Latest news with #EvanOsnos
14 hours ago
- Business
Trump is making the ‘economy of influence' beyond ‘anything people have seen': Osnos
On 'This Week,' The New Yorker's Evan Osnos and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie discuss President Trump's recent pardons and the Trump family's business ventures.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Why the Boats Got Bigger as the Rich Got Richer
Watching sweaty 13-year-olds lose their minds to a performance by rapper Flo Rida at a bar mitzvah for the son of a finance executive in 2023, Evan Osnos felt something in America had changed. For decades the richest teenagers have booked big talent for private performances, a splurge disturbingly documented by the MTV reality show My Super Sweet 16. But recent years have seen a proliferation in the number of people who can 'blow a hundred and fifty grand on a Thursday' to have the Foo Fighters play in their backyard, drummer Charles Ruggiero tells Osnos.
Fast Company
7 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Books on the ultrarich dominate the Modern CEO summer reading list
Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I'm Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Summer officially starts in a few weeks, but I've already ordered and preordered the books that will keep me company on airplanes and trips to the beach. The first Modern CEO reading list was heavy on buzzworthy titles. Last year's edition was a bit more dutiful, highlighting three works that explored the complexities of capitalism. This year, I'm diving into the lives of the ultrarich, whose impact on culture, society, and policy continues to rise. The Haves and the Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich by Evan Osnos Thanks in part to social media, consumption—of luxury goods, five-star resorts, rare wines, and the like—is increasingly conspicuous. One place where the ultrarich can avoid prying eyes? Aboard their superyachts. As Evan Osnos, a staff writer and podcast host at The New Yorker, writes of such floating mansions: 'These shrines to excess capital exist in a conditional state of visibility: they are meant to be unmistakable to a slender stratum of society—and all but unseen by everyone else.' Osnos's collection of essays promises to shed light on the excesses but also on how the rich amass and keep their wealth and the power that it affords. Personal History: A Memoir by Katharine Graham and Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein One of the biggest business stories of the year—Warren Buffett's announcement that he will step down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway—and the ongoing struggles of The Washington Post under Jeff Bezos (a superyacht owner), are prompting me to reread two great books on my bookshelf. Personal History is Graham's candid memoir of the personal and professional hurdles she had to overcome en route to becoming CEO of The Washington Post Company and one of the most admired executives in media. Lowenstein's masterful portrait of Buffett is part biography, part investing tutorial. Graham and Buffett were longtime friends, and Lowenstein seems to credit Graham with leavening some of Buffett's thrifty instincts. Stories of Buffett's frugality—his primary residence is a home he bought in Omaha in 1958 for $31,500—will surely be a good palate cleanser after the Osnos book. Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI by Karen Hao Hao, an Atlantic contributor, is one of the leading journalists covering artificial intelligence (AI), and her book promises to be an unflinching look at the potential and perils of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's ambitions for generative AI, which seem to mirror the 'move fast and break things' ethos of many tech companies. Luckily for readers, Hao seems willing to explore the unintended consequences of unfettered AI expansion, including the environmental impacts of water- and energy-hungry data centers. So Far Gone by Jess Walter Walter's latest book—my one fiction pick—has many of the things I love in novel: a road trip, multigenerational conflict, and a gruff former journalist as the protagonist. In So Far Gone, Rhys Kinnick sets off to rescue his daughter and grandchildren from a radical militia group. It's a world Walter knows well: As a journalist for the Spokane, Washington Spokesman-Review, Walter covered the 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge in Northern Idaho, which is credited with fueling the anti-government militia movement. Challenging stuff, but an early review from Ann Patchett confirms why I love Walter's writing: 'Jess Walter managed to build such a warm, funny, loving novel out of so many horrible parts.' What are you reading this summer? What's on your summer reading list? Please send the name, author, and a sentence or two about why you'd recommend it to modern leaders to stephaniemehta@ I'll publish a bonus newsletter with reader suggestions before the official start of summer.
The Guardian
26-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The Haves and Have-Yachts by Evan Osnos review – inside the world of the ultrarich
Nothing says so much about a superyacht or its owner, writes Evan Osnos, as its LOA. The initials stand for 'length over all' – or what one aficionado he interviewed calls 'phallic sizing'. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, before he got the idea of sending celebrities like Katy Perry into space, commissioned a $485m yacht called Koru. With its towering masts, the 127 metre-long boat proved too tall to pass beneath Rotterdam's famous Koningshaven Bridge, and while its manufacturers suggested dismantling the bridge, rather than the yacht, the heroes of that particular story – the Dutch – refused. I had a similar problem recently. Delivery people couldn't remove our old fridge because we had, in the interim, narrowed the hall with an understairs cupboard. In that moment, I identified with Bezos. True, as Osnos reports, one well-stocked diesel yacht can produce as much greenhouse gas as 1,500 passenger cars, while my broken fridge produces none, but the parallel remains. In this droll and timely analysis of extreme wealth, New Yorker staff writer Osnos notes that superyacht demand is outstripping supply. In some countries you have to wait for bread, water or inoculations; in others for giant sea-going vessels. In 1990, there were 66 US billionaires; by 2023 there were over 700, an increase of more than 1,000%. In the same period, the number of US yachts measuring longer than 76 metres has gone from 'less than 10 to more than 170'. Median US hourly wages, in contrast, have risen by just 20%. Maths is not my strong suit, but this suggests inequality is spiralling. There's also a spiralling inequality in political power. Trump postures as a president for blue-collar Americans, but the people who shared the stage when he took his oath of office on 20 January tell another story. In that symbolic moment Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bezos and Sergey Brin showed their influence was rising with their net worth. 'The world watched America embrace plutocracy without shame or pretence,' writes Osnos. Meanwhile, shame and pretence are in plentiful supply elsewhere. One yacht owner tells Osnos: 'No one today – except for assholes and ridiculous people – lives on land in what you would call a deep and broad luxe life. Yes, people have nice houses and all of that, but it's unlikely that the ratio of staff to them is what it is on a boat. Boats are the last place that I think you can get away with it.' In other words, the modern versions of Hearst Castle and Blenheim Palace are discreetly mobile, able to whisk themselves out of sight at a moment's notice. It dovetails nicely with a political agenda best articulated by Peter Thiel. The venture capitalist, Osnos reports, gave start-up capital to the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to create floating mini-states – part of his libertarian project to 'escape from politics in all its forms'. And, presumably, to 'get away with it'. In any event, it's not just how big your superyacht is, but what you put inside it. The latest fashions include Imax theatres, ski rooms where guests can suit up for a helicopter trip to a mountaintop, and hospital equipment that enables onboard pathogen tests. That last detail is key: Covid accelerated the desire of the super-rich to get away by any means necessary from, with due respect, plebs like you and me. The have-yachts seem to be following the Thorstein Veblen playbook. When the economist wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class in 1899, he argued that the power of 'conspicuous consumption' involved revelling in showy wastefulness. You'll be wanting a personal submarine for your yacht, not to mention eel and stingray leather for its upholstery. Osnos lists what can be delivered to your watery fastness: Zabar's bagels, rare melons from Hokkaido, Dom Pérignon, sex workers. Ocado needs to up its game. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion There's just one problem. Superyachts are a terrible asset class in that they lose value faster than you can say bonfire of the vanities. 'Owning a superyacht is like owning a stack of 10 Van Goghs,' argued the Financial Times, 'only you are holding them over your head as you tread water, trying to keep them dry.' But then again, as Veblen understood, maybe that's part of the point? The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich by Evan Osnos is published by Simon & Schuster (£22). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
