Preston Fore
Preston Fore reports on how people and institutions define and pursue success, connecting tax policy, education, and career choices to the real-world fortunes of workers, students, and founders. He is a reporter on Fortune’s Success team, covering education, personal finance, and entrepreneurship with a consistent focus on how systems either enable or constrain upward mobility. His coverage stands out for tying high-level decisions by billionaires, CEOs, and universities back to the day-to-day pressures facing nurses, tradespeople, Gen Z professionals, and late-career entrepreneurs.
Tax policy and financial pressure on workers
Fore’s reporting on tax debates moves beyond abstract fiscal arguments to the concrete impact on household finances.
In his coverage of Jeff Bezos’s proposal that the bottom half of U.S. earners pay no federal income tax, he uses the example of a nurse earning $75,000 a year to illustrate how current tax rules translate into more than $1,000 a month in payments and what eliminating that burden could mean in practical terms. He brings in data on how much of the overall tax load lower earners already carry, juxtaposing billionaire advocacy with the reality that many in the bottom 40% effectively pay no federal income tax once credits are accounted for.
That blend of policy detail, income distribution data, and a single working professional’s situation is typical of his approach: the story is framed as a question of financial pressure on workers rather than a purely ideological tax fight.
Education rankings and the value of degrees
Education and the economic payoff of degrees are a core part of Fore’s beat.
He plays an integral role in compiling Fortune’s rankings of graduate programs in business, technology, and health, including MBA lists that are updated on a regular cadence. In that work, he engages with university leaders, professors, and students to assess how curriculum changes, teaching methods, and program focus areas are reshaping business education and, ultimately, corporate practice.
His commentary on rankings stresses scrutiny of long-standing hierarchies like traditional elite business schools and examines whether they still represent “the best” when measured against new market demands and student outcomes. Across these pieces, he treats rankings not just as a consumer guide but as a lens on how education systems distribute opportunity and signal value in the labor market.
Gen Z careers, skilled trades, and the future of work
Fore regularly covers how Gen Z navigates careers, with particular attention to whether conventional white-collar tracks still deliver the best returns compared with skilled trades. In his reporting on Carhartt’s CEO, he highlights the argument that schools are steering young people away from trades that can pay significantly more than many degree-requiring jobs, noting data that skilled trades roles can deliver roughly 32% higher pay.
He has also produced coverage and social video breaking down how a shortage of electricians threatens the expansion plans of major technology companies, framing the issue as a “life or death” constraint for AI infrastructure and a major opportunity for the next generation of workers. His stories from chief people officers at large companies explore how AI is reshaping organizational charts and workforce design, again through the lens of how these shifts affect employees rather than technology alone.
Throughout, Fore links education choices, labor shortages, and corporate strategy to the question of what sustainable, well-paid careers look like for younger workers entering the market now.
Entrepreneurs, CEOs, and unconventional success stories
Fore’s success coverage frequently centers on individual narratives that illustrate broader trends in business and work.
He profiles CEOs from companies such as Funko, drawing out career lessons like the importance of contributing beyond job descriptions and how early experiences in entertainment and media shape later leadership styles. His interviews with leaders at firms like Databricks dig into operational philosophies, such as aggressively cutting bottlenecks and rethinking meeting structures to scale a large software business, and connect them to workplace efficiency and culture. He examines Peter Thiel’s critique that Germany has a “fear of success” problem, using that vantage point to explore why some ecosystems struggle to produce entrepreneurs who scale companies on the level of global tech giants.
Fore also brings in unconventional success paths, including a retired radiologist and professor who starts a banana-skewer business at 71, showing how late-career entrepreneurship can be driven by a refusal to embrace traditional retirement. In a newsletter-style feature on a Gen Z founder running defense tech startup Mach Industries, he reports on a twenty-something leading a multibillion-dollar firm with multiple weapons programs and major manufacturing facilities, underscoring how young entrepreneurs are reshaping high-stakes industries.
Across these profiles, he uses individual trajectories to pose larger questions about what counts as success, who gets to pursue it, and how different paths - corporate, startup, or post-retirement - redefine the concept over time.
Taken together, Fore’s body of work sits at the intersection of success, systems, and stories: tax policy and rankings on one side, trades and tech infrastructure on another, and the personal decisions of workers and leaders connecting them all. His reporting is distinct in how consistently it ties high-level economic and organizational shifts back to the lived experience of people trying to build or sustain careers, making his coverage relevant wherever questions of opportunity, advancement, and the real meaning of success are in play.
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Adrienne Roberts
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Alex Bronzini-Vender
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Alex DeMarban
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