In Man and Superintelligence: Heroes vs. Structures, I considered the balance of social power between powerful individuals and the aggregate intelligences - large organizations such as governments, corporations, and organized religions. People view the world in human terms and have difficulty perceiving organizations as their own intelligent actors, but I content that, seen through the lens of aggregate intelligence we can see that organizations, rather than individuals, actually run most of society. Still, sufficiently powerful human leaders must have some role, so I considered how powerful monarchs were able to reshape or even oppose institutions.
In our modern landscape, executives - be they Presidents or CEOs - often find their actions constrained by their organization. Billionaires would seem more free of these constraints. Possessing their own personal fortunes, they can take on the attributes of corporations - operating transnationally, wielding legal force, distributing their assets, and spending money to influence politics. In this article I examine the powers and limitations of billionaires to determine whether, as individuals wielding great wealth and power, they pose an effective counterweight to organizations.
To consider how they wield power, I consider four visible and influential top tech billionaires: Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg.
The tech billionaires all share certain traits: all made their fortunes themselves by starting and growing disruptive technology companies. All are highly driven men.
Bill Gates: Now long retired from Microsoft, Bill Gates turned to philanthropy but
Jeff Bezos