Fortune (magazine)

Fortune is an American multinational business magazine headquartered in New York City. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon. The publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. The magazine competes with Forbes and Bloomberg Businessweek in the national business magazine category and distinguishes itself with long, in-depth feature articles.[2]

For other uses, see Fortune (disambiguation).

Fortune
Cover of the issue dated December 15, 2016, featuring its Investor's Guide
EditorClifton Leaf
CategoriesBusiness magazines
FrequencyMonthly (1929–1978; 2018–present)
Biweekly (1978–2009)
Triweekly (2009–2014)
16 issues per year (2014–2017)
PublisherFortune Media Group Holdings
(Chatchaval Jiaravanon)
Total circulation
(2018)		852,202[1]
FounderHenry Luce
Year founded1929 (1929)
First issueSeptember 1929 (1929-09)
CountryUnited States
Based inNew York City, New York, U.S.
LanguageEnglish
Websitefortune.com
ISSN0015-8259

The magazine regularly publishes ranked lists, including the Fortune 500, a ranking of companies by revenue that it has published annually since 1955.[3] The magazine is also known for its annual Fortune Investor's Guide.[4]

History

Fortune was founded by The Atlantic Monthly Company co-founder Henry Luce in 1929 as "the Ideal Super-Class Magazine", a "distinguished and de luxe" publication "vividly portraying, interpreting and recording the Industrial Civilization".[5] Briton Hadden, Luce's business partner, was not enthusiastic about the idea – which Luce originally thought to title Power – but Luce went forward with it after Hadden's sudden death on February 27, 1929.[6]

In late October 1929, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurred, marking the onset of the Great Depression. In a memo to the Time Inc. board in November 1929, Luce wrote: "We will not be over-optimistic. We will recognize that this business slump may last as long as an entire year."[7] The publication made its official debut in February 1930. Its editor was Luce, managing editor Parker Lloyd-Smith, and art director Thomas Maitland Cleland.[8] Single copies of the first issue cost US$1 ($15.3 in 2019).[7] An urban legend says that Cleland mocked up the cover of the first issue with the $1 price because no one had yet decided how much to charge; the magazine was printed before anyone realized it, and when people saw it for sale, they thought that the magazine must really have worthwhile content. In fact, there were 30,000 subscribers who had already signed up to receive that initial 184-page issue. By 1937, the number of subscribers had grown to 460,000, and the magazine had turned half million dollars in annual profit.[9]

At a time when business publications were little more than numbers and statistics printed in black and white, Fortune was an oversized 11"×14", using creamy heavy paper, and art on a cover printed by a special process.[10] Fortune was also noted for its photography, featuring the work of Margaret Bourke-White, Ansel Adams, and others. Walker Evans served as its photography editor from 1945 to 1965.

During the Great Depression, the magazine developed a reputation for its social conscience, for Walker Evans and Margaret Bourke-White's color photographs, and for a team of writers including James Agee, Archibald MacLeish, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Alfred Kazin, hired specifically for their writing abilities. The magazine became an important leg of Luce's media empire; after the successful launch of Time in 1923 and Fortune in 1930, Luce went on to launch Life in 1936 and Sports Illustrated in 1954.

From its launch in 1930 to 1978, Fortune was published monthly. In January 1978, it began publishing biweekly. In October 2009, citing declining advertising revenue and circulation, Fortune began publishing every three weeks.[11][12] As of 2018, Fortune is published 14 times a year.[13]

Marshall Loeb was named managing editor in 1986. During his tenure at Fortune, Loeb was credited with expanding the traditional focus on business and the economy with added graphs, charts, and tables, as well as the addition of articles on topics such as executive life and social issues connected to the world of business, including the effectiveness of public schools and on homelessness.[14]

During the years when Time Warner owned Time Inc., Fortune articles (as well as those from Money magazine) were hosted at CNNMoney.com.[15]

In June 2014, after Time Inc. spun off from its corporate parent,[16] Fortune launched its own website at Fortune.com.[17]

On November 26, 2017, it was announced that Meredith Corporation would acquire Time Inc. in a $2.8 billion deal. The acquisition was completed on January 31, 2018.[18][19][20]

On November 9, 2018, it was announced that Meredith Corporation was selling Fortune to Thai billionaire Chatchaval Jiaravanon for $150 million.[21] Jiaravanon is affiliated with the Thailand-based conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group, which has holdings in agriculture, telecommunications, retail, pharmaceutical, and finance.[22]

Fortune lists

Fortune regularly publishes ranked lists. In the human resources field, for example, it publishes a list of the Best Companies to Work For. Lists include companies ranked in order of gross revenue and business profile, as well as business leaders:

List of editors

There have been 19 top editors since Fortune was conceived in 1929. Following the elimination of the editor-in-chief role at Time Inc. in October 2013,[23] the top editor's title was changed from "managing editor" to "editor" in 2014.[24]

See also

Footnotes
  1. "Audience". Time Inc. Archived from the original on June 8, 2019. Retrieved June 22, 2019.
  2. Carmody, Deirdre (May 2, 1994). "A Shaper of Magazines Retires". New York Times. Archived from the original on August 11, 2014. Retrieved August 2, 2014.
  3. Fry, Erika (June 2, 2014). "What Happened to the First Fortune 500?". Fortune. Archived from the original on August 6, 2014. Retrieved August 2, 2014.
  4. Delbridge, Emily (November 21, 2019). "The 8 Best Business Magazines of 2020". The Balance Small Business. New York City: Dotdash. Best for Investors: Fortune. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  5. Fortune prospectus. By Henry Luce. Fortune, September 1929, Volume One, Number Zero.
  6. Henry Luce & His Time by Joseph Epstein, Commentary, Vol. 44, No. 5, November 1967.
  7. Okrent, Daniel (September 19, 2005). "How the World Really Works". Fortune. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014.
  8. "Current Magazines". The New York Times. February 2, 1930.
  9. Massey, Laura (December 11, 2010). "Fortune". Peter Harrington London. Archived from the original on August 12, 2014. Retrieved August 10, 2014.
  10. Background Archived July 29, 2017, at the Wayback Machine.
  11. Pérez-Peña, Richard (October 23, 2009). "Fortune Magazine Will Drop From 25 to 18 Issues a Year". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 24, 2011.
  12. Pérez-Peña, Richard (October 23, 2009). "Fortune Media Kit". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 24, 2011.
  13. "Fortune Magazine Subscription". subscription.fortune.com. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
  14. Deirdre, Carmody (May 2, 1994). "The Media Business; A Shaper of Magazines Retires". The New York Times. Retrieved February 10, 2009.
  15. "FORTUNE Magazine: Table of Contents - CNNMoney". money.cnn.com. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  16. Primack, Dan. "Time Inc. Becomes America's Oldest Startup". Archived from the original on July 30, 2014. Retrieved July 30, 2014.
  17. Barnett, Megan; Serwer, Andy. "Inside the All-New Fortune.com". Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved July 30, 2014.
  18. "Meredith Corporation Announces Completion Of Time Inc. Acquisition And Reports Fiscal 2018 Second Quarter And First Half Results" (Press release). Meredith Corporation. January 31, 2018. Archived from the original on February 4, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
  19. Hays, Kali (February 1, 2018). "Time Inc., Now Meredith and More Changes to Come". Women's Wear Daily. Archived from the original on February 8, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
  20. Gold, Howard R. (February 1, 2018). "Who killed Time Inc.?". Columbia Journalism Review. Archived from the original on February 11, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
  21. ""Everybody's Very, Very Positive About This": Fortune's New Buyer Isn't Marc Benioff—But for $150 Million, Who Cares! | Vanity Fair". Archived from the original on November 22, 2018. Retrieved November 10, 2018.
  22. Kelly, Keith J. (November 9, 2018). "Thai business tycoon buys Fortune magazine for $150 million". Archived from the original on November 16, 2018. Retrieved December 25, 2018.
  23. Kaufman, Leslie (October 31, 2013). "Reshuffling at Time Inc. to Set Table for Spinoff". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 8, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2014.
  24. Kile, Daniel. "Alan Murray Named Editor of Fortune". Archived from the original on August 3, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2014.
  25. Huddleston, Jr., Tom. "Fortune Names a New Editor-in-Chief". Archived from the original on March 16, 2017. Retrieved March 15, 2017.

Further reading
  • James S. Miller, "White-Collar Excavations: Fortune Magazine and the Invention of the Industrial Folk," American Periodicals, vol. 13 (2003), pp. 84–104. In JSTOR
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