Here is your Forbes Daily Briefing for Thursday, October 3rd.

Today on Forbes, How EPIC's 81-year-old billionaire founder

plans to keep her health data empire private forever.

Judy Faulkner takes the stage at EPIC systems annual customer meeting,

where 7,000 health care industry executives have gathered.

Faulkner is the founder and CEO of EPIC,

a company with $4.9 billion in annual revenue,

whose medical record software is used for 325 million patients worldwide.

Her audience has made the annual pilgrimage to EPIC's quirky book-themed

1,670 acre headquarters in rural Verona, Wisconsin to hear the latest news about the tech

that many rank and file doctors love to hate.

Faulkner, a computer programmer who founded Epic in a basement in 1979, has bucked convention from day one,

starting with the company dress code, which is, quote,

When there are visitors, you must wear clothes.

While competitors like Cerner, now Oracle Health,

all Scripps, now Verodyme, and Athena Health

grew by taking venture capital money, executing mergers and acquisitions,

going public and then private again, Faulkner has assured any outside interference.

This mentality is enshrined in the first two of EPIC's 10 Commandments,

which hang on the wall in a campus bathroom.

Quote, number one, do not go public. Number 2. Do not be acquired.

And she intends to keep it that way.

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