Magzter Gold (Sitewide Promotion)

Magzter Gold (Sitewide Promotion)

Digital Delivery

Forbes August 1st, 2023 Digital Back Issue Cover

Forbes August/September 2023 (Digital)

(156)

Single Digital Issue

August/September 2023

$5.99

Powered By Zinio

Zinio

Satisfaction Guaranteed

Instant Start

Subscribe Instead

1 Year Subscription

8 digital issues

$29.99

($3.75/issue)

Go to Subscription

View Subscription Options

36 Articles

An Unusual Limerick

Here’s a surprising story from a place built upon them. It starts two years ago with an Irish contributor to Forbes, who, in writing a story about Ireland’s greatest business export since Guinness—the Collison brothers and Stripe—invoked an old nickname for their hometown, Limerick: Stab City. That two-word dig literally got an entire nation’s Irish up. Forbes was bombarded with letters and tweets, mayoral protestations and newspaper editorials. We “sparked fury” (the Irish Post) and “anger” (the Irish Mirror), prompting podcasters to lash out. Politicians deemed us “disgraceful.” True to a proper outrage cycle, the easy off ramp was an apology. Express remorse, nod, move on. But what was that really going to accomplish in this instance? Rather than performative words from across the pond, we would instead come visit Limerick, bring…

An Unusual Limerick

AI Is No Frankenstein

“With all thy getting, get understanding” The launch last November of ChatGPT set off a worldwide wave of hysteria that perhaps the end of humanity was nigh: AI would soon render humans irrelevant or turn us into subservient serfs to super-smart, superpowerful high-tech monsters. We should recall what President Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his first inaugural address at a time of genuine crisis, the pit of the Great Depression: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” AI will actually be a boon to numerous industries, especially health care. It will, for instance, vastly speed up the creation of new medicines, instead of our being reliant on the highly inefficient, hit-or-miss approach of the past. AI is in its infancy. We’re in the same stage with it that we were with…

AI Is No Frankenstein

Electrocuting Taxpayers

California is implementing a shocking new income redistribution scheme. Even though California is one of the most highly taxed states in the country, millions of its residents are in for a fresh jolt. There will soon be a sizable new charge on their electricity bills based on their income. You read that right. Astoundingly, a big part of utility bills in the now-tarnished Golden State will be determined not only by the amount of electricity consumed but also by how much money one earns. That’s a new income tax, and it’s combined with a novel income-redistribution plan. The legislature passed this monstrosity a year ago, and the state’s three large utilities are working with the Public Utilities Commission to implement it. The “income graduated fixed charges” involve four income brackets: those who…

New York’s Falling Tower of Pizzas

When Elon Musk heard about New York City’s proposed antipizza regulation, he fired off a tweet: “This is utter B.S. It won’t make a difference to climate change.” Musk is right. The city is getting ready to ban pizzas prepared in traditional coal- and wood-fired ovens. The Big Apple’s Department of Environmental Protection wants to have these ovens scrapped or to have pizzerias install filtration systems that cost tens of thousands of dollars so they’ll comply with the department’s arbitrary demand for a 75% cut in emissions. No matter how you slice it, the cost of complying will either force these small enterprises to shut down—they don’t have the dough to buy and maintain expensive filtration systems—or to meaningfully raise their prices and hope customers keep coming. Pizza aficionados know that the taste of…

RESTAURANTS: GO, CONSIDER, STOP

● Koloman Ace Hotel, 16 West 29th St. (Tel.: 212-790-8970) A contemporary French restaurant where, as its website states, “chef Markus Glocker lends Parisian creativity with Viennese tradition.” From the warm pumpkin-seed focaccia to the beef tartare with crispy quinoa to the chilled green asparagus soup with mussels to the tiny, sweet beau soleil oysters with mignonette cocktail sauce, the food is fabulous. For main courses, the Berkshire pork schnitzel with potato salad and lingonberries, the lobster burger with a salad of iceberg and market greens and the grilled wild mushrooms on olive oil crushed potatoes with sauce vierge are each sublime. Don’t pass on the baked Lübeck marzipan with chocolate and smoked sea salt, the apple strudel or the duck egg crème brûlée. ● Eli’s Table 1413 Third Ave., at 80th St. (Tel.:…

MISS PATTI’S CAKES

You probably know Patti LaBelle as the voice behind “Lady Marmalade.” Or maybe as the star solo act who snagged two Grammy Awards in the 1990s. Perhaps you even recall Out All Night, her short-lived 1992 sitcom. But what you likely don’t know: The Godmother of Soul is a card shark. “I killed him last night,” she says during a recent afternoon round of Pitty Pat, nodding toward her business partner, Charles Suitt. She sweeps up the cash scattered across her kitchen counter and adds it to a folio pouch bursting with 20-, ten- and five-dollar bills. LaBelle isn’t just cleaning up at the card table: She’s winning as an entrepreneur, too. Fifteen years ago, she started Patti’s Good Life in Philadelphia, her lifelong hometown, to sell a line of hot sauces.…

MISS PATTI’S CAKES

Casting Resilience

Serial founder Ty Haney is admiring a box of fishing lures—technicolor fake insects made of feathers and tinsel—that helped her discover the wonder of building things as a girl. In the tree-dotted mountains of her native Boulder, Colorado, Haney’s returning to a family pastime: fly fishing. This wilderness defined her active youth and inspired her businesses, from athletic apparel brand Outdoor Voices to ventures in wellness and Web3. Haney learned to fish from technical masters (her grandpa, dad and uncles). The rituals and routines of fly fishing hooked her; she loved searching under rocks for bugs—then watching her uncle fashion his own lure, or “fly,” to mimic what local fish are eating, and attach it to the line. “I remember that being such a cool, curious, exploratory moment,” she recalls. It may not…

Casting Resilience

STABLE GENIUSES

Crypto is struggling. Under attack from regulators, the overall value of cryptocurrencies is down approximately 60% from its 2021 highs. But one digital asset company is thriving: stablecoin maker Tether. The British Virgin Islands–based outfit has an $83 billion market value, up from about $65 billion just a year ago. In the first three months of 2023, Tether, which is responsible for more than 50% of the entire crypto market’s liquidity, says it posted a $1.5 billion profit. It employs a simple, low-risk profitmaking model: Customers give the company U.S. dollars in exchange for a blockchain-based token it mints known as USDT (the “T” stands for Tether). Tether holds collateral mostly in the form of Treasury bills, money market funds, bitcoin and secured loans, and earns a market return on these…

STABLE GENIUSES

Elliot Fisher 28 COFOUNDER, CURI BIO Adios, animal testing: Using stem cells, Seattle-based Curi Bio builds “organs-on-chips” (bioengineered human heart and muscle tissues) for pharma trials. He has raised $27 million. Daniel Pawson 29 COFOUNDER, THE SEA GROUP Wanna share a Scooby snack? Humans and dogs alike can grab some salmon-skin crisps made by Pawson’s U.K.-based startup, which sells in 600 British supermarkets. Annual revenue: $2 million. Megan Feeman 29 Jimmy Feeman 29 COFOUNDERS, NOBAKED COOKIE DOUGH This Nashville couple sells raw but edible dough (chocolate chip and seven other flavors) online and in DoorDash’s DashMart. Revenue should hit $6 million this year. Vaysh Kewada 29 COFOUNDER, SALIENCE LABS With $11.5 million in funding, Kewada’s U.K.-based startup is developing a light signal–based chip for AI use that’s superfast yet consumes less energy than standard ones. 30 UNDER 30 BY KRISTIN STOLLER. ILLUSTRATION BY…

BUY, HOLD, SELL

Guitars Aaron Piscopo Director, Vintage Guitars and Musical Instruments, Heritage Auctions, Dallas 1959 Gibson Les Paul Custom Electric Guitar Younger collectors are going after Jaguar and Mustang six-strings instead, so if you can find a classic like this Jimmy Page–style 1959 Gibson Les Paul Custom, which recently sold for $45,000, snap it up. It has the potential to be worth a whole lotta loot. 1924 Gibson Lloyd Loar L5 Sunburst Archtop Acoustic Demand for archtop acoustic guitars has been waning, but their time will come again—and soon. Heritage Auctions sold a 1924 Gibson Lloyd Loar L5 for $100,000 in early May. Condition goes a long way, so keep your six-strings safely stored until you’re ready to cash out. Guild F-412 Natural 12-String Acoustic Stage-played instruments are increasingly popular, so now is a good time to unload. This Guild…

BUY, HOLD, SELL

POPULATION: 1.8 MILLION 2022 GROSS STATE PRODUCT: $95.6 BILLION (UP 11.9%) GSP PER CAPITA: $53,852 (RANKS 49TH) NUMBER OF BILLIONAIRES: 0 RICHEST: BRAD SMITH, $700 MILLION In 1970, when Brad Smith was 6, a plane carrying the Marshall University football team crashed a mile from his home near its campus in Huntington, West Virginia, killing all 75 onboard. “I watched the flames burn outside my window,” Smith remembers. “And then I watched this community rise from the ashes.” The 59-year-old left West Virginia after earning his bachelor’s degree at Marshall—first for grad school in Michigan, then for a career building a fortune at PepsiCo, payroll giant ADP and, most recently, as CEO of TurboTax maker Intuit. In December 2021, 36 years after he left, country roads took him home and he settled into the President’s…

WORLD OF FORBES

CZECH REPUBLIC Model Pavlína Němcová fronts Forbes Czech’s list of the country’s most influential women, while widowed billionaire Renáta Kellnerová tops the ranking. Němcová has returned home after 30 years in France; she runs a jewelry line and a beauty salon in Prague. GEORGIA Diana Kiguradze, Visa’s regional manager in Georgia and Armenia, is pushing for a cashless economy. While navigating the war in Ukraine and the pandemic, she has propelled contactless payment and business-to-business global transfers in the region. GREECE In 1993, Nikolas Tsakos founded Athens-based Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited. The shipping company, which he took public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2002, had $860 million in revenue and record profits of $204 million in 2022. AUSTRALIA As the share price of logistics software firm WiseTech Global steadily rose to a record high $55…

WORLD OF FORBES

When our June/July cover subject, Lisa Su, took the helm of Advanced Micro Devices in 2014, the chipmaker was foundering. Nine years later, its market cap and industry cred are soaring. “Dr. Su is in her own league,” wrote Rahul Sharma on Linked-In. “She is an inspiration—the best CEO of this decade.” Now Su, ranked No. 34 on Forbes’ annual Self-Made Women list with a net worth of $740 million (tied with Taylor Swift), is prepping for the AI wars, with chip behemoth Nvidia in her sights. Su “is in a good position to take a run at the AI chip market, but she knows well how quickly turnarounds can become downfalls,” observed @HPC_Guru on Twitter. Others focused more on the Self-Made list’s many celebrities: “Looks like Queen Bey [Beyoncé]…

Former insurance exec Nancy Whiteman built Wana Brands into a $350 million cannabis-edibles titan—then cannily sold in October 2021, just before pot stocks crashed. Timing is everything in this $26 billion industry, which is still finding its way amid considerable legal and regulatory haze. JASON BAHAMUNDI: “Whiteman is a great example of taking risks, failing and succeeding while continuing to move forward. Risk means you’re investing in your business. If you aren’t investing in your business, you just have a hobby.” @EMPAX1: “@WanaBrands has been a pioneering brand in #cannabis, and Whiteman is an incredible human. Refreshing to see a positive story come out of this industry.” JEREMY SMITH: “Congratulations to her, but the overall industry has been mostly unsuccessful in overthrowing the illegal growers who dominate the cannabis market in spite of legalization. Those are…

Inside the Hilton Syon Park hotel, on another cloudy London day in July, Eddie Hearn has gathered the media for what he bills as boxing’s next big U.K. fight, an August rematch between two-time former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and ex–British boxing champ Dillian Whyte. Yet Hearn can’t help thinking ahead. Noticing former heavyweight contender Derek Chisora a few feet away, he crashes a YouTube interview with another fighter, Fabio Wardley. “What about you two?” Hearn jokes, until both unexpectedly express interest and the wheels start turning. It’s no blockbuster match, but there isn’t a limelight too small, or big, for boxing’s perpetual hype machine. The 44-year-old Hearn loves to put on a show. He’s pushed the boundaries of his family’s event promotion company, Matchroom Sport, to previously unimaginable heights, which…

Amazónico Mayfair Grab a prefight “rainforest old fashioned” or “Amazonegroni” at this upscale Berkeley Square haunt that offers Latin-inspired fare and “electropical” music. “Good for cocktails or a vibey dinner.” Hakkasan Hanway Place Fitzrovia Dine on Peking duck with Prunier caviar and lobster dim sum at this modern Cantonese restaurant that has held a Michelin star for two decades. “Pretty old-school, but I love the food.” Beigel Bake Brick Lane Bakery East End End your evening at this 24-hour bakery serving traditional bagels—Hearn recommends one with salt beef and extra mustard. “Standard procedure after a night out at the fights.” AMAZÓNICO; DAVID BENNETT/GETTY IMAGS; MAURITIUS/ALAMY…

Kill Trees, Save the Planet

A year ago, Merritt Jenkins moved from Boston to Twain Harte, California, a speck of 2,500 souls in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. On his morning commute, he stops at Alicia’s Sugar Shack for a breakfast sandwich (scrambled eggs on rye with avocado), then heads to a 10-acre patch of woods in the Stanislaus National Forest. There, his startup, Kodama Systems, is testing and perfecting its 25-foot-long, 17-ton semiautonomous timber harvesting machine. Loggers use such machines, known as skidders, to grab tons of cut trees and debris and drag them out of the woods. Kodama’s version is designed to do the job even at night, with fewer workers, using satellite connectivity and advanced lidar (light detection and ranging) cameras, the same type that are used on self-driving cars, to monitor…

Kill Trees, Save the Planet

Grow a tree and then bury it? What a waste! The rational place to store carbon is above ground. The wood could be the two-by-six studs in a house or the laminated beams in a commercial building, and it spares the planet CO2 emissions from steel and concrete. Participate in this environmentally virtuous business by owning shares in forest products companies, such as West Fraser Timber in Canada and Stora Enso in Finland. Earnings will be down this year as home-building pauses, but the trees are still growing, and the dividend yields (1.4% and 5%) continue. Recover some or all of the foreign withholding taxes on dividends via a credit on your U.S. return. William Baldwin is Forbes’ Investment Strategies columnist.…

Growing up in Midland, Texas, there wasn’t a lot to do, Bud Brigham says. “We used to sled on the dunes—using a cardboard box. If you were really fancy you made a sled, put laminate on the bottom and waxed it.” Fifty years later, you can still sled the giant sand dunes at Monahans State Park. If you’re lucky you might spot a threatened three-inch dunes sagebrush lizard skittering amid the shinnery oak bushes. What you will see for sure is sand trucks. Lots of them. Brigham’s company, Atlas Energy Solutions, fills up to 1,200 trucks a day, each with 24 tons of sand destined for oil fracking operations. Brigham’s no longer playing on the dunes; instead, he’s digging them up—to the tune of 10 million tons a year. At the heart…

There are plenty of ways to get rich in the sand—just ask Astrid Rosing, who made a fortune off the stuff many decades before the fracking revolution. Rosing had risen from a humble stenographer to a Chicago-based supplier of “80,000 barrels of cement” and “600 cars of building partitions,” plus sand and other materials “for many of the largest building enterprises in the Middle West” when Forbes profiled her unlikely rise in 1918. Some of the structures she helped raise, such as Chicago’s Crane Company Building, still stand. Rosing died at age 79 in 1954. “We will need 1,500 cars of sand and gravel for that warehouse,” reported a Chicago contractor to his firm. “Where shall we buy it?” “Order it of Astrid Rosing and you’ll get service,” came the reply. “Are you…

Spanning West Texas and eastern New Mexico, the Permian Basin is the most prolific onshore source of domestically produced crude oil and natural gas in the United States. Occidental Petroleum (OXY) owns 2.9 million acres of land in the basin, edging out Chevron’s 2.2 million. Over the past five years, OXY revenue has grown 24% annually with help from the Permian. Earnings have grown at a 49% compound annual rate. OXY’s biggest shareholder is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which owns 25% of its outstanding stock and was busy buying more in the first and second quarter of 2023. Fellow billionaire Israel Englander of Millennium Management also loaded up on OXY earlier this year and now owns 1.9 million shares. John Dobosz is editor of Forbes’ Billionaire Investor newsletter.…

The Wisdom of a Loonie

Count on the country with a reputation for stodginess to deliver the wild and crazy stuff. A bitcoin ETF holding coins, not futures. An exchange-traded fund that holds bank deposits. Things that look like shares of Amazon or Tesla but pay a dividend. A refundable lifetime annuity. Such innovations have either not yet been tried in the United States or are outright forbidden here. They are all on the menu at Purpose Unlimited, a Toronto fund manager whose creative force is Som Seif. Seif, 47, started the company in 2013 and has built it to $12.6 billion in assets under portfolio management, plus another $4.6 billion administered as the back office for financial advisors in Canada. (These and other figures are converted from the Canadian dollar to U.S. currency.) Somehow this outfit competes with…

The Wisdom of a Loonie

One of the unlikely holdings in an early Purpose equity fund was a small stake in the Purpose management company, which appreciated 50-fold by the time it was cashed out. Alas, you can’t buy in today. Make do with shares in Artisan Partners Asset Management, Franklin Resources, Invesco, T. Rowe Price Group or WisdomTree. Enterprise values (market capitalization plus debt minus cash) run between 1.3% and 2% of assets under management. The industry is experiencing a painful leakage of customers out of active portfolios into cheap index funds, but offsetting that are the low price/earnings multiples. All in all, fairly priced bets on a rising stock market. William Baldwin is Forbes’ Investment Strategies columnist.…

AMERICA’S TOP NEXT-GEN WEALTH ADVISORS

No. 5 NICK FRANCIA UBS WEALTH MANAGEMENT Washington, D.C. “We learn what our clients and their families are passionate about outside the business, and we make it a point to get involved with their personal lives.” 1. Xi Qiao UBS Wealth Management SAN FRANCISCO, CA $2B 2. Matthew Gallo Merrill Lynch Wealth Management WALNUT CREEK, CA $1B 3. Scott McEwan Morgan Stanley Wealth Management NEWPORT BEACH, CA $3.1B 4. Dominic Casanueva Merrill Lynch Wealth Management LAKEWOOD RANCH, FL $5.8B 5. Nick Francia UBS Wealth Management WASHINGTON, DC $2.9B 6. Sara Wendt Miracle Mile Advisors LOS ANGELES, CA $3B 7. Tony Carpentieri Merrill Private Wealth Management GREENWICH, CT $12.6B 8. Ryan Magnesen Morgan Stanley Wealth Management OAK BROOK, IL $5.4B 9. Nick Sadowsky UBS Private Wealth Management AVENTURA, FL $4.5B 10. Hollis Montgomery Morgan Stanley Wealth Management ATLANTA, GA $7.1B 11. Jeffrey Browne Merrill Lynch Wealth Management MOUNT LAUREL, NJ $867M 12. John Hudspeth Merrill Lynch Wealth Management NAPLES, FL $736M 13. Austin R. Del’Ve UBS Private Wealth Management LOS ANGELES, CA $6.3B 14. Michael Shalhoup Merrill Lynch Wealth Management NEW YORK, NY $1.7B 15. Matt Van Beek Merrill Lynch Wealth Management SEATTLE, WA $3.1B 16.…

AMERICA’S TOP NEXT-GEN WEALTH ADVISORS

Weaving his way through Tel Aviv’s Pride parade in June, Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport looks uneasy. Slim and dressed unassumingly in a gray T-shirt and slacks, he’s with close friends—cofounder Yinon Costica and chief marketing officer Raaz Herzberg—but also a security detail. An hour before, an intruder tried to confront Rappaport in his office, then waited for him in ambush in the courtyard below, motive unknown. Now, an armed plainclothes guard follows just behind as Rappaport navigates the throng. Out of nowhere, a stranger calls his name. Rappaport tenses, but this person just wants a selfie; in Hebrew, he says his mother is a big fan. Relieved, the CEO obliges and is then back on the move. He doesn’t fully exhale until he and Costica, Wiz’s head of product, reach a…

Security phenom Wiz vaults 67 spots to No. 15 on the Cloud 100 list, our definitive annual ranking of the best and brightest private companies in cloud computing. That jump was surpassed only by ChatGPT maker OpenAI—which, in a debut unprecedented in the list’s eight-year history, appears in the top spot. It leads a pack of 16 newcomers, many of which—including No. 73 Anthropic, No. 80 Abnormal Security and No. 85 Midjourney—are AI startups enjoying the benefits of a boom enchanting corporate boardrooms around the world. Below, you’ll find the full list, which is compiled in partnership with Bessemer Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures. For complete methodology, feature stories and all 100 company profiles, please visit FORBES.COM/CLOUD100. Edited by Kenrick Cai. Reporters: Rashi Shrivastava, Irene Benedicto, Heather Newman and Dean Sterling…

NEW AND NOTABLE

OpenAI RANK: NO. 1 CEO: SAM ALTMAN VALUATION: $28 BILLION** AI RESEARCH AND PRODUCTS At first, ChatGPT’s capabilities didn’t impress engineers inside OpenAI; some wondered if the chatbot that would go on to mainstream AI was even worth releasing. Despite internal misgivings, Altman made the prescient call to do it anyway. “I pushed hard for this one,” he told Forbes earlier this year. “I was hoping and expecting people were going to really love it.” He was right. ChatGPT and its successor GPT-4 are flooding OpenAI with revenue as companies including Snap, Shopify and last year’s No. 1, Stripe, integrate the technology into their products. Navan RANK: NO. 11 CEO: ARIEL COHEN VALUATION: $9.2 BILLION TRAVEL AND EXPENSE MANAGEMENT Business travel can be chaotic, especially with canceled flights and shuffled schedules. Frequent flier Cohen cofounded Navan (formerly TripActions) in 2015 to help…

NEW AND NOTABLE

Better Call Wes.

NAKED SHORT SELLING IS A HUGE PROBLEM. ACTUALLY, IT ISN’T. Wes Christian, like most true believers, talks with the kind of black-and-white assurance that rarely pans out in our complicated world. Instead of religion or politics, Christian focuses on Wall Street, specifically meme stocks and other high fliers that tend to fall from the sky because of pesky things like underlying financials. He sees another culprit: the big trading houses that have “figured out a way to make more money killing companies than building them.” These secretive puppeteers, he asserts, use an alleged market manipulation tactic known as “naked short selling”—a move in which people sell shares of stock they don’t own (classic short selling) without actually bothering to borrow an offsetting number of shares before the ride down (that part would make it…

Better Call Wes.

RISE OF THE TRACTOR BOTS

ON A SUNNY EARLY SUMMER AFTERNOO N AT WENTE VINEYARDS IN LIVERMORE, CALIFORNIA, MONARCH TRACTOR COFOUNDER AND CEO PRAVEEN PENMETSA IS DEEP INTO HIS ROBOT-TRACTOR SPIEL. He reels off the benefits of his $89,000 vehicle: It’s all-electric. It’s self-driving. It can mow. It can weed. Even though it costs about 80% more than a similar diesel-powered machine, it will ultimately save farmers money, increase their farms’ efficiency and make their operations less reliant on outside labor and fuel. “If there’s one thing that farmers like more than guns, it’s being self-sufficient,” he says with a laugh. “We need to change so that farmers don’t feel like there’s no future in farming.” The potential buyer, Bartley Walker of Pacific Ag Rentals, whose Salinas, California–based firm rents equipment to farmers, listens intently. He’s concerned about…

RISE OF THE TRACTOR BOTS

NEXT BILLION-DOLLAR STARTUPS 2023

Time to polish the crystal ball. There are more than 50,000 venture-backed startups in the U.S., and only the tiniest fraction of them will ever reach a billion-dollar valuation. For the ninth year in a row, Forbes has teamed with TrueBridge Capital Partners to search for the 25 most likely to pass that mark. Our track record is superb: Of the list’s 200 alumni, 120 have become unicorns, including DoorDash, Benchling, Duolingo and Rippling; another 27 were acquired, while three went public for less than $1 billion. Only five imploded or shut down, although at least 21 of our alumni that previously surpassed $1 billion are now worth less than that. Given banking troubles, layoffs, skittish investors and compressed valuations, it has been a tough year to pick winners. But…

New York to Paris in 90 minutes. What a beautiful world that would be. Hermeus aims to make it real. The Atlanta-based startup wants to build a hypersonic airliner capable of carrying 20 passengers at five times the speed of sound, or 3,800 miles per hour. By comparison, the Concorde was a shambling galoot that traveled less than half that fast. Is the Hermeus plan hyperambitious? Sure. But the company gets to hone the technology partly on the Pentagon’s dime, with a $30 million investment from the Air Force. First, it’ll develop a smaller hypersonic drone called Quarterhouse, slated to take wing next year. A larger second drone, Darkhorse, is expected to follow in 2026. Both will be powered from takeoff by an off-the-shelf fighter jet engine expected to propel…

Jellyfish CEO Andrew Lau, 46, and cofounders David Gourley, 49, and Phil Braden, 51, met more than two decades ago at Endeca, an e-commerce search engine acquired by Oracle in 2011 for more than $1 billion. In 2017, while they were brainstorming startup ideas over coffee, Lau recalls Braden asking, “Which of us is going to do the engineering thing this time?” The answer from all three: not me. The lighthearted moment became the basis of their startup. They knew engineering was hard and made harder by business-side colleagues who chronically misunderstood the process. With Boston-based Jellyfish, the trio hope to build for engineers what Salesforce created for salespeople, using data to answer questions like which projects are taking the most time, how many work hours are spent fixing bugs…

PENDULUM THERAPEUTICS

In 2007, Colleen Cutcliffe’s daughter was born prematurely and spent the first month of her life in the intensive care unit taking antibiotics. As she grew, she experienced metabolic issues and food sensitivities, and Cut-cliffe, a biochemistry and molecular biology Ph.D., discovered that many babies given antibiotics are more susceptible to chronic lifelong problems that include asthma, ADHD, diabetes and celiac disease. That’s because antibiotics can lay waste to the “good” bacteria living in our gut. The experience inspired Cutcliffe, 46, to start Pendulum Therapeutics in 2012. Eight years later, the San Francisco–based startup published a clinical study showing the success of its flag-ship glucose-control probiotic in managing Type 2 diabetes. Since then, Pendulum has rolled out additional products to promote gut health. Launching a microbiome startup wasn’t easy. Cutcliffe…

PENDULUM THERAPEUTICS

THE FABULOUS MR. LO

ON a warm September morning last year, Calvin Lo welcomed an editor from Forbes into the Hong Kong office of his family’s life insurance brokerage firm, R.E. Lee International. Dressed immaculately in a three-piece suit with a tie and matching pocket square, Lo sat down with the editor in his conference room, richly decorated with ornate wood paneling, leather-bound books and tastefully arranged vases. HE HAD SUMMONED the editor to discuss Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires. Lo, who is CEO of R.E. Lee International, said he was “curious” to know how other billionaires in Asia viewed the rankings. He explained that he was caught in a “dilemma” as to whether he should provide Forbes with additional documentation of his wealth so that he could be included on the list. Older,…

THE FABULOUS MR. LO

“My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—It gives a lovely light!”—Edna St. Vincent Millay“No one’s really that great. You know who’s great? The people who put tremendous amounts of hours into it. It’s a game of tonnage.”—Jerry Seinfeld“In the lives of saints I look for confirmation of excess. Above all, they have no domestic virtues, preferring intensity to comfort.”—Jeanette Winterson“For me, purity of movement wasn’t enough. I needed expression, more intensity, more mind.”—Rudolf Nureyev“From my point of view it is immoral for a being not to make the most intense effort every instant of his life.”—José Ortega y Gasset“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a…

Software’s Hard Charger

April 1, 1991 When cartoon Bill Gates, then 35, fronted this issue, Microsoft already dominated the software industry: Its operating systems (MS-DOS, Windows) powered more than 70% of the world’s PCs, and the company was also among the planet’s largest suppliers of business software (Word, Excel). But for the fiercely competitive mogul, it wasn’t enough. “Bill wants to have as much of the software industry as he can swallow,” Gordon Eubanks, then-CEO of competitor Symantec, told Forbes. “And he’s got a very big appetite.” How big? Large enough that the Federal Trade Commission had begun poking around. We wondered, “Is Gates, then, driving inexorably toward a monopoly or near-monopoly position?” That FTC inquiry quickly fizzled out, but in 1998 the Department of Justice sued Microsoft for monopolistic practices, leading to an…

Software’s Hard Charger

In This Issue

Description

Details

Reviews

Recent Digital Issues Browse all

Recent Forbes Digital Issues Browse all back issues

Forbes (Digital) Subscription February 1st, 2024 Issue

Forbes (Digital) February/March 2024: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription December 1st, 2023 Issue

Forbes (Digital) December/January 2024: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription October 1st, 2023 Issue

Forbes (Digital) October/November 2023: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription August 1st, 2023 Issue

Forbes (Digital) August/September 2023: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription February 1st, 2025 Issue

Forbes (Digital) February/March 2025: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription December 1st, 2024 Issue

Forbes (Digital) December/January 2025: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription October 1st, 2024 Issue

Forbes (Digital) October/November 2024: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription August 1st, 2024 Issue

Forbes (Digital) August/September 2024: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription June 1st, 2024 Issue

Forbes (Digital) June/July 2024: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription April 1st, 2024 Issue

Forbes (Digital) April/May 2024: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription February 1st, 2024 Issue

Forbes (Digital) February/March 2024: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription December 1st, 2023 Issue

Forbes (Digital) December/January 2024: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription October 1st, 2023 Issue

Forbes (Digital) October/November 2023: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription August 1st, 2023 Issue

Forbes (Digital) August/September 2023: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription February 1st, 2025 Issue

Forbes (Digital) February/March 2025: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription December 1st, 2024 Issue

Forbes (Digital) December/January 2025: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription October 1st, 2024 Issue

Forbes (Digital) October/November 2024: $5.99

Forbes (Digital) Subscription August 1st, 2024 Issue

Forbes (Digital) August/September 2024: $5.99

Customers Also Viewed

Maxim Magazine (Digital) Subscription January 1st, 2025 Issue

Maxim Magazine (Digital)

(81)

6 Issues: $7.48 ~~$41.94~~

Sound & Vision (Digital) Subscription October 1st, 2024 Issue

Sound & Vision (Digital)

(1)

October/November 2024: $5.99

WIRED Magazine (Digital) Subscription March 1st, 2025 Issue

WIRED Magazine (Digital)

(370)

12 Issues: $17.99 ~~$95.88~~

The Atlantic Magazine (Digital) Subscription

The Atlantic Magazine (Digital)

(176)

12 Issues: $89.99 ~~$143.88~~

New York Magazine Subscription February 24th, 2025 Issue

New York Magazine

(124)

26 Issues: $64.95 ~~$181.74~~

Fortune Magazine (Digital) Subscription

Fortune Magazine (Digital)

(15)

6 Issues: $20.99 ~~$59.94~~

Forbes Magazine (Digital) Subscription

Forbes Magazine (Digital)

(156)

6 Issues: $29.99 ~~$35.94~~

Fortune Magazine Subscription February 1st, 2025 Issue

Fortune Magazine

(15)

6 Issues: $29.98 ~~$89.91~~

TV Guide Magazine (Digital) Subscription

TV Guide Magazine (Digital)

(915)

29 Issues: $10.99 ~~$191.76~~

Forbes Africa Magazine (Digital) Subscription

Forbes Africa Magazine (Digital)

7 Issues: $9.99 ~~$17.98~~

Maxim Magazine (Digital) Subscription January 1st, 2025 Issue

Maxim Magazine (Digital)

(81)

6 Issues: $7.48 ~~$41.94~~

Sound & Vision (Digital) Subscription October 1st, 2024 Issue

Sound & Vision (Digital)

(1)

October/November 2024: $5.99

WIRED Magazine (Digital) Subscription March 1st, 2025 Issue

WIRED Magazine (Digital)

(370)

12 Issues: $17.99 ~~$95.88~~

The Atlantic Magazine (Digital) Subscription

The Atlantic Magazine (Digital)

(176)

12 Issues: $89.99 ~~$143.88~~

New York Magazine Subscription February 24th, 2025 Issue

New York Magazine

(124)

26 Issues: $64.95 ~~$181.74~~

Fortune Magazine (Digital) Subscription

Fortune Magazine (Digital)

(15)

6 Issues: $20.99 ~~$59.94~~

Forbes Magazine (Digital) Subscription

Forbes Magazine (Digital)

(156)

6 Issues: $29.99 ~~$35.94~~

Fortune Magazine Subscription February 1st, 2025 Issue

Fortune Magazine

(15)

6 Issues: $29.98 ~~$89.91~~

Reviews