Steve Forbes Talks Shop

A hundred years ago, financial columnist B.C. Forbes started an eponymous business magazine.

- Nick Gillespie

In 2017, his grandson, the erstwhile Republican presidential hopeful and Forbes editor in chief, is overseeing the publication’s centenary while celebrating his own 70th birthday. This summer at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas, Reason’s Nick Gillespie sat down with Steve Forbes to discuss the past, present, and future of his family’s financial mag and American politics as a whole.

Q: What is the essential role that Forbes magazine plays? 

A: I think we’re unique from other business publications, and this is one of the reasons entrepreneurs around the world identify with Forbes. We don’t see business as evil. We don’t see them as miscreants having to be sat on lest they wreck the world and kill all of us with pollution and bad dog food. We see it as a noble undertaking. And yes, human beings being what they are, some are going to go off the rails. To [my grandfather], what we call “entrepreneurial capitalism” today is how you enable people to do great things, be creative, learn from your mistakes. And if you’re doing well, you make other people better.