Fortune, Volume 142, No. 11, November 13, 2000

New York: Time, Inc, 2000. First edition/first printing of this issue. Wraps. Very good.. 536 pages. Includes: illustrations, index. Cover story on Larry Ellison of Oracle. Mailing information printed on front cover. Slight wear and soiling. Cover story on Larry Ellison, who recently shifted from CEO to Chief Technology Officer at Oracle. From Wikipedia: "Fortune is an American business magazine published globally by Time Inc. and 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. The magazine is best known for the Fortune 500, a ranking of companies by revenue that it has published annually since 1955. Fortune was founded by Time 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." Briton Hadden, Luce's business partner, wasn't 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. 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." The publication made its official debut in February 1930. Its editor was Luce; its managing editor was Parker Lloyd-Smith; its art director was Thomas Maitland Cleland. Single copies of the first issue cost $1 at a time when the Sunday New York Times was only 5¢. 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 subscribed to receive that initial 184-page issue. By 1937, the number of subscribers had grown to 460, 000 and the magazine turned half a million dollars in annual profit. 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. Fortune was also noted for its photography, featuring the work of Margaret Bourke-White and others. Walker Evans served as its photography editor from 1945 to 1965. During the Great Depression, Fortune 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. 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, such as the effectiveness of public schools and on homelessness."