The rich really are different, as this lightly presented but utterly serious presentation proves beyond argument.
British cartoonist Cunningham serves up the tales of four moguls with outsize influence on the lives of the rest of us.
The new gilded age is America-centric, though far from confined to the U.S., since “there are few geographic barriers to enormous wealth.” Around the world, the ultrawealthy have asserted policies to undo governmental controls on the economy and dismantle the welfare state, however benign, whether breaking the backs of unions or obliterating pension funds. Cunningham focuses on Rupert Murdoch, David and Charles Koch, and Jeff Bezos. Murdoch began by assuming control of a lucrative media network in his native Australia, then worked his way into mostly crafty acquisitions of other networks in the U.K. and U.S. by recruiting leading politicians to evade monopoly statutes. Of course, he made his share of errors, including his purchase of MySpace, which he bought for $580 million in 2005 but dumped six years later for $35 million. The Koch brothers, by Cunningham’s account, were even more politically aggressive, and their meddling has “only helped weaken democratic safeguards that had previously kept at bay would-be demagogues like Donald Trump.” They inherited a fortune, too. Only Bezos came from a comparatively modest background, though, to judge by this narrative, he has been no less politically ruthless. Cunningham’s drawing style is faux naif, representational in the manner of Derf Backderf, if a little less controlled, but his writing style is terse and declarative: “Murdoch’s drift to the political right began in 1975. That year, Australia suffered a constitutional crisis.” His own tendency is clearly to the left, but regardless of stance, it seems inarguable that we are all at least complicit in the power of the mega-rich. “None of us have to buy from Amazon,” he writes. “It isn’t against the law not to contribute to Jeff Bezos’s fortune.”
The rich really are different, as this lightly presented but utterly serious presentation proves beyond argument.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77046-448-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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