To open this topic, I’ll begin with something I heard Bill Cosby say back in 1983 when I watched him on his comedy special (this was Bill Cosby before – – – you know – – all the other stuff, back when I knew him merely as the fun guy who made Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids).
Anyway, in the routine he says that he was speaking to an entertainment executive at a party, and the man says to him, “What I like about cocaine is that it enhances your personality.” After a pause, Cosby replies, “Yes, but what if you’re an asshole?”
This was funny because, one, Bill Cosby was known as a very clean humorist, so there was a bit of shock value, and two, because, well, it’s a pretty good joke.
I was reminded of it when I was thinking about writing this post.
You see, I have been fascinated by wealth my entire life. As a kid, I subscribed to Forbes (back when it was a serious business magazine and not the laughable piece of crypto-pumping crap it is today) and distinctly remember when the Forbes 400 was first introduced.
Back in 1982, the requirement for inclusion on the list was a net worth of at least $72 million, and at the tippity-top were a dozen, count ’em, a dozen billionaires, the richest of whom had all of $2 billion and was the owner of a shipping company whose name no one would even recognize today.
We live in exceptionally different times. Now that SPCX is public, Elon Musk’s net worth may CHANGE from day to day but the entire value of all the Forbes 400 from 1982 put together. Back in 1982, you could fit all the billionaires on the entire planet inside a Greyhound bus, which would be an odd transportation choice, but there you have it. These days, it feels like becoming a billionaire has practically become commonplace.
This is a new gilded age to dwarf all the others. Part of it is that dollars are worth a lot less, of course. My own boy, high school diploma in hand, would easily qualify for the 1982 Forbes 400 list based on the parameters of the time. If 2026 Tim told that to 1982 Tim, he would be more than a little surprised (and even more puzzled by the source of the wealth).
The idea that a trillionaire even exists is kind of insane.
Some portion of the planet resents the existence of billionaires, and certainly a trillionaire. They seem to have this vague notion that the way you get a trillion dollars is to steal a trillion dollars from everyone else on the planet. Sort of a conservation of mass principle, except applied to money.
You and I know it doesn’t work that way at all. All this new wealth has been created by a combination of creativity and debt, and as a person who, as I said, is fascinated by wealth, these strike me as exceptionally bizarre times.
I have never made it big, money-wise. I live in a nice house, have no debt of any kind (not even a mortgage), so I’m very comfortably situated, but I’m not at all rich. I am, however, surrounded by wealth, and even though I’m not on the basketball court of money, I at least get a courtside seat where I can watch things up close and really get a good look at it.
Personality Parade
Getting back to the Cosby joke: the wealth we have seen created very recently has created thousands and thousands of exceptionally rich people (the vast majority of them bright young men in their 20s and maybe 30s) who never have to work again (but almost certainly will keep working, because what else are they going to do?)
These thousands and thousands of folks are not clones, however. Some are sacred. Some are profane. And there’s plenty of in-between.
Can you imagine the countless dramas, heartaches, victories, and shocks that lie ahead for this slice of the population?
There will be marriages and divorces, celebrations and betrayals, acts of generosity and also shocking displays of stinginess unworthy of anyone so unfortunate. How each of these people are born has a lot to do with it and, to a lesser degree, how they were raised.
For every good, honest, hardworking self-starter who has finally made his fortune and should be celebrated as a true example of the American way, there’s also some goddamned asshole that happened to be at the right place at the right time and got as lucky as a lottery ticker winner.
There is balance in all things.
I feel I’m in a particularly good place: I do not crave that level of wealth, and with every passing year I move to a purer state of desirelesssness, yet I get to celebrate up close and personally that someone I love, respect, and admire is right in the thick of all this.
In a way, he’s the one I feel somewhat sorry for, because his challenge is going to be able to find a way to raise his own children (none of whom exist yet) without them turning into entitled little shits. The decency of the Knight DNA can only take one so far – – and spoiling it with excess privilege is absolutely possible.
I have witnessed this in other families. When my children were much younger and went to very expensive private schools, we were among the poorest of the families there. Many of the families had huge sums of wealth, some of them being billionaires, and I’ve seen what rotten kids some of them have produced.
One which leaps to mind is the same age as my beloved son, and that young man these days is basically a straight-up loser. He has zero accomplishments and is a hopeless drug addict, burning through his parents’ cash stumbling from one failed expensive rehab to another. When we get the family Christmas card, it proudly mentions this boy as “Touring the world” in the family update, which is sort of nauseating when you realize the kid is just a total fuck-up and will probably not live past his 20s, although maybe he’ll manage to survive and burn through his family’s fortune with continuous screw-ups.
Touring the world, my ass.
I can only hope that the kind of upbringing we provided to our own brood will keep them well-anchored in good values and decency. From what I’ve seen so far, this has been absolutely the case. They are, each of them, industrious, intelligent, and well-principled, and by God they know that dogs are vastly better than people, which is the first lesson this household provides.
Big money can be used for good things (think MacKenzie Scott) or vapid, airheaded vanity (think Lauren Sanchez). The two trillion dollars of wealth that has popped into existence from SpaceX will be both.
Some of this recent wealth will go lead to bad places, though, I guarantee it. Keep this great truth in mind, because many of the recipients of these new fortunes will not:
