40 Under 40

Three powerful Texans join Taylor Swift, John Oliver and Jessica Alba on magazine's 40 Under 40 list

Austin really is the new Silicon Valley. Fortune’s annual 40 Under 40 honors the most influential people in business, from entertainment to healthcare to food, with a heavy emphasis on technology. While many of these young innovators are based in the Bay Area, Austin found representation on the 2015 list with two impressive execs.

Jason Buechel
Joining Whole Foods Market two years ago, Buechel is probably still considered “the new guy” due to the fact that the next shortest time on the executive team is a 19-year tenure. He’s also the youngest, at age 37, and as the EVP and CIO of Whole Foods has forged important partnerships to boost the technological component of Whole Foods’ services.

In addition to working on systems that allow traceability into the supply chain and inform customers about products’ nutritional and allergen information, he’s also teamed up with Apple Pay (making Whole Foods one of the first retailers to offer this payment platform) and home delivery service Instacart. Another item on his plate is the development of the company’s recently announced millennial-aimed 365 by Whole Foods.

Brian Sheth
What’s better than going into business with your best friend? Sheth teamed up with his best man to establish Vista Equity Partners in 2000, one of the first private equity firms focusing solely on software. Because of this, co-founder and president Sheth has an advantage in the market with investment companies who are newer in the software business.

“In software there are a lot of great technologies, but not as many great business people,” Sheth told Fortune. “We’ve really learned how to put systems in place that improve the companies that grow up around the software.” A 39-year-old billionaire, Sheth and Vista Equity Partners’ future in the equity game have never looked brighter.

Only one other Texan made the list, El Paso native Michelle Dip. She’s the co-founder and CEO of OvaScience, a company that uses a woman’s own mitochondria to “freshen up” older eggs before they’re fertilized, enhancing embryo quality for in-vitro fertilization. Since the company’s founding in 2011, 10 babies have been born using the technology.

The Texas winners join other notable influencers on Fortune’s list, including Taylor Swift, Ronda Rousey, John Oliver, and Jessica Alba. To view the full list, visit Fortune.

Jason Buechel, EVP and CIO, Whole Foods Market.

Photo courtesy of Whole Foods Market

Jason Buechel, EVP and CIO, Whole Foods Market.

bests rankings

Jobs report

Texas clocks in as No. 7 best state to find a job, new report says

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash

It's easier to find a job in Texas than in nearly any other state.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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