Within the resort town of Sun Valley, Idaho, a small group of the world’s richest people are beginning to gather for Allen & Company’s annual Sun Valley Conference. The four-day retreat, known informally as “summer camp for billionaires,” is full of opportunities for powerful figures to schmooze, network, and make deals.
Among this year’s cohort are tech tycoons Tim Cook of Apple, Sam Altman of OpenAI, and Andy Jassy of Amazon. Bob Iger and Michael Eisner, the current and former CEOs of Disney, respectively, are also in attendance, as well as General Motors CEO Mary Barra. The conference has no shortage of political presence, too: Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are both present at the conference this year.
Some of the camp’s usual suspects, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (who had his Venetian “Wedding of the Century” not too long ago) have not yet been spotted, though they were reported to have been invited to this year’s conference, according to Variety. Additionally, Tesla’s Elon Musk wasn’t on the invite list, and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, who announced his retirement earlier this year, won’t be in attendance.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, speaks to members of the media after arriving in Sun Valley, Idaho. The Sun Valley Conference is notoriously private and is known as a breeding ground for big deals between companies.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
In 2021, the total wealth of those attending the conference was reportedly more than $1 trillion.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Andy Jassy was first reported attending Sun Valley Conference in 2021, shortly after he became Jeff Bezos’s successor as CEO of Amazon.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Bob Iger, the current Disney CEO, arrives at Sun Valley Lodge. Sun Valley is reportedly the location where the merger between ABC and Disney went down back in 1995. Then-CEO Michael Eisner—who is in attendance this year, too—met up with Capital Cities Chairman Thomas S. Murphy, according to the Los Angeles Times, and the rest was history.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, waves after arriving in Sun Valley, Idaho, for the annual conference, which she has attended in previous years.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Ivanka Trump and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav are both in attendance at this year’s conference.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband and former senior advisor to Donald Trump, arrives at the Sun Valley Conference this year along with his wife.
David Paul Morris—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Venture capitalist and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang walk together at Sun Valley Lodge. Only 35 guests attended the inaugural conference back in 1983.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi walks with Walmart CEO Doug McMillon at Sun Valley Lodge. Khosrowshahi’s brother, Kaveh Khosrowshahi, is a managing director at Allen & Company, which hosts the conference.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos arrives at Sun Valley Lodge for Allen & Company’s annual conference. Although the conference’s agenda is not public, it features activities including hiking, rafting, and golfing.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, arrives in Idaho for the Sun Valley Conference.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Alex Norström, Spotify’s CEO, is also in attendance at this year’s Sun Valley Conference.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Gayle King, co-host of CBS Mornings and editor-at-large of Oprah Daily, attends the Sun Valley Conference. Oprah Winfrey, who had attended the Sun Valley Conference in the past, was not included on the invite list this year, according to Variety.
David Paul Morris—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow Inc., arrives at the Sun Valley Conference.
David Paul Morris—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong first attended the Sun Valley Conference back in 2021.
Apple CEO Tim Cook first attended the Sun Valley Conference in 2012 and has been a consistent attendee ever since, save for a few years during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tourism authorities believe the re-opening of the Seine to the public will attract tourists, especially given the scenic locations of the three public swimming areas.
BASTIEN OHIER—Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images
On Saturday, Parisians and tourists alike were able to swim in France’s Seine River for the first time in over a century. The river has been closed off to swimmers since 1923, when it was deemed too polluted to swim in safely.
Though the city has talked about cleaning up the Seine since the 1990s, the real push came in 2015 when Paris made a bid to host the 2024 Olympics. In that nine-year span, enough progress was made that open-water swimming races were held in the waterway. Even Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a dip last summer to prove the river was clean enough to host competitions.
The three swimming sites are free at scheduled times and will allow about 1,000 swimmers per day during the swimming season, which lasts until late August.
Dmitry Kostyukov—The New York Times/Redux
Each of the three swimming locations has a lifeguard on duty as well as changing rooms, showers, and beach-style furniture.
Dmitry Kostyukov—The New York Times/Redux
Additional swimming spots on the Seine located outside of Paris are due to open in the near future.
BASTIEN OHIER—Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images
To ensure the river was Olympic-ready, Paris invested $1.5 billion into the cleanup effort, known as the “Swimming Plan.” As a result, more than 20,000 homes that were previously dumping wastewater into the Seine have now been integrated into the sewer system, significantly reducing the amount of pollution seeping into the river.
However, the all-clear is not indefinite: city officials will continue to monitor bacteria levels daily to determine if the river is safe to swim in, and green and red flags will mark whether or not swimmers can take a dip. On Sunday, just one day after the river’s grand reopening, the flags were red after that day’s rainfall brought levels of bacteria to an unsafe point. Heavy rains can overwhelm the newly built cisterns, which can hold up to 13 million gallons of wastewater that would otherwise go directly into the Seine.
On the days that bear a green flag, the three swimming locations will allow about 1,000 visitors a day until the end of August.
Advocates fighting to reclaim the Seine for swimming have said that public waterways will be an effective way for people to cool down during increasingly hot summers, according to The Guardian.
JULIEN DE ROSA—AFP/Getty Images
As a part of the designated swimming locations’ strict safety measures, swimmers have to wear a yellow lifebuoy tied around their waist.
There are three designated swimming sites now open to the public: one near the Eiffel Tower, one close to Notre Dame Cathedral, and one in eastern Paris.
Flash back to the late 1700s: The United States had recently won the Revolutionary War, horse-drawn carriages were a common mode of transportation, and gas lighting was just being invented. Electricity wouldn’t be in homes for another century or so.
Now jump to 2025, to a world overrun with AI and crypto. Would you be surprised to find out that some of the companies that were getting started in the days of yore are still ranking on this year’s Fortune 500 list?
As the U.S. approaches its semiquincentennial, Fortune takes a look back at 10 Fortune 500 companies whose age rivals the nation’s—with photos to prove it.
Rowland H. Macy opened R.H. Macy & Co., a dry goods store, in 1858. The first Macy’s store is pictured here on Sixth Avenue in New York City, circa 1880.
Archive Photos—Getty Images
Macy’s oldest subsidiary is John Shillito & Co., a Cincinnati-based department store founded in 1830, making Macy’s 195 years old. Before buying Shillito’s, Macy’s was R.H. Macy & Co., a dry goods store in New York City. On the store’s first day in 1858, founder Rowland H. Macy racked up a total of $11.06 in sales, which equates to over $400 today. Now, almost 200 years after Shillito’s was founded, Macy’s is still pulling rank on the Fortune 500 at 193.
Potential buyers were skeptical of the steam engine when it first went into use in the mid-1800s. To convince people to buy into the novel concept, the steam engine’s capabilities were compared to that of horses, which pulled trains in B&O’s early days. Thus, the term “horsepower” came to be.
Underwood & Underwood—CORBIS/Corbis/Getty Images
One of the oldest companies still around today owns and operates railroads, and it’s ranked at 301 on the Fortune 500. CSX Corporation got its start in 1827 as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, though it didn’t take on the name CSX until 1980, when railroad companies Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line united. The 198-year-old company was the first common carrier railroad in the U.S., and the original line covered 13 miles across one state—Maryland. The company now covers 21,000 miles over 23 states.
Pictured here in 1938, a few years after New York Gas Light Co. became The Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, is the nerve center of the Consolidated Edison system. The company supplies New York’s metropolitan area, then counting almost 8 million people, with electric power.
Bettmann—Getty Images
Before Consolidated Edison was Consolidated Edison, it was New York Gas Light Co., and it got its start in 1823 illuminating the street lights in a section of Lower Manhattan. By the early 1900s, the company added steam and electric to its repertoire after purchasing both New York Steam Co. and Thomas Edison’s Edison Illuminating Company. At 202 years old, the company still delivers these three utilities to customers and is ranked 286 on the Fortune 500.
American actor Clint Eastwood poses in Western gear next to a display of Philip Morris tobacco products, circa 1965. Another subsidiary of Altria, Philip Morris opened its doors in 1847, 25 years after George Weyman opened his shop.
Hulton Archive—Getty Images
In 1822, George Weyman opened a tobacco store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The shop became the United States Tobacco Company in 1911, and it was purchased by Altria in 2009. Ranked 209 on the Fortune 500, Altria and the 203-year-old United States Tobacco Company—now renamed U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company—are developing new, smoke-free alternatives to traditional tobacco and nicotine products.
Colgate opened its Jersey City starch factory in 1820, 14 years after William Colgate first opened shop. The factory is pictured here on the left in 1925. On the right, a 1909 advertisement for Colgate’s toothpaste. The ribbon opening was added to Colgate’s toothpaste tube a year earlier; the company’s website says, “We couldn’t improve the product, so we improved the tube.”
Keystone View Company—FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images and The Print Collector—Heritage Images/Getty Images
Though Colgate sold its first jar—yes, jar—of toothpaste in 1873, the company was founded almost 70 years earlier in 1806. Back then, William Colgate sold starches, soaps, and candles in his New York City shop, and soon branched out to perfumes, shaving cream, and, of course, toothpaste. In its 219th year, Colgate was ranked 212 on the Fortune 500.
A close-up view of three sticks of dynamite produced by DuPont, circa 1950. DuPont supplied a lot of the explosives used by Allied armies during World War I.
R. Gates—Archive Photos/Getty Images
At 339 on the Fortune 500 is DuPont de Nemours, a chemical company that first got its start in gunpowder production 223 years ago. Founded by French chemist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours, the company was incorporated in 1802, and construction on the gunpowder factory—called Eleutherian Mills—began soon after. DuPont, then E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, recorded its first sale two years later in 1804.
People walk past the J.P. Morgan & Co. office building, located at 23 Wall Street, circa 1905. It is the first office building in New York City to be powered by the Edison Electric Illuminating Company’s newly built electric generating station. The building was torn down in 1913 and replaced with a shorter building which still stands and is known as the J.P. Morgan Building.
Universal History Archive—Universal Images Group/Getty Images
Would you believe that JPMorgan Chase—the 226-year-old company ranked 11 on the Fortune 500—was originally founded as a water company? Back in 1799, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, among others, founded The Manhattan Company to supply New York City with drinking water. Tensions between Hamilton and Burr heated up when Burr used a loophole in the company’s charter that allowed extra capital to be used for banking operations, thus creating The Bank of The Manhattan Company, which was in direct competition with Hamilton’s Bank of New York. The feud between the two co-founders led to the infamous duel that resulted in Hamilton’s death.
An engraving of State Street in Boston, circa 1840, half a century after the opening of Union Bank and half a century before the opening of State Street Deposit & Trust Company.
Universal History Archive—Getty Images
In 1792, on the corner of State and Exchange Streets in Boston, a new bank opened its doors: Union Bank. State Street Corporation came later, in the 1920s, after the merger of Union Bank (at that point, National Union Bank) and the State Street Deposit & Trust Company, a competing bank that opened on State Street in 1891. If you hadn’t figured this out already, the 233-year-old company gets its name from the street the banks started on, which was also known as the “Great Street to the Sea,” because of the area’s economic prosperity tied to Boston’s history as a port city. In 2025, the corporation ranked 198 on the Fortune 500.
Andrew William Mellon, pictured here in 1930, took over T. Mellon & Sons’ Bank alongside his brother Richard in 1882, 13 years after the bank’s establishment. He later became the longest-serving secretary of the U.S. Treasury, following in Alexander Hamilton’s footsteps. In 2007, T. Mellon & Sons’ Bank, then Mellon Financial Corporation, merged with The Bank of New York to create BNY Mellon.
Keystone—Getty Images
Coming off the tail end of the Revolutionary War, The Bank of New York was created in 1784 by a group of people including Alexander Hamilton as a means of garnering foreign investment and fostering economic growth in the newly independent nation. The country was drowning in debt, and an emergency loan from a bank, Hamilton believed, was the only way to save it from bankruptcy. His plan worked, and the bank—as well as the country—is still around 241 years later, with BNY Mellon ranked 113 on this year’s Fortune 500. The Bank of New York, in fact, was the first publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, which itself was founded on Wall Street in 1792.
Jeff and William Coors, the great-grandson and grandson, respectively, of founder Adolph Coors, pose in the brew house in the main plant in 1987 in Golden, Colorado. Adolph opened the Golden Brewery in the same town 114 years prior.
Denver Post—Getty Images
Older than the U.S. itself, Molson Coors Beverage Company got its start in 1774 when William Worthington began brewing beer in England. His business eventually merged with John Molson’s brewery (founded in 1786 in Montreal); Frederick J. Miller’s Plank Road Brewery (founded in 1855 in Wisconsin); and Adolph Coors’s Golden Brewery (founded in 1873 in Colorado). The four breweries, along with many others, merged over the course of the corporation’s 251-year history. Though the company today ranks 366 on the Fortune 500, it was not without its challenges: during the Prohibition era, Miller and Coors survived by brewing soda, near-beer and malt syrups.
A worker makes final preparations for the Macy's July 4th fireworks display in New York City on July 2, 2002. Macy's is one of many companies that are around 200 years old, and still placing on the Fortune 500.
Login
