Post on The Atlantic by Noah Hawley (from the shows Fargo and Alien Earth) about the world that billionaires live in and how they become immune to the normal limitations that normally affect...
Post on The Atlantic by Noah Hawley (from the shows Fargo and Alien Earth) about the world that billionaires live in and how they become immune to the normal limitations that normally affect humans.
In 2018, I was a guest at Jeff Bezos’s Campfire retreat in Santa Barbara, California. It’s an annual event in which the Amazon founder invites 80-plus guests—celebrities, artists, intellectuals, and anyone else he thinks is interesting—to spend three nights at a private resort. I had recently been approached by Amazon about moving my film-and-television business over from Disney, and although I had declined (or maybe because I had declined), Bezos’s team invited me to Campfire, perhaps keen to impress me with the power of his reach.
...
When Peter Thiel said, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” he wasn’t talking about your freedom. He was talking about his own. You don’t exist. When Musk took a chainsaw to the federal government as part of the inside joke he called DOGE, he did so with the air of a man who believed that nothing matters—poverty, chaos, human suffering. He was having fun. It didn’t even matter that the entire destructive exercise ultimately yielded no practical financial gains. For him, the outcome was a foregone conclusion: He could only win, because losing had lost its meaning.
Since the 2024 election, there has been a philosophical shift on the right, and especially among tech billionaires, to vilify the idea of empathy. Musk has called empathy “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.” He sees it as a weapon wielded by liberal society to bludgeon otherwise rational people into operating against their own interests. Empathy is something done to you by others—a vulnerability they exploit, a back door through which they gain access to your resources and will. This rejection of empathy as a human value gives cover to people who don’t want to feel anything at all. If empathy is the problem, then lack of it isn’t a deficiency—it’s an advantage.
The world has always been run by rich men. The robber barons of the Gilded Age were known for their ruthlessness in the accumulation of wealth—hiring Pinkertons to shoot striking unionists. But they directly engaged with the world around them, using their wealth and power to muscle it into its most profitable form. And although today’s billionaires are clearly manipulating society to maximize their own profit, something else is also happening—a disassociation from the reality of cause and effect, from meaning and history. These men no longer feel the need to change the world in order to succeed, because their success is guaranteed, no matter what happens to the rest of us.
It’s a great read and it’s definitely tugging at some truths… but I feel like something’s missing from the analysis. It explains why billionaires can do whatever they want, how money and cause and...
It’s a great read and it’s definitely tugging at some truths… but I feel like something’s missing from the analysis. It explains why billionaires can do whatever they want, how money and cause and effect become meaningless, and how this leads billionaires to completely detach from their humanity and shared existence with the rest of the planet.
But it doesn’t explain why they become EVIL. Why they get into bed with corrupt politicians; go into the businesses of mass surveillance, war profiteering, propaganda, and data brokerage; buddy up with the rogues gallery of Russian oligarchs and Gulf state journalist-sawing royals. Particularly for the bootstrappy ones like Bezos that came up in America (or any western nation) where they personally benefited from the ideals of democracy, what drives them to undermine those values, to pull the ladder up behind themselves and actively use their wealth and influence to steer the world into an oppressive dystopic hellscape of a future? I get that they can do that, but why they fuck DO they?? They weren’t born supervillains, but at some point they had the thought: I can do literally anything, and what I choose to do… is this. Because reasons.
Why don’t they choose differently? Why isn’t there a single billionaire in the world leveraging the same degree of wealth and influence to actually end world poverty? I’m talking about earnest, big project energy, not PR philanthropy or shady self-enrichment schemes disguised as altruism. They could choose good… they just don’t.
The Bill Gates foundation has done a massive amount of good! I think the reason that nobody has ended poverty is that that's not a realistic goal by any stretch of the imagination. Here's an...
Why isn’t there a single billionaire in the world leveraging the same degree of wealth and influence to actually end world poverty?
The Bill Gates foundation has done a massive amount of good! I think the reason that nobody has ended poverty is that that's not a realistic goal by any stretch of the imagination.
Here's an (AI-generated) list of billionaires who have donated over $1B of their personal fortunes, with sources.
Warren Buffett — the top philanthropist for five consecutive years, with $62 billion given over his lifetime (about 30% of his net worth), donating $5.3 billion in 2024 alone. Philanthropy News Digest
Bill & Melinda French Gates — the most famous philanthropists in the world, with a lifetime total of around $32.91 billion given TFN through the Gates Foundation.
MacKenzie Scott — has donated an estimated $26 billion across more than 2,700 gifts since 2020, representing about 46% of her net worth, including $7.2 billion in 2025 alone. Fortune
George Soros — has given away a larger percentage of his current net worth than most major donors on the Forbes list (76%), Philanthropy News Digest with total giving well over $30 billion to his Open Society Foundations.
Michael Bloomberg — has parted with over $10 billion, including a $1.8 billion donation to Johns Hopkins University in 2018, Love Money and led the Chronicle of Philanthropy's top 50 list for 2024 and 2025.
Chuck Feeney — donated his entire $9 billion fortune to good causes, with 2020 being the year he finally achieved his lifelong aim of giving it all away. Love Money
Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan — directed $1.11 billion in 2024 to foundations and donor-advised funds Chronicle of Philanthropy , part of a much larger lifetime commitment through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Michael Bloomberg (already noted), Eli Broad — donated around $4 billion during his lifetime to educational grants and arts initiatives, including a record-breaking $100 million gift to Yale's Business School. Love Money
Gordon Moore — gave $4.22 billion (57% of his net worth) through the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. TFN
John & Laura Arnold — have given over $2 billion to date since signing the Giving Pledge in 2010, currently the only signatories technically in full compliance with its terms, with their donations amounting to about 42% of their wealth. Fortune
Herbert & Marion Sandler — donated more than $1.3 billion during their lifetimes to causes including civil liberties and the launch of ProPublica. Love Money
Reed Hastings — directed $1.6 billion in 2024 to foundations and donor-advised funds, Chronicle of Philanthropy part of a growing philanthropic commitment.
A few caveats worth noting: tracking actual disbursed giving vs. pledges or transfers to donor-advised funds is genuinely difficult. Many participants channel philanthropy through private family foundations or donor-advised funds that enable immediate tax benefits while allowing disbursements over time Wikipedia — meaning money "donated" can sit for years before reaching actual charities. In total, American billionaires have publicly donated or pledged around $185 billion over the past decade — only about 3.25% of their combined $5.7 trillion in wealth. Fortune
For what it's worth on that last bit, I felt it was worth including for context but that wealth figure is a little sketchy. It's paper wealth, not real wealth.
Particularly for the bootstrappy ones like Bezos that came up in America (or any western nation) where they personally benefited from the ideals of democracy, what drives them to undermine those values, to pull the ladder up behind themselves and actively use their wealth and influence to steer the world into an oppressive dystopic hellscape of a future?
Bezos privately funded the Washington Post at great expense to keep it alive. I think "actively trying to make the world a hellscape" is a bit of a stretch, you know?
I don't know enough about charity funding to really discuss the rest of your comment, but this is such a disingenuous framing of what Bezos has been doing with the Post that I'm genuinely...
Bezos privately funded the Washington Post at great expense to keep it alive.
I don't know enough about charity funding to really discuss the rest of your comment, but this is such a disingenuous framing of what Bezos has been doing with the Post that I'm genuinely surprised you posted it without any sort of caveat acknowledging the widely-criticized moves he's made there.
Agreed. To be very explicit: Bezos bought the Washington Post to control the content. To see a very blatant change in the content, notice the Washington Post has endorsed a Democrat for President...
Agreed. To be very explicit: Bezos bought the Washington Post to control the content.
To see a very blatant change in the content, notice the Washington Post has endorsed a Democrat for President in most of the elections before Bezos took over:
Year
Candidate
Party
1976
Jimmy Carter
Democratic
1980
No Endorsement
-
1984
Walter Mondale
Democratic
1988
No Endorsement
-
1992
Bill Clinton
Democratic
1996
Bill Clinton
Democratic
2000
Al Gore
Democratic
2004
John Kerry
Democratic
2008
Barack Obama
Democratic
2012
Barack Obama
Democratic
2016
Hillary Clinton
Democratic
2020
Joe Biden
Democratic
2024
No Endorsement
-
Most of mainstream media has been bought by billionaires. They use it to manufacture consent. They use it to increase the already massive power that they have.
Similarly, Musk bought Twitter. Some people were mocking him at the time because he's been driving Twitter into the ground and it isn't profiting. But authoritarian governments have benefited from the demise of twitter, which had previously been used to organize protests, call out dishonest politicians, and do some other good things (along with the shallow and dumb things that have always dominated it).
The NYT's profile on Bezos's ownership of the post is worth reading. I wouldn't call it positive, exactly, but it's a more neutral overview of Bezos's tenure. The more negative view, for balance,...
The NYT's profile on Bezos's ownership of the post is worth reading. I wouldn't call it positive, exactly, but it's a more neutral overview of Bezos's tenure. The more negative view, for balance, obviously can be found in the Atlantic.
It can be both at the same time. I would believe that Bezos bought the Post for those kinds of reasons - the reality is that once he resigned as CEO of Amazon, he would be pretty bored. Keeping a...
It can be both at the same time. I would believe that Bezos bought the Post for those kinds of reasons - the reality is that once he resigned as CEO of Amazon, he would be pretty bored. Keeping a storied newspaper alive is the kind of legacy building that rich people are known for - just look at how many things are named Carnegie to this day.
But, in the end, Blue Origin was what really became his pet project, and where he poured his money. Eventually WaPo became a liability, because WaPo angering Trump = Trump denying his actual favorite company, Blue Origin, from government contracts.
I can believe Bezos's motivations were more of a mixed bag than where the Post has ultimately ended up, but it's framing it as purely benevolent without even mentioning that he's made some...
I can believe Bezos's motivations were more of a mixed bag than where the Post has ultimately ended up, but it's framing it as purely benevolent without even mentioning that he's made some controversial moves with the paper that I take issue with.
Not AI generated (you could at least do your own research) list of why people who donate money aren't necessarily "not evil" or "good" or whatever moral lever you want to use. Warren Buffett,...
Not AI generated (you could at least do your own research) list of why people who donate money aren't necessarily "not evil" or "good" or whatever moral lever you want to use.
Warren Buffett, Melinda French Gates, MacKenzie Scott -
These are very rich people, two of whom got their billions in the divorce. I can't say whether they're evil, but they're not getting much (if any) poorer despite their pledges to donate their money. They do seem to be at least remaining multi-billionaires at about the same level or making more and more money. Is that even ethical? That's more of a philosophical question.
Bill Gates - All of the monopoly/business practices issues with Microsoft, and a significant enough connection to Epstein to lead his wife to divorce him. Including apparently multiple affairs. While some of the specific new allegations are not true, this connection is not new.
George Soros - the man was absolutely awful for financial markets, but like, not in a way that's good for the people. He was short selling billions of other currencies, to the point of causing crises for his own gain and was convicted of insider trading.
Is he good because he donated to political causes I agree with? Or still functionally a negative for society?
Michael Bloomberg - for someone who wants to close tax avoidance schemes he's set up a lot of trusts to protect the money going to his heirs. He was a sexist pig (to the point that his company was described as a frat house) and commented that if computers could provide oral sex they'd put women out of work entirely; he also seems to support whatever way the wind blows (including mass surveillance and stop and frisk until he doesn't).
Is he evil? I don't know that I can say he's "not evil".
Chuck Feeney —
Afaict he was never technically a billionaire, having put his shares into a foundation before it sold for lots of money. Props.
Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan — directed $1.11 billion in 2024 to foundations and donor-advised funds Chronicle of Philanthropy , part of a much larger lifetime commitment through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
I mean, we can start with stealing the idea for Facebook, which was also motivated by looking at women, trying to pressure the Crimson not to publish and hacking the editors' email accounts. Lota of things he settled over for a lot of money in court
Lying about viewership numbers on Facebook videos leading to the destruction of indie shows, purchasing land in Hawaii while suing hundreds of native Hawaiians to take their land because he "didn't know the laws were different there" and gating off land that to be frank was just more recently stolen than the rest of the US. Actively profiting off of the spreading of hate speech, misinformation, propaganda - to the point that I'm not sure they've gotten close to donating enough to recompense. Refusing to protect teen mental health, immediately being misogynistic when Trump took office... This is a very high level summary.
John Arnold
Accused of deliberately manipulating gas price indices while at Enron, getting a very large bonus right before they declared bankruptcy. Despite Enron (and similar) companies being largely responsible for the pension shortfalls in CA, pushes heavily for "pension reform" (aka cuts) and has no regrets about Enron. Some of that grant work isn't great either such as supporting aerial police surveillance.
Is he evil? He gives me the ick, but idk you decide.
Herbert & Marion Sandler —
Herbert's firm nearly killed Wachovia in 2008 (who cares about Wachovia? Not really me but they got their bag and sold the sub-prime crisis on to the taxpayers). They supported pre-payment penalties and invented a mortgage whose payments were lower than the interest. Idk that one can call them particularly "not evil".
Reed Hastings — I could flag a number of things about Netflix, being ont eh Anthropic board, or turning half a mountain into a private ski resort. He also hasn't donated that much - he's only a little billionaire but he's made sure he remains one.
I don't know what point makes someone "not evil" for being a billionaire. And I didn't dig through some of their pasts further. But notably, they haven't ended world poverty. Many of them are richer now than they were when they pledged their money away, most are at least as rich. The point of the article is that you cannot end up broke, and that seems to be true.
I think the theme of the article is that being good requires empathy, and empathy requires you to imagine losing something, and that seems to be a muscle that needs constant exercise. I'm not sure...
I think the theme of the article is that being good requires empathy, and empathy requires you to imagine losing something, and that seems to be a muscle that needs constant exercise. I'm not sure if I'm convinced of this either, but that seems to be Hawley's theme.
Except I'm guessing the kind of person who would become a billionaire is already a person who doesn't have the normal level of ethics and behavior. At best, they are hoarders, but wealth hoarders instead of random garbage like you see in the TV series about hoarding.
It's possible there are some "good" billionaires now but we don't hear about them too much except for "accidental billionaires" like MacKenzie Scott (Bezos' ex-wife), who donated $19 billion since 2019.
When we see things like Carnegie Hall we might think that previous generation's wealthy were better, but in that example I'm pretty sure he was a terrible person his whole life until he decided he "won".
Someone with altruistic impulses is much less likely to become a billionaire in the first place. They would make a transition from generating additional wealth to maintaining or drawing down their...
Someone with altruistic impulses is much less likely to become a billionaire in the first place. They would make a transition from generating additional wealth to maintaining or drawing down their assets well before reaching ten figure's worth of assets.
As R3qn65 brought up, there are a lot of not-evil billionaires. But the process of becoming a billionaire selects out the most sociable humans, and the end result is a concentration of personalities harmful to the general good that is many multiples of the rate of the general population.
What did he learn eight years ago in Santa Barabara? ... ... ... And that's about it as far as reporting goes. The rest of it doesn't seem to be about Bezos? To pad it out, there's a bit about...
What did he learn eight years ago in Santa Barabara?
It turns out there is a circuit of idea festivals. Many tech billionaires host one, and if you find yourself on the right list, you can spend much of the year traveling the world, eating Wagyu, and discussing how to make the world a better place [...]
...
Bezos was everywhere that weekend—in a tight T-shirt, laughing too loudly, arms thrown around his teenage sons.
...
Though we didn’t know it at the time, Bezos’s first marriage would be over a few weeks later. My defining impression of his wife that weekend was sadness, even though Bezos made a big show of performing the role of family man.
...
[W]hen I told him [that his wife had broken her wrist], Bezos looked horrified. He did not say “I’m so sorry.” He did not say “Do you need anything?” Instead, he made a face, and in an instant, an aide came and whisked him away.
And that's about it as far as reporting goes. The rest of it doesn't seem to be about Bezos?
To pad it out, there's a bit about There Will Be Blood, a Trump quote, a Peter Thiel quote, and some pontificating based on that.
The headline doesn't imply it to be about Bezos at all, so I don't understand your confusion. It's a lot about the experience at this event, and how that led the author to these other conclusions,...
The headline doesn't imply it to be about Bezos at all, so I don't understand your confusion. It's a lot about the experience at this event, and how that led the author to these other conclusions, especially in light of more recent events.
But it wasn't about Bezos, it's "what I learned about Billionaires..."
Why does he have to meet billionaires to learn things about them? For example, This doesn't require meeting anyone at all, but the experience still would leave an impression on me. I think your...
Why does he have to meet billionaires to learn things about them? For example,
Bezos had bought out the entire Biltmore resort for the weekend, as well as the beach club across the street. He had brought in a security firm from Las Vegas to ensure our safety and privacy. Even the weather felt expensive, and when we were shown to our rooms, the designer gift bags we found were filled with luxury goods.
This doesn't require meeting anyone at all, but the experience still would leave an impression on me.
I think your summary was reductive and ignored basically the entire point of the article which has very little to do with meeting Bezos, and a lot to do with Bezos' and other billionaires' disconnect from the rules that govern everyone else, including not doubting whether they belonged in a space.
It's absolutely possible to criticize the article - Noah Hawley sure is rubbing elbows with other rich people, his business was being courted too. Why talk about this now, did he talk about it before? And his connections may help him make his Star Trek movie or whatever else he's working on. But your read seems to seriously misunderstand the writing at face value.
Well, "what I learned at anon billionaire's retreat" is less attractive a headline. It can be excused though, like, "what I learned about Japan (from inside Narita Airport during a one hour...
Well, "what I learned at anon billionaire's retreat" is less attractive a headline. It can be excused though, like, "what I learned about Japan (from inside Narita Airport during a one hour layover)" kind of way.
Post on The Atlantic by Noah Hawley (from the shows Fargo and Alien Earth) about the world that billionaires live in and how they become immune to the normal limitations that normally affect humans.
...
It’s a great read and it’s definitely tugging at some truths… but I feel like something’s missing from the analysis. It explains why billionaires can do whatever they want, how money and cause and effect become meaningless, and how this leads billionaires to completely detach from their humanity and shared existence with the rest of the planet.
But it doesn’t explain why they become EVIL. Why they get into bed with corrupt politicians; go into the businesses of mass surveillance, war profiteering, propaganda, and data brokerage; buddy up with the rogues gallery of Russian oligarchs and Gulf state journalist-sawing royals. Particularly for the bootstrappy ones like Bezos that came up in America (or any western nation) where they personally benefited from the ideals of democracy, what drives them to undermine those values, to pull the ladder up behind themselves and actively use their wealth and influence to steer the world into an oppressive dystopic hellscape of a future? I get that they can do that, but why they fuck DO they?? They weren’t born supervillains, but at some point they had the thought: I can do literally anything, and what I choose to do… is this. Because reasons.
Why don’t they choose differently? Why isn’t there a single billionaire in the world leveraging the same degree of wealth and influence to actually end world poverty? I’m talking about earnest, big project energy, not PR philanthropy or shady self-enrichment schemes disguised as altruism. They could choose good… they just don’t.
The Bill Gates foundation has done a massive amount of good! I think the reason that nobody has ended poverty is that that's not a realistic goal by any stretch of the imagination.
Here's an (AI-generated) list of billionaires who have donated over $1B of their personal fortunes, with sources.
Warren Buffett — the top philanthropist for five consecutive years, with $62 billion given over his lifetime (about 30% of his net worth), donating $5.3 billion in 2024 alone. Philanthropy News Digest
Bill & Melinda French Gates — the most famous philanthropists in the world, with a lifetime total of around $32.91 billion given TFN through the Gates Foundation.
MacKenzie Scott — has donated an estimated $26 billion across more than 2,700 gifts since 2020, representing about 46% of her net worth, including $7.2 billion in 2025 alone. Fortune
George Soros — has given away a larger percentage of his current net worth than most major donors on the Forbes list (76%), Philanthropy News Digest with total giving well over $30 billion to his Open Society Foundations.
Michael Bloomberg — has parted with over $10 billion, including a $1.8 billion donation to Johns Hopkins University in 2018, Love Money and led the Chronicle of Philanthropy's top 50 list for 2024 and 2025.
Chuck Feeney — donated his entire $9 billion fortune to good causes, with 2020 being the year he finally achieved his lifelong aim of giving it all away. Love Money
Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan — directed $1.11 billion in 2024 to foundations and donor-advised funds Chronicle of Philanthropy , part of a much larger lifetime commitment through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Michael Bloomberg (already noted), Eli Broad — donated around $4 billion during his lifetime to educational grants and arts initiatives, including a record-breaking $100 million gift to Yale's Business School. Love Money
Gordon Moore — gave $4.22 billion (57% of his net worth) through the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. TFN
John & Laura Arnold — have given over $2 billion to date since signing the Giving Pledge in 2010, currently the only signatories technically in full compliance with its terms, with their donations amounting to about 42% of their wealth. Fortune
Herbert & Marion Sandler — donated more than $1.3 billion during their lifetimes to causes including civil liberties and the launch of ProPublica. Love Money
Reed Hastings — directed $1.6 billion in 2024 to foundations and donor-advised funds, Chronicle of Philanthropy part of a growing philanthropic commitment.
A few caveats worth noting: tracking actual disbursed giving vs. pledges or transfers to donor-advised funds is genuinely difficult. Many participants channel philanthropy through private family foundations or donor-advised funds that enable immediate tax benefits while allowing disbursements over time Wikipedia — meaning money "donated" can sit for years before reaching actual charities. In total, American billionaires have publicly donated or pledged around $185 billion over the past decade — only about 3.25% of their combined $5.7 trillion in wealth. Fortune
For what it's worth on that last bit, I felt it was worth including for context but that wealth figure is a little sketchy. It's paper wealth, not real wealth.
Bezos privately funded the Washington Post at great expense to keep it alive. I think "actively trying to make the world a hellscape" is a bit of a stretch, you know?
I don't know enough about charity funding to really discuss the rest of your comment, but this is such a disingenuous framing of what Bezos has been doing with the Post that I'm genuinely surprised you posted it without any sort of caveat acknowledging the widely-criticized moves he's made there.
Agreed. To be very explicit: Bezos bought the Washington Post to control the content.
To see a very blatant change in the content, notice the Washington Post has endorsed a Democrat for President in most of the elections before Bezos took over:
Most of mainstream media has been bought by billionaires. They use it to manufacture consent. They use it to increase the already massive power that they have.
Similarly, Musk bought Twitter. Some people were mocking him at the time because he's been driving Twitter into the ground and it isn't profiting. But authoritarian governments have benefited from the demise of twitter, which had previously been used to organize protests, call out dishonest politicians, and do some other good things (along with the shallow and dumb things that have always dominated it).
The NYT's profile on Bezos's ownership of the post is worth reading. I wouldn't call it positive, exactly, but it's a more neutral overview of Bezos's tenure. The more negative view, for balance, obviously can be found in the Atlantic.
It can be both at the same time. I would believe that Bezos bought the Post for those kinds of reasons - the reality is that once he resigned as CEO of Amazon, he would be pretty bored. Keeping a storied newspaper alive is the kind of legacy building that rich people are known for - just look at how many things are named Carnegie to this day.
But, in the end, Blue Origin was what really became his pet project, and where he poured his money. Eventually WaPo became a liability, because WaPo angering Trump = Trump denying his actual favorite company, Blue Origin, from government contracts.
I can believe Bezos's motivations were more of a mixed bag than where the Post has ultimately ended up, but it's framing it as purely benevolent without even mentioning that he's made some controversial moves with the paper that I take issue with.
Not AI generated (you could at least do your own research) list of why people who donate money aren't necessarily "not evil" or "good" or whatever moral lever you want to use.
Warren Buffett, Melinda French Gates, MacKenzie Scott -
These are very rich people, two of whom got their billions in the divorce. I can't say whether they're evil, but they're not getting much (if any) poorer despite their pledges to donate their money. They do seem to be at least remaining multi-billionaires at about the same level or making more and more money. Is that even ethical? That's more of a philosophical question.
Bill Gates - All of the monopoly/business practices issues with Microsoft, and a significant enough connection to Epstein to lead his wife to divorce him. Including apparently multiple affairs. While some of the specific new allegations are not true, this connection is not new.
George Soros - the man was absolutely awful for financial markets, but like, not in a way that's good for the people. He was short selling billions of other currencies, to the point of causing crises for his own gain and was convicted of insider trading.
Is he good because he donated to political causes I agree with? Or still functionally a negative for society?
Is he evil? I don't know that I can say he's "not evil".
Afaict he was never technically a billionaire, having put his shares into a foundation before it sold for lots of money. Props.
I mean, we can start with stealing the idea for Facebook, which was also motivated by looking at women, trying to pressure the Crimson not to publish and hacking the editors' email accounts. Lota of things he settled over for a lot of money in court
Lying about viewership numbers on Facebook videos leading to the destruction of indie shows, purchasing land in Hawaii while suing hundreds of native Hawaiians to take their land because he "didn't know the laws were different there" and gating off land that to be frank was just more recently stolen than the rest of the US. Actively profiting off of the spreading of hate speech, misinformation, propaganda - to the point that I'm not sure they've gotten close to donating enough to recompense. Refusing to protect teen mental health, immediately being misogynistic when Trump took office... This is a very high level summary.
Accused of deliberately manipulating gas price indices while at Enron, getting a very large bonus right before they declared bankruptcy. Despite Enron (and similar) companies being largely responsible for the pension shortfalls in CA, pushes heavily for "pension reform" (aka cuts) and has no regrets about Enron. Some of that grant work isn't great either such as supporting aerial police surveillance.
Is he evil? He gives me the ick, but idk you decide.
Herbert & Marion Sandler —
Herbert's firm nearly killed Wachovia in 2008 (who cares about Wachovia? Not really me but they got their bag and sold the sub-prime crisis on to the taxpayers). They supported pre-payment penalties and invented a mortgage whose payments were lower than the interest. Idk that one can call them particularly "not evil".
Reed Hastings — I could flag a number of things about Netflix, being ont eh Anthropic board, or turning half a mountain into a private ski resort. He also hasn't donated that much - he's only a little billionaire but he's made sure he remains one.
I don't know what point makes someone "not evil" for being a billionaire. And I didn't dig through some of their pasts further. But notably, they haven't ended world poverty. Many of them are richer now than they were when they pledged their money away, most are at least as rich. The point of the article is that you cannot end up broke, and that seems to be true.
I think the theme of the article is that being good requires empathy, and empathy requires you to imagine losing something, and that seems to be a muscle that needs constant exercise. I'm not sure if I'm convinced of this either, but that seems to be Hawley's theme.
Except I'm guessing the kind of person who would become a billionaire is already a person who doesn't have the normal level of ethics and behavior. At best, they are hoarders, but wealth hoarders instead of random garbage like you see in the TV series about hoarding.
It's possible there are some "good" billionaires now but we don't hear about them too much except for "accidental billionaires" like MacKenzie Scott (Bezos' ex-wife), who donated $19 billion since 2019.
When we see things like Carnegie Hall we might think that previous generation's wealthy were better, but in that example I'm pretty sure he was a terrible person his whole life until he decided he "won".
Someone with altruistic impulses is much less likely to become a billionaire in the first place. They would make a transition from generating additional wealth to maintaining or drawing down their assets well before reaching ten figure's worth of assets.
As R3qn65 brought up, there are a lot of not-evil billionaires. But the process of becoming a billionaire selects out the most sociable humans, and the end result is a concentration of personalities harmful to the general good that is many multiples of the rate of the general population.
What did he learn eight years ago in Santa Barabara?
...
...
...
And that's about it as far as reporting goes. The rest of it doesn't seem to be about Bezos?
To pad it out, there's a bit about There Will Be Blood, a Trump quote, a Peter Thiel quote, and some pontificating based on that.
The headline doesn't imply it to be about Bezos at all, so I don't understand your confusion. It's a lot about the experience at this event, and how that led the author to these other conclusions, especially in light of more recent events.
But it wasn't about Bezos, it's "what I learned about Billionaires..."
If he met any other billionaires, they're not named or described in any detail. It sounds like he met some celebrities, though?
Why does he have to meet billionaires to learn things about them? For example,
This doesn't require meeting anyone at all, but the experience still would leave an impression on me.
I think your summary was reductive and ignored basically the entire point of the article which has very little to do with meeting Bezos, and a lot to do with Bezos' and other billionaires' disconnect from the rules that govern everyone else, including not doubting whether they belonged in a space.
It's absolutely possible to criticize the article - Noah Hawley sure is rubbing elbows with other rich people, his business was being courted too. Why talk about this now, did he talk about it before? And his connections may help him make his Star Trek movie or whatever else he's working on. But your read seems to seriously misunderstand the writing at face value.
Well, "what I learned at anon billionaire's retreat" is less attractive a headline. It can be excused though, like, "what I learned about Japan (from inside Narita Airport during a one hour layover)" kind of way.