Dallas's 500 Most Powerful People

Dallas’s 500 Most Powerful People

Do you like lists? Here’s one of Dallas’s 500 most powerful people: http://www.dfwmostpowerful.com/index.htm. The highest names on the list I’ve met are numbers 14 and 15. I’ve met seven out of the top 100, and know two of that seven well enough so that they know my name and would probably take my calls—on a good day.

After that, I go rapidly downhill. I’ve only met 16 of the remaining 400 people, and I know only two more of those that I have met well enough to even call them acquaintances.

It isn’t too clear who prepared the list, and it has some errors—like at least dead person. There are also some puzzling omissions. Where is T.D. Jakes? So if you didn’t make it, then I think you’ve still got room to argue.

I have to admit I’m fascinated by lists. The top ten this or the fifty best that always get my attention, no matter whether I know anything about the topic or not. There is something about a list that seems to restore order to the world. I’d be happy enough as Dallas’s 3 millionth most powerful person, just to know my place in the world.

I also find it interesting that I’m almost twice as likely to have met someone in the top 100 as in the next 400. Perhaps the reason those first 100 people are so powerful is because they know everybody? Even me.

John Greenan