Forbes December/January 2023

Memories that stick from a two-day visit to Lviv, Ukraine, to meet and support our brave colleagues at Forbes Ukraine: the middle-of-the-night sirens detecting nearby missiles, three times in one night. The stoic street life of people craving normalcy. And, most indelibly, the consistent pleas from our team, local shopkeepers, even the mayor himself: Please don’t forget us. Ukraine, under siege from a country far larger and more irrational, lives in fear that the democratic world will grow weary of its cause. We must not. To better understand why, it’s worth reflecting on how Forbes Ukraine operated in 2022. Stage 1: The Evacuation (February-April): Most of the staff moved from Kyiv and clustered in safe houses. Rather than just focus on their families, they manned the information front, tirelessly shining a spotlight…

The recent midterm elections raise several questions regarding issues that threaten the integrity of our electoral system. Why can’t states such as California count votes as quickly as Florida does? Why can’t most of the voting take place on Election Day, like it once did? Do new systems, such as ranked-choice voting, undermine the democratic process? Our electoral system in several states is already broken. Days after Election Day, the results from many critical races remained unknown, not because those races were close but because the counting process was—and is—interminable. California is the worst offender, but other states, such as Oregon, are sluggish. For a fair and highly efficient electoral process, Florida is the model, the gold standard, in election management. It’s the third-most-populous state in the country—and along with Texas is one…

Pandemic? What’s that? A bit over the top, yes, but Big Apple restaurants have made a remarkable comeback from the grim days of 2020-21, when an extremely trying situation was made even more intolerable by the hostility of a buffoonish, insufferable mayor. Now many fine eateries are packed, impressive new ones are opening and eye-popping creativity abounds. The artistry of the offerings at some of these eateries would impress Michelangelo. You pay for what you get; inflation is no stranger here. Our stellar team of ever-discerning tasters—Forbes’ chief content officer, Randall Lane; Forbes contributor Richard Nalley; preeminent media maven Monie Begley; and brothers Bob, Kip and Tim—herewith unveil their list of where you can enjoy the city’s most savory comestibles. Aquavit Atera Bâtard Daniel Gabriel Kreuther Gramercy Tavern Jean-Georges Le Bernardin Le Gratin Le Pavillon The Modern Momofuku Ko Per Se Perry St This year…

abcV with Jean-Georges—You don’t have to be a vegan or vegetarian to pleasantly partake of the excellent food here. Al Vaporetto—Delicious Venetian dishes presented in a cozy setting. Amaranth—Praiseworthy Mediterranean offerings. Bistrot Leo—Just what a bistro should be. France would be impressed. Brasserie Cognac East—Imaginative renderings of bistro and traditional French fare are magnifique. Café D’Alsace—You don’t have to go to Alsace to get great sausages. Come here for these and other mouthwatering meals. Cote—New York’s first Korean steakhouse delivers a distinctive take on an American tradition. The butcher’s feast—four prime cuts of beef with accompanying banch-an—is downright decadent. Donohue’s Steak House—Staking out a unique place in this hypercompetitive category. The Frenchman’s Dough—Flavorfully pulls off Italian fare with a French twist. The pizzas are a wow. Make sure to try the “Toni and Al’s” pasta. The Fulton—Endless outstanding offerings…

1. J.R.R. Tolkien $500 mil DIED: September 2, 1973 (81) CAUSE: Pneumonia It’s been a Sauron-size struggle to get Tolkien’s work onto the big screen. He put the kibosh on one film starring the Beatles and directed by Stanley Kubrick, while Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 Lord of the Rings movie was poorly received by fans. Rings are nice, but brands are better. Forget about rings—how about “one brand to rule them all”? The properties of J.R.R. Tolkien, the long­dead Oxford don who wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, struck gold in 2022 with the $500 million sale of a slew of Middle Earth– related rights, including film and TV, to Embracer Group, a $1.8 billion (2021 revenue) Swedish video game conglomerate home to properties ranging from Tomb Raider to Hot Wheels. The August deal was…

When he was 14, Roy E. Carroll II bought an 800-squarefoot house in Danville, Virginia, using $1,000 in savings (equivalent to about $5,000 today) that he had cobbled together from odd jobs like mowing yards, returning bottles and selling candy. He fixed the place up and sold it a year later, using the profits to buy a Ford Mustang that he wasn’t even old enough to legally drive. That turned out to be the first of many properties Carroll bought on the cheap. In 1984, at age 22, the college dropout and his father, a laid-off grocery store supervisor, started building custom homes in Greensboro, North Carolina. Business boomed, and he bought out his dad in 1991 and started developing subdivisions. Within 10 years, Carroll switched to more-lucrative apartment complexes and…