A pattern has emerged across the 2026 commencement season in the United States. Speakers who have praised artificial intelligence from the podium have been met with boos. At the University of Arizona, the former chief executive of Google was interrupted by the graduates as he turned to the subject. At the University of Central Florida, a real estate executive who described the rise of artificial intelligence as the next industrial revolution drew the same response, audible en

On the ninth of April 2026, in honour of the United States’ semiquincentennial — the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence — Forbes published its ranking of the 250 greatest living self-made Americans. The list was assembled in stages. The magazine first mined its own 109-year archive for what it described as classic tales of entrepreneurial capitalism. Its current beat reporters were asked to suggest candidates. The two together — the institutional record and