I'll never understand "ambitious" billionaires.

[Aristus]

Stop trying to change life as we know it. Stop trying to change the world as we know it. Stop fucking up people’s lives. Stop trying to re-invent the wheel. Stop with those stupid fucking boom-mic-to-the-mouth TED talks. Stop trying to be the “only guy who can fix it”. Stop buying greedy, scheming politicians.

You’ve got all the money in the world. Go lay out under a palm tree in The Bahamas. Travel the world. Meet people. But a round of drinks for the whole bar. Play Santa at a homeless shelter for children. See an opera in every major opera city in the world. Go on safari and bring a camera, not a gun. Live incognito at a small hotel in a tiny village in Scotland for a month. Attend a tribal dance festival in Kenya. Visit the great religious structures of the world; cathedrals, mosques, temples, stone circles, etc. Ride a glider over the Alps. Attend Oktoberfest in Munich. Take a trans-Canada train trip in a sleeper car. Do a road trip across the United States. Hop a ride-along on a truck-train through the Outback. Pay your respects at the My Lai Massacre Memorial in Vietnam. Observe a few quiet moments at the site of the village of Lidiče in the Czech Republic.

There are so many things you can do with unlimited funds other than colossally fuck up the only world we have.

[Coventina]

1. There are no ethical billionaires. N/t

[PeaceWave]

4. I think OP is trying to preserve the sanctity of one particular billionaire possibly running for President.

Hence the limiting term "ambitious." That said, if you're going to run for President, how could you not be construed to be "ambitious?"

[calimary]

7. Who might that be?

Seriously. I’m not being flippant at you OR derisive against you. What am I missing?

[IbogaProject]

9. JB Pritzker is one too

I like him better than Newsome.

[S/V Loner]

2. I think their entire life is about...

making money. Not actual making products but the focus is making money. When they get to the point they have way more money than it is possible to spend, and all the wealth adulation they need, then their focus turns to power. Not actually using power to do something good but simply the accumulation of power. At that point they combine the two, money and power, to make even more money.
It is a sickness.

[ThoughtCriminal]

3. It's not just what billionaires do with their money

It's what they do to people to become billionaires. And once they reach a certain level - my guess is it happens in the mid tens-of-millions, something sems to snap mentally - they lose empathy, in fact, hate empathy, and they get into a mode where no amount of money satisfies them.

[Diamond_Dog]

5. They figure since they have billions of dollars

That makes them oh so extra special and that gives them the right to force their misguided idea of what a society should prioritize onto us regular folk, because gosh they made billions! So they are experts on everything!

[mopinko]

6. messiah complex.

ya know, ordinary ppl wish they cd remake the world. i have a dear friend, a granny, and whenever we get together, we always talk about what we’d do if we had a magic wand.
my dad used to do it, too. he had a couple pals, they called themselves ‘the problem solvers’. they’d walk around the block, beers in hand, and discuss all the ways they’d fix everything.

the trouble w most billionaires is that they dont want to fix things, they want to build the world around themselves. make themselves a god. 1 in a thousand, maybe, have that human desire to make things better.
i think a lot of them started out decent, but the shit they did to get that rich rotted their souls.

[Marie Marie]

8. Once you have more money than you will ever need, the next thing to amass is power.

[Mblaze]

10. Or to quote the Chili Peppers

🎶 "Give it away - give it away - give it away now.

[rhiannon55]

11. Aristus, this is a beautiful piece of writing

I love your ideas about the many different wonderful things people who have more money than they can ever spend can do. I wish they kept their empathy on their way to the top. Imagine what one could do with an abundance of empathy, along with all that money.

[BurnDoubt]

12. Cutizens United

This is where the World went haywire.
This enshrined money as Power.
Corporations ARE NOT PEOPLE.
They don't have a heartbeat.
Only a Citizen with a heartbeat is entitled to ONE VOTE, if they are duly Registered.
Citizens United confounds this principle, as they can use the power of their Wealth to drown-out the competition, unfairly swaying opinions and obfuscating facts to potential voters. This has been vividly revealed in the evolution of political strategy since it was blessed by a Conservative Court.
This must be ended.