Time, after time.

• Author: Kinney, David
• Position: UPFRONT

So the crystal ball is as cloudy as ever," the story concluded, referring to the future of this magazine. "Nobody can predict what it will look like in another 15 years, which go-go executive it will send into a towering rage, whether the Mover and Shaker of the Year in 2011 will be the chairman of Intergalactic Time Travel Ltd., whether subscribers will read about her off a computer screen or just close their eyes and hear words and get living holographic images through an instantaneous cybernetic mind link--or, indeed, if either the magazine or any of the people reading it at this every moment will be around at all."

So wrote Wayne King, the longtime New York Timesman and director of Wake Forest University's journalism program, in his account of BNC's formative years that appeared in our 15th-anniversary issue (October 1996). Though some of the technology he mentions might seem far-fetched even today (and which, I'm sure, he put forward tongue tucked firmly in cheek), the point he was making holds true today. Even more so.

"BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA is 15 years old this month," King began his story, "and that is a remarkable achievement. Magazines have a terrible mortality rate. Only one in 10 survive more than five years, and many, many die as infants, gone from the scene before the typical toddler utters his first word, victims of every ailment from initial capital malnutrition to the caprices of ever-fickle...