This paper examines the impact of family ownership, control, and management on firm value using data from Fortune 500 companies between 1994 and 2000. The authors find that family ownership creates value only when the founder serves as CEO or Chairman with a hired CEO. Dual share classes, pyramids, and voting agreements reduce the founder's premium. When descendants serve as CEOs, firm value is destroyed. The study suggests that the classic owner-manager conflict in non-family firms is more costly than the conflict between family and non-family shareholders in founder-CEO firms, but the conflict between family and non-family shareholders in descendant-CEO firms is more costly than the owner-manager conflict in non-family firms. The results are robust to various econometric techniques and control for endogeneity. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for the relative value of family and non-family firms.This paper examines the impact of family ownership, control, and management on firm value using data from Fortune 500 companies between 1994 and 2000. The authors find that family ownership creates value only when the founder serves as CEO or Chairman with a hired CEO. Dual share classes, pyramids, and voting agreements reduce the founder's premium. When descendants serve as CEOs, firm value is destroyed. The study suggests that the classic owner-manager conflict in non-family firms is more costly than the conflict between family and non-family shareholders in founder-CEO firms, but the conflict between family and non-family shareholders in descendant-CEO firms is more costly than the owner-manager conflict in non-family firms. The results are robust to various econometric techniques and control for endogeneity. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for the relative value of family and non-family firms.