Allscripts and CPSI. Ep- “It felt more like a wedding.” ic’s dominance has made it an Indeed, hospital execu- industry target, with critics and tives are often more commit- competitors accusing the company ted to Epic than most Americans are to their marriag- of being a closed network that makes it difficult to es. Epic’s average customer has been using its software exchange data with other systems. Faulkner con- for 10 years, and Faulkner claims the company has nev- tends Epic does share data but puts patient pri- er lost an in-patient hospital client, except in the case of vacy above all. an acquisition. Partly that’s because it’s so hard to leave. Epic’s biggest strength, this build-it-alone Epic’s software helps manage a patient’s entire journey, mentality, could become its biggest liability in starting with scheduling an appointment, moving into the the post-Covid world. The pandemic is forcing clinic or operating room as the doctor records allergies or fast change in the U.S. health-care system. Doc- X-rays and then to the back office for billing and follow- tors and other providers have rapidly adopted ups. It’s a proprietary system that infamously doesn’t play new technology over the last year as patients sud- FORBES.COM APRIL/MAY 2021

denly took a strong interest in staying as far away from the doesn’t work in health care. “You can’t tell a doctor hospital as possible. it’s okay to fail,” Glaser says. “It’s not okay to fail. That’s death.” Venture capitalists were already gunning for Epic before the pandemic struck. After all, the company’s big-system FAULKNER 91 mindset and hundred-million-dollar installations seem out of step in the era of cloud computing and cheap, ubiquitous has loved tackling tough problems since she was a THE PROFILE mobile apps. Then, shortly before lockdown, the U.S. gov- kid growing up near Haddonfield, New Jersey, in ernment finalized new federal data-sharing rules empower- the 1950s. In seventh grade, her math teacher put ing patients to have ownership over their own digital medi- riddles on the blackboard, and she’s been hooked cal records—potentially further eroding what has historically on math and logic ever since. She majored in math been a health-data oligopoly dominated by Epic and Cerner. at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and had a summer job in particle physics at the Uni- “We are right in the middle of this phenomenal transfor- versity of Rochester, where she was introduced to mational swirl,” says John Glaser, a former Cerner executive computer programming and Fortran (the ancient who currently lectures at Harvard Medical School. It’s not coding language invented by IBM). “I always liked that electronic health records will go away, he says, but more making things out of clay,” Faulkner says. “And the nimble and agile startups will enter the market. Just as the computer was clay of the mind. Instead of physical, web and smartphones crushed Microsoft’s seemingly unas- it was mental.” sailable 1990s-era desktop monopoly, this new era may pose the same challenges for Faulkner. But there’s one huge differ- In 1965, she started a doctorate in the University ence. The move-fast-and-break-things ethos of Silicon Valley of Wisconsin’s nascent computer science program. Through the Looking Glass FORBES.COM Office spaces based on Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz at Epic’s “Intergalactic Headquarters” in Verona, Wisconsin. “How do we expect people to develop software that’s going to be beautiful for our users if we keep people in a boring, sterile environment?” Judy Faulkner asks. APRIL/MAY 2021

In Madison, she met psychiatrist and professor Warner Slack, The year after Epic inked the Kaiser deal, who was teaching one of the first-ever courses on computers it moved to a new corporate campus, which in medicine. A few years later, Slack introduced Faulkner to is often compared to an adult Disney World. John Greist, then chief resident in medicine and now profes- Headquarters features one of the world’s larg- sor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, who was looking est underground auditoriums, a Hogwarts- for a better way to schedule on-call doctors. In 1969, Faulkner inspired Great Hall, an elevator to Hell, an enor- developed a system in which a secretary could punch data mous tree house and myriad other strange and cards to generate the schedule for an entire year in 18 seconds fantastical buildings and sculptures amid the 92 at a cost of $5. rolling hills of southern Wisconsin. At Epic’s an- Faulkner graduated without completing a dissertation (“I nual customer meeting, Faulkner is known for THE PROFILE never could figure out what to write a thesis on,” she says) and dressing up in costumes, ranging from Lucille in the early 1970s started working for a physicians group at Ball to the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonder- the University of Wisconsin, developing a database to keep land. It all seems somewhat at odds with the self- track of patient information over time. It would take a few proclaimed nerd who shies away from the public more years (and lots of convincing from colleagues) before eye. “Introverts can act like extroverts,” she offers Faulkner was ready to start her own software company. “It al- by way of explanation. “What they say is extro- most seemed like a joke to start a company,” she recalls. “How verts can’t act like introverts.” do you do that?” The company sees a lot of turnover. Each year, In 1979, Faulkner and Greist borrowed from friends and Epic hires around 2,000 employees, who are re- family—and against their homes—to scrape together the quired to pass a series of aptitude tests measuring capital to launch Human Services Computing (later re- things like coding skills and logic. The company named Epic), which was originally valued at $70,000 (about motto is “Do good. Have fun. Make money,” and the $270,000 in today’s money). Faulkner had six or seven oth- culture is fast-paced and hypercompetitive. Former er collaborators, but from the begin- employees talk about burnout from ning it was the Judy show; the com- an environment filled with over- pany was her idea, and she served achievers. But even Epic’s employ- as its first president. At first, it op- “I have never, in the ees can be pushed too far: There was erated after-hours from a Madi- a revolt when the company tried to son basement. Faulkner wrote all history of health care in force all staffers to return to campus the original code on a Data Gener- the United States, seen amid the pandemic last August. Af- al Eclipse 16-bit minicomputer the ter several stories about the contre- size of a refrigerator. this kind of supernova of temps appeared in the local press, After a few years, Greist had a dis- innovation with a flurry the company reversed course. of investment activity agreement with Faulkner over the Florida’s AdventHealth, which company’s direction. Greist says he signed its $650 million contract in a stepped down from Epic’s board into digital health.” pre-Covid world, will be Epic’s larg- in 1983 but still holds onto some est fully remote build and installa- shares. “Part of my difficulty with her tion. In a blow to Cerner and Athe- was me saying, ‘Gosh, why don’t we nahealth, CEO Terry Shaw decided get some venture capital and we can it would be better for his 5.5 million build it faster?’ ” Greist says. “And she said, ‘No, we’re not go- patients to switch to Epic rather than trying to get ing to do that. Because we’ll lose control.’ And certainly that’s its current combination of three electronic health been her policy. And she has lived it out and proven it. I was record companies to talk to one another. While it’s wrong. She was right.” expensive upfront, he says, the move will lower op- Epic saw slow but steady growth in its first two decades, erating costs in the long term. Epic’s system “has gaining a handful of new customers every year as it expanded tentacles that go out through amazing networks,” its offerings. In the late 1980s, the company added billing soft- he adds. “You can actually help a person get the ware; in the early 1990s it adopted a graphic user interface for care they need, wherever they need to get it.” outpatient clinics. Aside from Faulkner’s obsessive focus on its customers, Epic had another advantage: computer code that worked. “It’s not perfect, but it’s quite reliable,” Faulkner says. EPIC’S In 2004 the company landed its biggest deal yet: a three- year project with Kaiser Permanente that would cost the health giant $4 billion. Epic’s cut would be around $400 mil- lion. “[Epic] brought that safety factor that if you chose them, they were actually going to deliver on implementation and tentacles are notorious for reaching only so far, they were going to do it on time,” says George Halvorson, who however—and that seems largely by design. It’s was the CEO of Kaiser Permanente at the time. “That’s huge.” super-easy for, say, a hospital to share a cancer FORBES.COM APRIL/MAY 2021

patient’s records with an outside chemotherapy clinic—as 93 THE PROFILE long as both places are running Epic’s software. If the che- motherapy clinic is using software from a big competitor, Corporate Climber it’s still probably going to be able to access the patient’s re- Faulkner says she didn’t have a grand plan for growth. cords. But if the clinic wants to experiment with a cheaper “It’s always been, like, you climb a mountain. And you just third-party app, it may be quite a struggle. Epic works with see the hill ahead of you. You don’t see the whole mountain. health-care apps only on a case-by-case basis. And then you get on top of that hill, you see the next hill. Geeks call this “interoperability”—getting different soft- And you just keep climbing.” ware systems to talk to each other, in essence—and the is- sue came to a head in January 2020 during a debate over In 2019, Epic unveiled a big-data initiative called the new federal rules. Sharing medical records with third Cosmos, which aims to mine more than 100 mil- parties—even at the patient’s own request—could pose “se- lion de-identified patient records. rious risks to patient privacy,” Epic said in a statement at the time. Despite being just 28 months shy of her 80th birthday, Faulkner says she has no plans to retire. Nearly every other tech company—including Cerner, Ap- She has not named a successor, and none of her ple, Microsoft and Google—disagreed, arguing that Epic’s three children works at Epic. Faulkner has se- stance is bad for patients and stifles innovation. Even fed- cured Epic’s future only insofar as the company eral officials took veiled digs at Faulkner’s business. “The will never be taken public. She has split her stock disingenuous efforts by certain private actors to use priva- into voting shares that can’t be sold and have cy—vital as it is—as a pretext for holding patient data hos- gone into a trust controlled by family members tage is an embarrassment to the industry,” former Centers and employees. Her nonvoting shares are being for Medicare and Medicaid director Seema Verma said at a left to a foundation she established with her hus- conference. In the end, the feds prohibited health-care data band called Roots & Wings, which funds her in- blocking by Epic or any other company. terests in child brain development and criminal justice reform (she signed the Giving Pledge in Big Tech has flirted with health-care data for more than 2015). “I enjoy what I do and I’d like to do it as a decade, with companies like Google trying and failing long as I am effective and can bring value in the to launch an internet-based personal health record in the job,” she says. She worries about what happens late aughts. Microsoft HealthVault similarly crashed and to people when they retire, having read that the burned. Apple’s attempt to measure heart rhythms with its average person dies two years after leaving the watch was panned by doctors. And Amazon had a giant flop workforce. “They seem to lose that edge that says, with Haven, its joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and ‘Why am I waking up in the morning? What is JPMorgan Chase, which was supposed to dramatically re- my day going to be?’ I wake up and think, ‘How duce employer health-care costs. do I get everything done in my day?’ ” Where the whales failed, the minnows might win. With FORBES.COM the new federal guidelines rolling out over the next cou- ple of years, plenty of venture capitalists are now betting big that one of many tiny upstarts can breach Epic’s moat. Health IT venture funding hit an all-time high in 2020 of more than $3.6 billion, a 51% increase from 2019, accord- ing to CB Insights. “I have never in the history of health care in the United States seen this kind of supernova of innovation with a flurry of investment activity into digital health,” says Missy Krasner, a former Google Health and Amazon executive who recently joined New York–based venture shop Redesign Health. “Covid has totally made in- teroperability sexy again.” Faulkner says she’s not concerned about all the Silicon Valley players entering the health-care space. “I think that what will happen is that a few of them will do very well. And the majority of them won’t,” she says. “It’s not us as much as the health systems who have to respond to the patient say- ing ‘send my data here’ or ‘send my data there.’ ” The new federal rules concern individual patient records, but the industry is rapidly heading toward aggregating bulk data. It’s a space in which many, including Epic, want to play. These large, anonymous medical data sets can be used for everything from drug discovery to unearthing emerging national health trends and could be worth a lot of money. APRIL/MAY 2021

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