4 ms·

You write: "a list of companies " I think you are confusing the Forbes 400 with the Fortune 500. The Forbes list is of people, the Fortune list is of companie

• actinide 12y ago
  Ah, that would be a very different list. Still, it's an inadequate device to craft assumptions about the wealth of wealthy people. If someone falls off the hot list, are we to assume that they suffered an MC Hammer style bankruptcy, or did they just retain a static amount of wealth, and get edged out by ever-more fabulously wealthy upstarts?
• cowsandmilk 12y ago
  While what you say is very true, I do think the churn on the Forbes list is actually due to the fortune of companies. Most people on the Forbes list are not diversified. If the company the person founded plummets, so does their wealth. I happened to attend high school with the children of Dennis Bakke, who graced the Forbes list for 3 straight years. Shares in AES, the company he started, peaked at ~$68/share in the Fall of 2000. By July of 2002, AES was at $3/share. He hasn't been on the list since the plummet. That story is fairly common among the lower ranks of the Forbes list.