“Ah, so you’re Zuckerberging?” his friend, a Northern California–based private equity manager, asked wryly.
As our table graduated from wine to tequila, the men were warming up. They began talking about the Besties. At the end of the day, they all agreed: The Besties were truly amazing guys, but they were not perfect; far from it. In fact, the investment history of one of the Besties was, generally speaking, borderline predatory: “At the end of the day, it’s bad taste to dump on retail,” the venture capitalist told me. “We’re long-term greedy, and even we would never do that.”
It was becoming increasingly clear that these guys did not want to be besties with the Besties. They wanted to be the Besties. And why shouldn’t they? These men, like the Besties, were rich. Unlike the Besties, they were only vaguely powerful. But this was what the Besties had done best, the men all agreed: accumulated power. They had practically bought the presidency. And it was budget-friendly! “What do you think that cost, about half a billion?” one wondered.
What made the Besties all the more remarkable, they pointed out, was that they were self-made. “I am a self-made man,” the third guy who worked in private equity told me. This guy had single-handedly scaled the ranks of our finest institutions; he had attended an Ivy League university and toiled for years among distinguished corporate mercenaries like himself until finally arriving at the pinnacle of American success, as a middle-aged money manager.
“But your friends tell me you grew up very sophisticated,” I said.
“It was my grandfather who made all the money,” he corrected me. “I grew up with zero. Literally zero.”
Many in the All-In audience credited Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, pictured here with the president at a “coffee ceremony,” for revitalizing the country, a dismembered journalist notwithstanding.Win McNamee/Getty Images.
Aside from being self-made, these guys—again, like the Besties— knew a thing or two about the world. For instance, they were fans of Mohammed bin Salman who, in their opinion, had revitalized Saudi Arabia. Sure, the guy’s track record wasn’t perfect, but, c’mon, “you have to hack up a journalist from time to time,” said the venture capitalist. “That’s just politics.”
There was nothing unusual about the tenor of this conversation, nor the fact that casual accusations of racism kept coming up at our table. (“This shorty hates the Blacks,” the self-made guy said more than once, hurling a thumb at the Asian girlboss founder. “Oh my god!” she tittered. “I do not.”) These days, anyone could say just about anything and nobody really cared.
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