Forbes Daily: Who Are The Richest Owners In Sports?

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Standing over six feet tall and with long braids, Snoop Dogg was hard to miss as the torchbearer at the Paris Olympics. And he’s become a fixture for all ages.

Snoop’s public image has changed dramatically since he was in and out of prison before his early rap career, thanks in part to shifting attitudes about cannabis and hip-hop—but also his own reinvention.

Coming off his work for NBC at the Olympics, Snoop has never been more popular. This fall, he’ll join The Voice and release a new album produced by Dr. Dre. And yes, America’s favorite stoner uncle is looking for new joint ventures.

“I just think when you’re organic and authentic to who you are, eventually the world will catch up,” he tells Forbes.

FIRST UP

In our upcoming edition of The Forbes 400—the definitive ranking of the wealthiest Americans—54 billionaires on the list are the controlling owners of a sports team in a major professional league. The 20 richest owners from that group are now worth a combined $504 billion, according to Forbes estimates, a 32% increase from a year ago.

Nearly a hundred people have died and hundreds more are still unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida last week, leaving widespread power outages across six states and historic flooding in North Carolina. In a press conference Sunday, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said the state is facing an “unprecedented tragedy.”

WEALTH + ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Billionaire Peter Thiel offloaded $600 million worth of stock in data mining firm Palantir last week, and he’s not the only insider to do so. Thiel, who cofounded and invested in the company, started the sales one day after Palantir joined the S&P 500, with its share price up 150% from a year ago.

TECH + INNOVATION

Board game designer Jason Allen spent more than a hundred hours on AI image generator Midjourney to create an elaborate, award-winning illustration, but when he tried to copyright it, the U.S. Copyright Office denied his application, saying that the work lacked “human authorship.” Now, Allen is suing the agency and asking a federal court to reverse the Copyright Office’s decision.

MONEY + POLITICS

Former President Donald Trump bragged about his “very good” relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin while standing beside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, prompting a strained back-and-forth. Trump met with Zelensky at Trump Tower Friday amid heightened tensions between Republicans and the Ukrainian president.

SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT

Last month, the NFL became the last major professional league to open its doors to private equity firms, a watershed moment for a league that has seen team values skyrocket into the multibillion-dollar range, severely limiting the pool of potential buyers. For private equity firms, it’s a no brainer: NFL teams are underleveraged, yet rake in so much from media rights deals it’s almost impossible not to turn a profit whether they win or lose.

DreamWorks’ The Wild Robot took the top spot at the box office and exceeded many projections for its debut weekend, as Francis Ford Coppola’s self-financed Megalopolis flopped. Coppola’s sci-fi epic cost about $120 million and drew in just $4 million in its debut weekend, but the well-known director wasn’t wasn’t too concerned about the film’s financial success, telling the AP, “I say: Give me less money and give me more friends.”

WORLD

Two Hezbollah leaders were killed in Israeli strikes over the weekend, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, a major victory for Israel but a further escalation in the conflict. Israel expects Hezbollah or its allies to launch retaliatory strikes following Nasrallah’s death and has prohibited gatherings of more than 1,000 until Monday evening in certain parts of the country, the Washington Post reported.

TRENDS + EXPLAINERS

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board sanctioned four audit firms for violating its rules and standards. The four firms were each censured and subjected to a monetary penalty ranging from $30,000 to $45,000. Auditing a public company involves determining whether its financial statements follow the generally accepted accounting principles.

DAILY COVER STORY

How Epic’s 81-Year-Old Billionaire Founder Plans To Keep Her Health Data Empire Private Forever

TOPLINE Judy Faulkner, the billionaire founder and CEO of Epic Systems, has eschewed any outside interference in the company whose medical records software is used for 325 million patients worldwide.

And she intends to keep it that way. At 81 years old, Faulkner told Forbes in an interview she has no plans to retire. “If you retire, you don’t have a purpose in living much anymore,” she says.

Over the past 45 years, Faulkner has become one of the most influential people in the $4.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system. Epic’s software is used for patients in more than half of the 890,000 or so hospital beds in the U.S., according to estimates from the health IT research firm KLAS.

The big unknown is whether Epic’s dominance will persist after its exacting, visionary leader is no longer at the helm. Plus, the hospital market is saturated. Epic’s next stage of growth will have to come from inroads with new customer groups, like health insurers, medical devices and laboratories. One such move recently prompted an antitrust lawsuit alleging Epic holds a monopoly on electronic health records, charges the company dismissed as “baseless.”

Faulkner says she has already set a plan in motion to ensure that Epic remains private and employee-owned in perpetuity. She currently owns nearly half of Epic, and Forbes estimates her net worth to be around $7.7 billion. The rest of the company is owned by employees and a handful of Faulkner’s family members.

WHY IT MATTERS “While Cerner (now Oracle Health), AllScripts (now Veradigm) and Athenahealth, grew by taking venture capital money, executing mergers and acquisitions, going public and then private again, Faulkner has exerted full control,” says Forbes senior writer Katie Jennings. “She says this is central to what sets Epic apart from its competitors: Since Epic has never acquired another company, it hasn’t had to build bridges to interface from one type of software to another, which is why many IT acquisitions fall apart.”

MORE Healthcare Software Company Epic Faces First Antitrust Suit For Alleged Monopoly Activity

FACTS + COMMENTS

SpaceX successfully launched its Dragon spacecraft Saturday as part of a mission to bring back two astronauts who were left stranded on the International Space Station after safety issues with their original return vessel, the Boeing Starliner. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are slated to return to Earth using the Dragon in late February, marking their eighth month in space.

10 days: Planned duration of Wilmore and Williams’ original mission

At least $1.4 billion: How much Boeing has lost on the Starliner program, according to CNBC, with annual losses ranging from $57 million to $489 million

$4.2 billion: Amount of the NASA contract awarded to Boeing for its Starliner program

STRATEGY + SUCCESS

Fewer people are leaving their jobs in today’s economy, but that’s led some workers to detach and do the bare minimum. A lack of trust is one of the driving factors, so employers should look for areas where trust in the workplace has been compromised and start repairing them. It’s also critical to evaluate your company’s learning opportunities, like coaching and mentorship, and draw your team’s attention back to the purpose behind the work.

VIDEO

QUIZ

A restaurant chain known for staying open during natural disasters closed a number of its locations in the path of Hurricane Helene last week. Which chain is it?

A. IHOP

B. Denny’s

C. Waffle House

D. Chick-fil-A

Check your answer.

Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Chris Dobstaff.