David Rubenstein: belief

Transcript context

…It is my intuition that the billionaires I know are quite different from the multimillionaires. What do you think actually makes that difference in terms of temperament or character? Well, of course, a billion isn’t what it used to be. Now it’s a term of derision. It used to be, if he’s a billionaire, you’d say, “Wow, you’re an accomplished businessperson.” Now it’s a term of derision everywhere because people say, “He’s a billionaire. These are terrible people. These billionaires are doing terrible things to society. ” The multimillionaires probably didn’t have as much luck as the billionaires did, I suspect, if making money is considered a matter of luck, and I guess some people would consider it that. But I don’t think that billionaires are any happier than multimillionaires or any happier than non-millionaires. Happiness is the most elusive thing in life. I know a lot of billionaires, and I can’t say they’re as happy as some of the people who don’t have any money. But isn’t there some difference in persistence between the billionaires and the multimillionaires that’s not just luck? Or no?…

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