Forbes magazine, Sept. 25, 2015: Meet The African-American Billionaire Businessman Who’s Richer Than Michael Jordan
Profile of ex-Goldman Sachs banker Robert Smith, who quietly built a multibillion-dollar fortune buying and streamlining unloved software companies. Forbes did the first comprehensive estimate of his net worth.
Forbes, Dec. 2012: Inside the Koch Empire: How The Brothers Plan to Reshape America
Charles Koch granted Forbes a rare, in-depth interview to explain how he runs his company and hopes to inject some of the same principles into government. Despite attacks from the left on the “Kochtopus,” the reality is Koch Industries is a heavily unionized industrial conglomerate and Koch’s political beliefs, based on largely self-taught concepts of Austrian free-market economics, have been and will always be a tough sell in Washington.
Forbes.com: One free bite? Don’t count on it. Why you can lose your house insurance over a single unproved dog bite claim.
Forbes magazine, December 2016: Vail CEO Katz Uses Casino Model To Drive Peak Performance
Like a monk on a mountaintop, Robert Katz is sitting in the Eagle’s Nest, a gourmet restaurant high above the quaint faux-Swiss village of Vail, ready to impart wisdom. “If you’re a casino you have these very committed, addicted gamblers,” the 49-year-old CEO of Vail Resorts says, explaining his business. “Well, we have these very committed, addicted skiers.”
Forbes magazine, May 2014: Philip Morris International Bets Big On The Future Of Smoking
Company/CEO profile describing how Philip Morris International was spending hundreds of millions of dollars on multiple technologies designed to reduce the health risks associated with smoking.
Forbes magazine, May 2015: Visa Moves at the Speed of Money
Profile of Visa’s then-CEO Charlie Scharf, explaining how much-hyped Silicon Valley e-commerce startups mostly ride on Visa’s network, propelling revenue and earnings ever higher.
Forbes magazine, November 2015: Shale Gas And Buffett’s Billions Fuel Turnaround At Dow Chemical Company profile as Dow was primed to remake itself around cheap natural gas. CEO Andrew Liveris laid out his U-turn strategy of going back into commodity chemicals — and played coy about his inevitable spinout of the agricultural business.
Forbes magazine, February 2007:KissyKat And The Magic Diesel
A personal favorite graced by one of the best heds an editor ever put on my work, KissyKat chronicles my deep dive into the scams that flourished around the then-new concept of green energy. A followup, of sorts, to my expose of the accused fraudster behind “BioWillie,” below:
Forbes magazine, December 2006: Willie Nelson And Star Dust
Dennis McLaughlin convinced Willie Nelson and Hollywood stars Morgan Freeman and Julia Roberts to endorse his biodiesel start-up Earth Biofuels, and some supposedly smart Wall Street firms to invest $50 million. It took me less than three hours to uncover his tangled history of bankruptcy and fraud allegations. Further digging revealed even deeper problems with Earth, which once sported a $345 million market value and wound up worthless.
Forbes.com, Nov. 17, 2015: Collapse Of 5-Hour Energy Case Reveals The Secrets Of Class Action Lawyers
“Howard W. Rubinstein has been disbarred once and has had his law license suspended twice by the State Bar of Texas for violations including misuse of client funds. But things really fell apart when he decided to sue billionaire Manoj Bhargava’s 5-Hour Energy drink.
Five years after Rubinstein claimed 5-Hour Energy didn’t provide the promised five hours of crash-free energy on its label, his case was dead, his client had been convicted of fraud in an unrelated case, and the peripatetic attorney, who once worked out of the bar of the Little Nell Hotel in Aspen, had consented to a $141,000 judgment in 5-Hour’s lawsuit accusing him of malicious prosecution.”