American History 1988
Chapter 254 - 247: Forbes 400

Chapter 254: Chapter 247: Forbes 400

Forbes magazine publishes the global billionaires list every March, a tradition that has continued for decades.

But aside from the global billionaires list, Forbes also has another list specifically for the domestic audience—the Forbes 400.

This list only compiles information on the assets of the top 400 billionaires in America, as well as the cities they reside in.

Unlike the global billionaires list published in March, the Forbes 400 is released at the end of September or beginning of October every year.

On October 9, just this morning, major newspapers such as The New York Times and The Sun have all syndicated this list.

Compared to the global billionaires list, local media are more interested in the Forbes 400, which is targeted at a domestic audience.

After all, the people on this list are in major cities across America, which greatly reduces the difficulty of interviewing them.

For instance, the news of Dean, who recently frequented the streets of Washington, is no longer a secret.

"Mr. Price, do you know your ranking on the Forbes 400?"

"To be honest, it wasn’t until you just told me this news that I found out I made it onto the Forbes 400."

Surrounded by a dense thicket of microphones and cameras, Dean tried to appear more amiable.

"Look, here’s today’s newspaper, where you can find your name," a thoughtful reporter handed over a copy of The New York Times.

"Oh~, thank you." Dean took the newspaper, planning to brush it off with a laugh and quickly leave the area.

However, faced with a hoard of eager reporters and an impenetrable wall of people, Dean could only glance hurriedly at the dense list of names.

"Ranked 35th?" Dean raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised.

"Yes! With a net worth estimate of 1.54 billion US dollars, you are ranked number 35 on the list!

But last year you weren’t even on it, and to be precise, all of this has just happened over a little more than a month ago!

What are your feelings about climbing onto the Forbes 400 so rapidly?"

"Well, as you can see," Dean spread his hands in resignation, "I’m surprised because I’ve never been one to read Forbes magazine before.

As I saw it, its readership wasn’t someone like this country boy here."

Dean’s self-deprecating humor elicited a knowing chuckle from the reporters; he was right, who among the poor would read Forbes?

"Do you still consider yourself an ordinary person?"

"Always have. I’m no different from anyone else," Dean said without putting on airs of a tycoon.

Even though Caitlin and Paul were not far away and could have come at any moment to escort Dean out of the crowd,

Dean signaled them with his eyes that it was okay, not minding answering a few more questions for the reporters.

"But you are already the 35th richest person in America. Will this vast wealth bring any changes to your life?"

"Not for now, because I don’t have any plans yet, and of course, I know what everyone wants to hear.

Purchasing large amounts of luxury goods for oneself, private planes, yachts, sports cars, mansions...

All right, that’s certainly tempting, but I need to focus more on Byte Company."

"Although this question often comes up, people are still curious.

How did you manage to make it to today’s Forbes 400 in less than two years, coming from a Rust Belt state like Ohio?"

"OK, to sum it up in a simple sentence, set a dream for yourself and then try to realize it."

"What do you think about Bill Gates ranking second on the list with an estimated fortune of 4.8 billion dollars? Will he be a target for you to surpass?"

"I’d congratulate him, he’s done a remarkable thing."

Dean gave Caitlin and the others a signal; as the questions from the reporters turned sharp, he was ready to make a getaway.

"Is the girl just inside your new girlfriend? Have you broken up with Jennifer Connolly?"

The eagle-eyed reporter spotted Miranda, who had heard the commotion, standing behind the window.

"Sorry, I have another meeting and I need to rush,"

With Caitlin and the others escorting him, Dean climbed into the car and sped away from the street.

Tsk, why not enjoy a nice chat about motivational topics? Always asking questions he’s reluctant to answer.

Sitting in the car, Dean casually unfolded the copy of The New York Times that the reporter had handed him.

To be honest, he was curious about this so-called Forbes 400; it seemed everyone was keenly interested in it.

John Kruger ranked first on the list, with Forbes estimating his assets at 5.9 billion dollars.

He is a German media magnate with several television stations and telecommunication businesses under his conglomerate.

Orion Pictures, which faced financial crises this year, is one of the industries under his media group.

This wasn’t his first time at the top; John Kruger had been claiming the title of "richest American" for three straight years.

And second on the list was Bill Gates, with an estimated wealth of 4.8 billion dollars.

In last year’s Forbes 400 ranking, Gates was sixteenth.

But with the hot sales of Windows 3.0, Microsoft’s market value soared, and Gates’s fortune rose with the tide.

Not only him, but even one of the co-founders, Allen, ranked 16th on the list with an estimated 2.4 billion dollars.

Microsoft alone created two members of the billion-dollar club, and Seattle once again drew the national media’s spotlight.

The third to seventh places on the list were all members of the Walton family.

They are the largest shareholders of Walmart, with the arrival of a strong consumer bull market.

Walmart’s market value had reached $67.6 billion US Dollars, ranking it third on the S&P 500 Top 10 list.

It surpassed General Electric and was only behind Exxon and Philip Morris tobacco company.

As the founders, the Walton family also, thanks to the rapid progress in Walmart’s market value, swept half of the top ten on the Forbes 400 list.

The other members of the top ten included Warren Buffett at eighth place, with an estimated wealth of $4.2 billion US Dollars.

Ninth place was taken by Henry Hillman from Pittsburgh, a titan of steel and chemicals industries in Pittsburgh.

Once in Cleveland, his Hillman Fund had even planned to invest in Dean’s Price’s List.

Forbes estimated the wealth of this traditional tycoon to be $3.3 billion US Dollars, the sole businessman from the traditional industries among the top ten.

Taking the tenth spot was Richard DeVos, one of the founders of the Amway Corporation.

Yes, that Amway, which has become a byword for pyramid schemes, and is actually not very noticeable among America’s daily consumer goods companies.

Yet its boss had become the tenth wealthiest person in America. Isn’t that strange?

Dean continued to read with the mindset of someone flipping through gossip, with those from 11th to 27th place having fortunes ranging between $2 and $2.9 billion US Dollars.

Soon Dean saw his own name, just as mentioned before, Forbes put his wealth estimate at $1.54 billion US Dollars.

$1.5 billion US Dollars of this was due to Byte Company’s stock, and the remaining forty million came from Cisco Systems’ stock, as well as a piece of real estate in his name.

All this information was publicly available from Forbes, after all, Dean was one of the board members of Cisco, which is also a publicly listed company.

So this apparent wealth was no secret, and Forbes’ investigators could find it quite easily.

But perhaps since the list had already been finalized last month, there was a slight discrepancy in its valuation of Dean’s assets.

With Byte Company having released Worktitle, its stock price had now stabilized at around $55 US Dollars.

Based on this market value, Dean’s fortune had already surpassed $1.9 billion US Dollars.

Additionally, Forbes’ valuation didn’t include the stock he had invested in Intel and Microsoft.

Price’s List in Ohio and the renter companies were even less mentioned, these were Dean’s hidden wealth.

Including all of that, his rank could rise several places more.

But that didn’t matter, Dean did not really care about these vanities.

Moreover, much of this wealth, he could not currently access.

Of course, with some measures, Dean could also cash out a portion of the stocks, but the proportion couldn’t be too large, otherwise, it would attract the attention of the SEC.

Folding the newspaper away, Dean turned his gaze towards the window, just in time to see the AOL company sign right in front of him.

Today was the Commercial Internet Exchange’s (CIX) final full board meeting to confirm the start of the data interchange center.

This data center had utilized Cisco’s "universal router," which supports multiple transmission protocols, making data interoperability between different operators possible.

Moreover, the bandwidth speed had been upgraded from T1 to T3, that is 4.5Mb/s, which was already on par or even exceeded the mainline speed of the NSFnet.

If one wanted to compete with IBM, one certainly could not fall behind in hardware.

Because of a delay by a reporter, Dean was the last to arrive at the meeting room.

However, no one expressed dissatisfaction, and when he entered the meeting room, he even received warm applause.

"Dean, congratulations! One of the thirty-five wealthiest in America!"

Steve Case enthusiastically hosted this welcome ceremony, now viewing Dean as walking US Dollars.

Robert from UUNET, Duane from Southern Bell, they clapped while their eyes betrayed complex emotions.

Especially Robert, who just last year was negotiating multimillion-dollar deals with Dean.

In his view, those were already significant transactions, after all, Dean was from Ohio.

He understood Dean’s background better than anyone here; before this, Dean truly was a poor kid from the countryside.

But in just one year, the transformation was earth-shattering.

$1.5 billion US Dollars? That was enough to buy three UUNets!

Damn, this kid is going to be a big shot!

Robert could guarantee that politicians in Ohio would definitely go out of their way to curry favor with him in the future.

Not only because of the money but also because he came from the West, the only pride of the Rust Belt.

"Alright, gentlemen, let us get down to business," Dean said after mingling for a while, confidently looking at the people in the meeting. He was ready to dominate the future internet world.

He had missed the computer industry because of the times, but he would not let go of the internet, especially now that Gates was about to complete his domination of the desktop systems.

"Has everyone heard of the ’High-Performance Computing Act’? I think this is our best chance to deal a fatal blow to IBM."

As soon as Dean spoke, everyone’s eyes lit up; they all dreamed of taking down the blue giant.

Simply because IBM had done some things excessively, causing public outrage.

<img data-ywcc-imgId="10063095" data-ywcc-path="/imgChapter/22367839109520201/28248071307250904/10063095/afa6780f6003c1dfb84542901ab7601bWN77e0Q6TFv1GlQ.jpg">