Podcast Summary: WHY ARE BILLIONAIRES?!?: You’re Not Gonna Believe This B.S. with Amanda & Anand Giridharadas

Podcast: We Can Do Hard Things
Hosts: Amanda Doyle, Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach
Guest: Anand Giridharadas
Date: January 20, 2026
Episode Theme:
Amanda launches a new series ("You're Not Gonna Believe This...") by diving into the myth, mechanics, and cultural stories of billionaires and their place in American life—with bestselling author and journalist Anand Giridharadas. Together, they challenge listeners to rethink what billionaires are, how they’re created, and how their manufactured stories uphold massive inequality.

Episode Overview

Amanda Doyle introduces a new episodic series meant to pull back the curtain on “things we take as given.” The kickoff topic is billionaires: how society’s obsession with them is manufactured, how extreme wealth shapes our politics and possibilities, and why the very concept of the billionaire is recent, artificial, and actively sustained. Anand Giridharadas joins to unpack the cultural, economic, and political scaffolding that props up billionaire power and makes us complicit in their continued dominance.

Key Discussion Points

1. What IS a Billionaire? (02:02–11:14)

• Amanda lays out the true gulf between millionaires and billionaires:
  • Earning $1/second takes 11.5 days to be a millionaire, but 31.7 years to become a billionaire.
  • The wealth gap: 8 billionaires own as much as half the world’s population; the top 1% in the U.S. now hold more wealth than the bottom 90%.
• Mythbusting the “bootstrap” narrative:
  • Billionaires like Musk and Bezos have profited enormously from government subsidies and favorable policy.
  • Walmart’s low wages are subsidized by public assistance, directly transferring public money to the Walton family fortune.
  • "A millionaire is closer economically to a minimum wage worker than to a billionaire… This, my friends, is some bootstrap bullshit." – Amanda (04:27)
• Policy decisions—especially post-1980s—have actively enabled the creation of billionaires, rather than rewarding merit or invention.

2. A Culture-Built Story: Manufacturing the Inevitable (11:48–20:59)

• Amanda and Anand discuss:
  • Elites in every era create self-justifying narratives, tailored for the values of the times. In the U.S. today, it’s meritocracy, entrepreneurial genius, and “giving back.”
  • Previous eras might have justified excess through race or inheritance; today, it’s a manufactured story of brilliance and benevolence.
  • “Every ruling class throughout history invents a story to make it seem like this is fair, justified, too difficult to change.” – Anand (12:51)
• Billionaires now present themselves as the only feasible path to solving society’s greatest problems (“philanthro-capitalism”): “If you tax us, you’re hurting the very people we claim to help.”

3. The Win-Win Myth and Faux Solutions (24:41–30:55)

• Billionaire-led “solutions” (like Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In) are exposed as distractions from real, systemic fixes (like paid family leave).
• Anand’s “Winners Take All” thesis: today's rich actively co-opt reform, presenting themselves as reformers while fighting policies that could make a structural difference.
  • "We will never ask them to stop doing harm… we’ll only ask them to do good." – Amanda (24:56)

4. Subsidizing Billionaires, Not the Poor (29:03–34:08)

• Public programs largely function as subsidies for billionaires, contrary to popular belief that social aid mainly helps the poor.
• Amanda underscores: “We are acting like we are subsidizing the poor… when the actual vast majority of the collective prosperity is being intentionally siphoned to the billionaires.” (29:39)

5. We Can Have Nice Things — Just Not Here (34:08–39:49)

• Anand compares American insecurity to European social systems, where basic needs (childcare, healthcare, education, dignified retirement) are guaranteed despite lower GDP per capita.
  • “You start to realize very quickly that there's all these nice things other societies just have… they've just literally removed those anxieties.” – Anand (34:28)
• The U.S. has collectively chosen not to have “nice things,” so that the ultra-rich can have everything.

6. Dividing the Majority: Manufactured Scapegoats (39:49–44:12)

• Amanda shares a political cartoon (cookie analogy) illustrating class distraction: the truly rich pit working people against one another to protect their massive share.
• “They are friends who pretend to be enemies to keep us imagining our friends are our enemies. Yes, we're being had.” – Anand (55:00)

7. The Epstein Files: Elite Solidarity & Impunity (44:12–53:38)

• Anand’s insights after reading thousands of Epstein’s emails:
  • The “Epstein class” (across party lines and sectors) operates by looking away—and supporting each other—to perpetuate privilege and impunity.
  • “When people in this world fail, they are punished with promotion… there’s not a lot of forgiveness and mercy in most people’s lives in this country. But for this power elite around Epstein, there are infinite second chances.” (50:44)
• The underlying rule: those in power face no consequences; their main loyalty is to each other, not their supposed ideologies or parties.

8. The Mandani Mayoral Race & Hope for Change (60:49–69:29)

• Reflections on Zoran Mamdani’s surprising New York City mayoral victory:
  • He attracted diverse support (including from capitalists) because he radiated hope, not just anger.
  • The backlash and subsequent embrace by business elites exposed their fear of collective policies, even as they rely on public funding/infrastructure.

9. Is Change Coming? Signs of Hope & Next Steps (69:29–78:43)

• Historic periods of inequality always lead somewhere. Amanda asks if there’s hope for a new progressive era.
• Reasons for hope (Anand, 70:45–78:43):
  • Public awareness of wealth inequality is higher than ever, thanks to movements and new political voices.
  • Young people are not “buying” the meritocratic story—“they were just never successfully indoctrinated into it.”
  • Elites have “overplayed their hand”—the social contract breaks when too many suffer, and that’s happening now.
  • Democracy, ultimately, is about us choosing the future together—a hard thing, but a possible one.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “A millionaire is closer economically to a minimum wage worker than to a billionaire… This, my friends, is some bootstrap bullshit.”
  — Amanda (04:27)

• “Every ruling class throughout history invents a story… to make it seem like this is fair, justified, too difficult to change.”
  — Anand (12:51)

• “If you mess with us billionaires… you're not hurting us, you are hurting the wretched of the earth, who we are on the cusp of liberating through our apps and foundations. You will hurt the people with the least power in this world if you come for the most powerful people in the world.”
  — Anand (19:12)

• “We are acting like we are subsidizing the poor… when the actual vast majority of the collective prosperity is being intentionally siphoned to the billionaires.”
  — Amanda (29:39)

• “Their resources are only possible because of what you bust your ass to fund.”
  — Anand (67:04)

• “They are friends who pretend to be enemies in order to keep us imagining our friends are our enemies. Yes, we're being had.”
  — Anand (55:00)

• “You can only make people not know the condition of their own lives to a certain point… they took too much.”
  — Anand (72:54)

• “Democracy is a fancy Greek word for who chooses the future… The ultimate hard thing is for all of us to choose it together.”
  — Anand (76:06)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:02–11:14] What is a billionaire? The numbers & the myths
• [12:46–20:59] The history of policy & story: how did we get so many billionaires?
• [24:41–30:55] Faux solutions—lean in, win-win, and the “reformer” billionaire
• [34:08–39:49] “We can have nice things”—comparison to Europe, what the US chooses to forego
• [44:12–53:38] The Epstein files—solidarity at the top, impunity, and the real rules
• [60:49–69:29] Lessons from Mandani’s campaign—hopeful signs, real threats to the system
• [69:29–78:43] Is change coming? Night-and-day difference in public consciousness, the next progressive era

Closing Thoughts

The episode takes listeners on a journey from outrage and mythbusting to clear-eyed hope. By tracing how billionaires are created and how our culture props them up, Amanda and Anand challenge us to see through the stories that keep us passive, divided, and struggling. The antidote, they argue, is solidarity, clarity about “who our friends and enemies really are,” and the reclaiming of democracy as an active, collective project. The finale is energizing: “We can do hard things, together. Choosing the future is ours—and it’s time to jump out of the pot.”