Recently, RGF noted in this space that Forbes had named Ron Corio of Array Solar the State of New Mexico’s first billionaire. But if you look at the data by place of birth as a new report does, New Mexico is actually a great place to be from to be a billionaire. As the chart below shows New Mexico ranks 7th as a place to be FROM and become a billionaire.
Many New Mexicans are aware that Jeff Bezos, the Founder of Amazon.com and the richest man in the United States was born in New Mexico, but how about Dan Kurzius who founded MailChimp (Albuquerque), Ernest Garcia II who founded Drive Time and is CEO of Carvana (Gallup), or Paul Foster who founded Western Refining (Lovington)?
And, of course Bill Gates (3rd on the richest list) famously founded Microsoft in Albuquerque before moving his company to the Seattle area.
What does it all mean? Arguably it is just random, but perhaps it is an indicator that New Mexicans are as entrepreneurial as anyone (if not more) but that they have to leave New Mexico to make their business work (unless they are in a subsidized industry like solar).
Most people who are ambitious will move from a small town to a larger one because there are more opportunities. Ditto for a small state. Now you could have given New Mexico some credit for producing so many potential billionaires. Would you say a child who grows up and moves away from the family and becomes successful had to move away from the family because they were keeping the child from succeeding? That’s what you’re implying here. You’re just so obsessed with looking for negatives that you’re not providing clear and objective analysis.
Fascinating article. I knew about Bezos and Gates but none of the others. The big tell about NM is that the only Fortune 500 company founded here (Microsoft) left in the late 1970s, long before it went public for no state income tax WA. 90 years of single party Dem rule has made the state one of the least attractive for private business in the western US.