What the 10 Richest Angelenos Tell Us About L.A. and Its Economy

From Aerospace to Apparel—These Billionaires’ Businesses Reflect the Entrepreneurship and Variety of the County

If you were trying to understand the economy of Los Angeles County during the first half of the 20th century—the period in which L.A. emerged as a modern metropolis—you’d do well to scrutinize the business interests of one man: Harry Chandler.

Not that you could ever peel back all the layers of Chandler’s empire. “He operated in a whirlwind of activity … setting up numerous dummy corporations and secret trusts,” Robert Gottlieb and Irene Wolt explained in Thinking Big, their epic account of the making of Southern California, as seen through …