The Forbes Test: No Resident Billionaire — and One Who Got Away

The Forbes Test: No Resident Billionaire — and One Who Got Away

The test: Run against Forbes's own lists, the modern record returns a plain negative: no current or historical resident of South Bend appears on the Forbes 400 or the Forbes World's Billionaires list in the sources consulted. Indiana's places on the current Forbes 400 are held from other cities — Carl Cook of Bloomington and Herb Simon of Indianapolis, the state's two entries in the latest list as reported by the Indianapolis Star (September 2026).

The exception, at its exact strength: South Bend has produced exactly one Forbes-listed billionaire, and it produced him the way it produced so much else — for somewhere else. Conrad Prebys (1933–2016) was born and raised in South Bend and left for San Diego in 1965; the fortune was made there, in San Diego apartments, and Forbes's account of his joining the billionaire ranks (15 April 2015) sizes it on the ground where it stood: eighty-one properties, 7,099 units in greater San Diego, holdings "conservatively worth $1 billion, net of debt." He is printed here as what he was — South Bend-born, San Diego-made — and not borrowed as a resident fortune.

Sources:

1. Indianapolis Star, 17 September 2026, reporting the Forbes 400 — Indiana's entries: Carl Cook (Bloomington) and Herb Simon (Indianapolis); no South Bend resident on the list.
2. Forbes, Kerry A. Dolan, "California Dreamer," 15 April 2015 — Conrad Prebys: South Bend-born and raised, in San Diego from 1965; 81 properties, 7,099 units, holdings conservatively $1 billion net of debt.
3. UC San Diego obituary, 26 July 2016 — Prebys's death; the San Diego career.