At the end of the day that is what this is all about. Average Joe's cant understand the desire or need for this kind of power. They don't understand the ends. A technocratic elite who control a much less populated earth who can, though technology, achieve immortality. If you are ruled by ego and Godless, that is a tough one to walk away from. The promise of immortality.
You’re familiar with Jeremy Bentham, right ?
I concur.
IMHO...
There are two kinds of “self-made” billionaires, those who fear their own financial failure and those who are not bothered by the idea.
Some people are inventive by nature; they come up with dozens of good business ideas, inventions, creative works, etc., every year, if not over a hundred.
Other folks happened across one good idea (or bought it, stole it, or otherwise “acquired” it) and they ride that idea all the way to the top, financially. They need to control their employees, lawyers, financiers, etc., to avoid being pushed out of their own company (humiliating), and constantly, warily avoid that single key mistep that would let a competitor overtake them (also humiliating).
Some folks aren’t the “idea” type, they’re the business manager/owner type; put them on a deserted island with a lifeboat full of castaways and they’ll be running a business within a few weeks.
The greatest nightmare for a monopolist is some new “thing” coming along, redefining the whole marketplace, and making their monopoly obsolete. The ensuing financial fall from high to low for the “flagship” company, even if they had other investments and were financially in fine shape, would be a public demonstration that they were “not so smart as they thought they were”.
Non-monopolist billionaires don’t have this worry, since there business is only one amongst a herd of others. Senator Frank Lautenberg became Chairman and CEO of ADP, the payroll giant, in 1952. But no matter it’s size and visibility, it’s core was just a humdrum payroll service, and even today it only processes about a third of all W-2’s. Lautenberg’s job, IMHO, was not such a pressure-cooker as trying to maintain a monopoly on the personal computing device operating system market. The phone and tablet markets nowadays certainly must be a burr in the saddle for MS.
In terms of ego - since Gates started out by self-identifying himself as a “genius” - he is forced to maintain that image or open himself up to challenges to his leadership. Thus we see the notorious berating of even high-level management. There was a classic 60 minutes episode where he repeatedly asked an M$ executive “do you know what 5 minutes means”, treating them like a clerk.
What’s essential for the board and management of publicly-traded companies is their relationship with Wall Street, which holds the keys to their survival, how they are viewed by the business and investing community. Can they get debt financing ? Equity financing ? Did some analyst write a nasty report on them ? Are they winning or losing customers due to the “talk around town” or a well-financed competitor ? Are they a takeover target ? What stories is the business news media running about them ? Just a sample of the long list of ways Wall Street controls large businesses, especially publicly-held ones.
Every event the “Gates’s” of the world go to in Aspen, all their foundation friends, all the other CEO’s and consultants “in-the-know” from the mega-philanthropies, world government organizations, etc., they all lay out for him what the agenda is and what standard tactics are “encouraged” for businesses like his, along with nice conferences where they all brainstorm on specific projects each of them can embark on that fit in with the “direction the world is moving in”.
The only defense for the average Joe is to go into business for himself and get wealthy, but steer clear of debt and market directly to individuals and independent “average Joe” businesses.