From Gates to Musk: Can good billionaires exist?

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Billionaires are often praised as disruptive innovators, philanthropists, or brilliant problem solvers – but they’re also a clear sign of growing inequality. So, are they ever truly a force for good? Today in The Bunker, Zing Tsjeng is joined by Carl Rhodes, Dean of the UTS Business School at the University of Technology Sydney and author of Stinking Rich, to answer the question: is there such a thing as a good billionaire? Buy Stinking Rich: The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund The Bunker by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. • We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit. www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Zing Tsjeng. Producer: Liam Tait. Audio editors: Simon Williams. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Instagram | Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:45.2	Hello and welcome back to The Bunker, your daily dose of news and politics explainers.
0:46.2	I'm Zeng Singh.
0:50.0	Billionaires, love them or hate them, they are all over the news.
0:57.0	There isn't a day that goes by without Elon Musk being in the headlines, thanks to its reign over Aix and Tesla and maybe the US government.
1:03.6	Donald Trump got sworn in as a bunch of billionaires, including Musk, but also Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, watched on.
1:07.8	The last British Prime Minister, Rishi Sienak, was married to a billionaire's daughter.
1:11.1	So these days, you simply can't get away from the ultra rich.
1:15.8	There are more billionaires in the world right now than at any other point in human history.
1:22.5	At present, there are almost 2,800 of them, and it seems like they're flexing their political muscle more than ever.
1:26.2	They are also the subject of my BBC podcast, Good Bad billionaire,
1:28.1	which is why I'm delighted to be in the bunker today to speak to an expert on the subject. Cal Rhodes is the dean of UTS Business
1:33.2	School in Sydney, and he's the author of Stinking Rich, The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire.
1:38.4	He'll be helping me answer questions like, what does the existence of sky high net worth individuals
1:43.7	mean for our society and our
1:45.9	democracy? Should they be celebrated or taxed out of existence? And what exactly is up with Mark Zuckerberg's
1:52.3	new look? Thanks for joining me in the bunker, Kyle. Great to be here, Zing. So billionaires feel like a
	...

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