What I Learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos's Private Retreat(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
What I Learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos's Private Retreat
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/05/billionaire-consequence-free-reality/686588/
4 comments
Author seems to have demurred to the networking opportunity of a lifetime.
He already understood Bezos as surrounded by those who want something from him: join the club! At least make sure Bezos and the gang know your name and your interests.
You can sprain a joint or get hives anywhere with anyone.
As you what was "learned"... what was learned? The rhetoric on Besoz might fit perfectly, and might be true, but it's invented context, not the consequence of some intimate moment with the man.
He probably ran away from the greeting because first and foremost he's on the spectrum with social moments, he's got nothing in common with the author, and the author's wife's injury set outside of any meaningful interpersonal moment looks to Bezos like a lawsuit and a settlement to a man who is notoriously not socially gifted.
As to the obscenely rich living in a world of few consequences, the quote from Trump sets the bounds of empathy: these people live in fear of their privilege, in which their lives are utterly dependent on a network of slavish others, they see everything is at the same level of distant (sur)reality, and they know they are becoming decrepit and will die.
When "everything is free" all you have is your ego, and that's a fragile rung on the social ladder to hang from.
"Why am I here?"
Isn't this the essential human pathos, affecting everyone, big ego and small?
The author didn't even bother to ask.
He already understood Bezos as surrounded by those who want something from him: join the club! At least make sure Bezos and the gang know your name and your interests.
You can sprain a joint or get hives anywhere with anyone.
As you what was "learned"... what was learned? The rhetoric on Besoz might fit perfectly, and might be true, but it's invented context, not the consequence of some intimate moment with the man.
He probably ran away from the greeting because first and foremost he's on the spectrum with social moments, he's got nothing in common with the author, and the author's wife's injury set outside of any meaningful interpersonal moment looks to Bezos like a lawsuit and a settlement to a man who is notoriously not socially gifted.
As to the obscenely rich living in a world of few consequences, the quote from Trump sets the bounds of empathy: these people live in fear of their privilege, in which their lives are utterly dependent on a network of slavish others, they see everything is at the same level of distant (sur)reality, and they know they are becoming decrepit and will die.
When "everything is free" all you have is your ego, and that's a fragile rung on the social ladder to hang from.
"Why am I here?"
Isn't this the essential human pathos, affecting everyone, big ego and small?
The author didn't even bother to ask.
That was so well written. Great story.
I'm fully willing to buy the author's assessment of Jeff Bezos' detachment from the reality that we normal folk live in by viewing his (Bezos') interaction with William Shatner post Blue Origin's NS-18 launch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GQoHIBDogU
The clip humanizes Shatner and makes Bezos seem like a creepy narcissistic ghoul in comparison (which is quite a feat assuming stories told about Shatner by many of his former coworkers are accurate).
Given all of the events since then its a bit interesting that despite the thinly veiled not-quite-name-dropping (eg. Gaiman, Chabon, Andrés) he didn't mention the presence of Ghislaine Maxwell who has been to Campfire several times including in 2018.