A billionaire does things for many reasons. None of those are in your interests unless you also happen to be a billionaire.
The sooner you learn this, the sooner we can start doing something about it.
Since a couple of you asked what’s the something we can start doing about billionaires, it’s simple:
Whatever you can to make them socially unacceptable. Make being a billionaire the equivalent of wearing fur.
Don’t feed them if you can help it (easier said than done). If you must feed them, make sure people know you’re not happy about it. If there are alternatives, fund, promote, and use them. But at the very least don’t praise and glorify them and stop giving them “the benefit of the doubt.”
I don’t think the problem is billionaires but the fact that economic power easily become political power and grows in a positive feedback loop. Billionaires are a symptom but the problem is a pathological social system.
And a big part of this is people seeking for wealth, social status, visibility etc even at the lowest possible level of the pyramid.
I think a better advice is giving less importance to the narrative that everyone creates about themselves and give it to the really important things in life, including being morally upright and principled, even if no one will ever know, even if no one appreciates you, even if that means sacrificing wealth.
