Big pie: Two key Sullivan foes make Forbes billionaire list

Forbes magazine has come out with its annual ranking of American billionaires, and while nobody in Charlottesville has made the cut (sorry John Grisham, Coran Capshaw, and Ted Weschler), there are several names on the list that resonate locally. They include two magnates who rescued struggling local outdoor wonderlands, and two of the most prominent supporters of the recent effort to unseat the University of Virginia president.

One of the UVA schemers is Paul Tudor Jones, the Connecticut hedge fund manager who informed the UVA community that it should be "elated" by the ouster move performed in June by Rector Helen Dragas. The other is Randal Kirk, the southwest Virginia pharmaceutical start-up whiz and UVA Board of Visitors member who mocked sustainability science as he urged the firing of president Teresa Sullivan.

Other names on the "Forbes 400" that might resonate locally are Donald Trump, who purchased his old friend Patricia Kluge's Albemarle County winery last year. There's also Memphis shipping tycoon Fred Smith, who helped fund a short-lived Albemarle internet firm called ValueAmerica that employed a sort of Amazon.com-style sell-everything strategy even before Amazon did. Another is Jim Justice, the lone West Virginian to make the list and the coal magnate who made local headlines in May by buying the struggling Wintergreen ski resort after it ran into liquidity woes after several years of warm winters.

As usual, heading the Forbes list is Microsoft founder Bill Gates, with an estimated net worth of $66 billion. In second place is Warren Buffet, the Omaha investor with the golden eye and who recently hired Weschler (who owns a stake in the Hook's parent company) as one of his top advisors.

One other interesting pair of names are two brothers, Charles and David Koch. Valued at $31 billion each, the Kochs run Kansas-based Koch Industries and raise funds for conservative causes like ACTA, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Like Jones, ACTA wrote a newspaper essay celebrating the removal of Sullivan after her ouster. Also like Jones, the brothers have donated money to Governor Bob McDonnell, whom they invited to one of their secretive semi-annual confabs last June. The brothers gave McDonnell $107,494 while Jones has given $100,000, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

15 comments

Ahh yess value america those were the good ole days. The mention helps make this article more relevant I guess. Hey two rich guys are rich says richie rich magazine! But they don't like Ms. Sullivan aww saddies! Great article! My cat is more informative than this! What's that Rutherford? You say the litterbox is breached capacity and you don't like it?

@really?...Rest easy. This article is merely for those in this enlightened, nuanced, highly-educated, smarter-than-most-towns community who need assistance in dissecting the complex Forbes article. The idiotically gratuitous and parenthetic use of the three non-billionaires' names strikes me as meaningless, unless the author desires to appear hipper-than-thou. But hey, if I want hipper-than-thou, I'll bore myself with SNL.

What I find interesting is that someone like Tudor, who spent a career in useless endeavors (well, useless for most except himself) is worth more than someone like Smith, who created something so innovative and useful from an idea that--at first--many poo-pooed.

R.I.P.: Fred "Sonic" Smith

The Hook's real daddy is Warrren Buffet! The truth is out.

The 1987 Paul Tudor Jones documentary " Trader " - which first aired on PBS, popped up recently on the internet and then disappeared.

Loving mysteries as I do, I'm dying to see it.

So here's the challenge - anyone know how to find it ?

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/wall-streets-lost-culture.html

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/XH5W4vffBbY/

That link DID work when I posted. Just checked and seems someone took action to have it removed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjoy2LpESWE This works now but probably not for long. If you want to see it best do a search and try links till one works. It will keep popping up. Fun to watch. Not sure why someone doesn't want it seen. Maybe the old thick specs? The appearance thing again?

Jones hates this, guess it's not the image he wants to project, but thanks Tig, WOW is all I can say .

Any chance you can find the rest of it, it should be almost an hour long ?

Now I can appreciate his comment - yoga has saved my life.

In the video he talks about retiring when he reaches a certain goal - interesting, I read recently he has started a new hedge fund and brought others on board which signals to some, that day may be drawing near.

The first link I gave you was the complete video and not as easily accessed to remove as youtube, but someone quickly went to the trouble to have it removed after I posted. I can find a link for the complete video but you would have to see it before whomever is busily removing the video as post with link appears. Seems it will keep appearing on the internet and will disappear only to reappear again. Here's a discussion about the video. Do your own search and if you keep coming up with deleted try again in a few days. It will always be on the internet.
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/trader-movie-dl-paul-tudor-jones

The Lawn designed by Jeffterson is one of the architectual jewels of the world. Paul Tudor Jones, the egomanicial billionaire, has given UVa the John Paul Jones Arena which is probably one of the ugliest buldings extant as well as one of the most useless for a university. Now UVA will get an equally horrendous building so people can spread their Yoga mats? Not to mention the horrible extension of the Lawn or the joke of a business school Lawn knock-off. Has it dawned on anyone else that except for the Lawn and a (very) few other buildings UVa is becoming seriously butt-ugly? I think even now the overall impressions of UNC-Chapel Hill and VT campuses are much more favorable.

It takes a lot of effort to destroy something as pleasant at the University area of Charlottesville; the billionaires seem more than up to the task.

Jones supported Obama last time around - not this time. Romney all the way,

Marital discord ? Mrs Jones supports Obama

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/06/obamaromney-matchup-pits-husb...

_Trader_ is on TPB. Of course, if I need to tell you that, you're probably not set up to retrieve it.

"But hey, if I want hipper-than-thou, I'll bore myself with SNL."

That's funny. When I want hipper-than-thou, I go for Liberalace.