Next, the Myth of the Great Billionaire

In June 2021, the New York Times published an oped titled Warren Buffett and the Myth of the Good Billionaire. Written by Anand Giridharadas, author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,” the article and the book eviscerated the narrative that many of the mega-wealthy truly operate in the interests of society. Though publicly Buffet has maintained he needs to be taxed more, privately he says he wants to minimize any tax payments — because he knows better than the government how to benefit society with his money. “Good” in this case is performative, not necessarily contributive.

Why does one billionaire’s giving back to society matter? Charity in the U.S. has hovered around 2% of GDP for decades. The vast majority used to come from millions of small donors — but that era is over. As Axios recently documented from Giving USA Data, “Now more than ever, the purse strings of the charitable sector are controlled by the rich and powerful.” The Good Billionaires increasingly determine which societal solutions are funded, and how.

But as tech entrepreneurs have infiltrated the Billionaire Class, an even more toxic narrative is coming to dominate headlines and global culture: The Myth of the Great Billionaire.

Elon Musk wants to back up the human race to Mars. Peter Thiel wanted a libertarian haven on his own manmade island. Bill Gates wants to stop a pandemic before it happens. Sam Bankman-Fried wanted to use effective altruism to transform markets. Marc Andreessen wants to use effective accelerationism to transform society. Jeff Bezos wants to save the planet. Mark Zuckerberg wants us all to live in the metaverse.?

Just being perceived as Good isn’t enough for today’s billionaire: He has to be Great. There must be a massive malady in the world that only he sees, and only he can fix — with his wealth. Douglas Rushkoff calls this Survival of the Richest.

It’s especially critical for the Great Billionaire to be seen as a captain of industry. As our collective faith falters in institutions like government and religion, and as (mostly) tech companies top trillion-dollar market capitalizations, a society desperate for leaders to follow increasingly turns to the billionaire class for answers. Tyler Austin Harper in Slate calls this The New Misanthropy: When we think the world is royally messed up, we’re meat-tenderized for the Great Billionaire’s message of salvation. And it’s not a coincidence that most of today’s “Greats” come from hi-tech: Their reputation as engineers should, of course, make them excellent candidates for engineering changes at societal scale.

Yet at the same time, it’s also important for the Great Billionaire to seem just like you and me (if each of us was standing on our own mountain of money.) The narrative requires the myth of starting with nothing, and today a dash of asceticism to show that obscene wealth hasn’t really changed them.?

But they can still change the world.

Why Do We Need Billionaires?

In December 2015, our managing partner Heidi Kleinmaus co-produced — and I was the onstage host for — a conference in Palm Beach, Florida, about a mile from Mar-A-Lago. With speakers like Tony Blair, Tom Friedman, and Robert Reich , we wanted to bring attention to the growing gap between “have-nots” and “have-lots.” In the audience: At least a half dozen billionaires. We called the event Closing the Gap.

But it’s not a gap. It’s a yawning divide.

Today there are 3,311 billionaires in the world, give or take a few, winners in the game of money representing just under $12 trillion in wealth. That's more than the size of the entire economies of Japan, Germany, and the UK — added together.

Out of all those in the uber-affluent class, for better or worse, Mr. Musk is now the face of 21st-century capitalism, a world in which relentless hype and dominating image reign supreme. Like today’s politicians hungry to occupy the headlines, Musk’s antics are not a sideshow: They are inherent to his business, amplifying his wealth and power. Armies of Elon Bros see a single minimalist tweet as a green light to invest wherever The Great One casts his wandering eye, from robots to a utopian town, and are intent on emulating hs “hardcore” management practices in their own startups and companies. Books such as Be Like Superman reinforce Musk’s self-crafted image as a modern hybrid of Edison, Ford, and Rockefeller. He can “donate” nearly $6 billion — to his own foundation. Until recently, Musk was relentlessly credited for his brilliant inspiration for entrepreneurs, businesspeople, leaders, and communicators.?

The Great Billionaire rarely needs to show compassion: He simply needs to be perceived as building profitable businesses. He can waste billions of dollars on his own singular vision (Meta-verse, anyone?), then lay off tens of thousands of workers — yet still he’s said to be an icon of leadership, and his stock rises. And billionaires must reinforce each other’s abysmal management practices: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff in an interview with Insider opined, "Every CEO in Silicon Valley has looked at what Elon Musk has done and has asked themselves, 'Do they need to unleash their own Elon within them?'” Mr. Benioff subsequently took his own advice, laying off 7,000 employees in a single call.

Why Do We Need Great Billionaires?

Our media-fueled worship of The Great Billionaire is easy to spot, especially in the business press. Headlines often point to a recent statement or tweet made by him (and it’s always a him), often including the phrase “master class” or “stroke of genius” to illustrate the insights that we mere mortals should take away. Fox News even asked if Musk should be declared a new founding father.

We continually prop up people who lead organizations and governments as icons of human behavior. Starting companies, leading organizations, managing teams, guiding countries — these are all really hard activities. In our own lives, we want to be able to solve complicated problems with just a few words, or exemplify courageous leading by one or two simple actions. And when the world seems increasingly more complicated and complex, we hunger for someone who seems to be able to rapidly understand the problem, determine a solution, and take decisive action — even if those actions clearly (and inevitably) serve the billionaire himself. And he can embrace a theory of change that sounds rational, but is inevitably veiled dogma that simply reinforces the existing power hierarchy they dominate, even (and especially) if it's racist.

It’s all a scam. But we believe them.

There are few simple solutions in real life. But that doesn’t stop us from clicking on Great Billionaire articles, which means that writers will continue to craft headlines that make us think there’s an insightful answer to the world’s challenges, if we just keep clicking and reading and watching. The waves of media that flood the zone with memes from Great Billionaire are of our own making.

Why is there no parallel “great woman” meme in high-volume media? It isn’t just plain sexism, though of course (male) journalists would go find these stories if they thought their (male) editors wanted them. Our peculiar form of capitalism itself is quite effectively designed primarily for male success.

But every rule has an exception, so I’ll point to Mackenzie (ex-Bezos) Scott as the rare “great female billionaire.” Though she never had an executive role at Amazon, she was a significant part of Bezos empire-building, and is not simply an accidental billionaire by marriage. Yet in her post-Jeff life, she has single-handedly upended decades — perhaps even centuries — of philanthropic giving, destroying traditional arguments about careful diligence and meagerly allocations by giving millions to individual non-profits with few hoops to jump through or strings attached — and without a PR machine lauding her work. That’s truly Great.

Have We Reached “Peak Great Billionaire”?

It may be simply confirmation bias on my part, but there seems to be some backlash brewing against The Great Billionaire. Writing in Vox, Whizy Kim suggested that 2022 was “...the year the billionaires showed who they really are.” Helaine Olen in the Washington Post requested, “Let’s put the myth of the billionaire genius to rest.” Paul Krugman in the NY Times calls them petulant oligarchs. And Hollywood is helping, through movies such as Glass Onion.

But the Great Billionaires are really doing it to themselves. Bankman-Fried’s reputation was as ephemeral as the crypto currencies on which it was built. But Musk has offered a masterclass in exploding the myth. With his willful destruction of Twitter, a range of pundits suddenly seemed willing to grudgingly admit that his practices as an empathetic employer might leave a little to be desired. (You think?) His “unapologetic awfulness” has reached legendary status, with headlines like A Masterclass In What Not To Do and How Not to Lead, and strategies for how to ruin a company and how to drive workers into organized labor. A website tracks his (rather poor) track record of following through on his promises. Columnist Ed Zitron calls Musk the fraudulent king.

Let’s all agree: Outsourcing society’s future to a few billionaires is a bad idea. In a world of increasing inequality, with more and more money in fewer and fewer hands, we need the opposite of the Great Billionaire: We need The Great Individual. Millions of us, in communities around the world, solving our own problems, together — rather than waiting for a Great Billionaire to come to the rescue.

So What Can You Do, Next?

• We can all try to reign in any fascination we might have for the lists that track the rich. Wealth isn’t a sports game. Who should care who’s on the top of the list? Only other billionaires.
• If you want to learn about Musk’s real back story, read this piece about his time in Canada.
• As June Jordan wrote in her “Poem for South African Women” in 1980 (and echoed by Barack Obama), “We are the change we have been waiting for.” Each of us needs to engage in supporting solutions to the societal challenges that most inspire us to action.

-gB Gary A. Bolles

I’m the author of?The Next Rules of Work: The mindset, skillset, and toolset to lead your organization through uncertainty. I’m also the adjunct?Chair for the Future of Work for Singularity Group. I have over 1.3 million learners for my courses on?LinkedIn Learning. I'm a partner in the consulting firm?Charrette LLC. I’m the co-founder of?eParachute.com. I'm an original founder of?SoCap Global, and the former editorial director of 6 tech magazines. Learn more at?gbolles.com