Beneficent Businessmen vs. Elon Musk

Stuff is happening in your city, county, or town… you might want to know about it, and you can find what you need to know in our News Digest below.

Meanwhile, some tasty thoughts about good and bad capitalists. And, of course, a recipe!

"Tycoons of Silicon Valley Steer Transition for Trump's Team."

The story in today’s New York Times pissed me off, but the headline made me smile.

Tycoon. That’s a good, old-fashioned word. It conjures a businessman (and the nine people pictured on the full-page spread inside are all men) who has achieved not just vast wealth, but also political power and influence. The editor who wrote the headline might have gone with "mogul" or "baron"—both good words that describe rich people who flex their wealth.

Tycoon. It’s not necessarily a pejorative – I imagine the tycoons profiled in the Times feel pretty pumped about being branded as such. But I’d bet most readers automatically despise anyone who has achieved “tycoon” status. Sadly, infuriatingly, many successful business leaders who reach this level of power become real jerks. But not all of them—not even most of them. 

In this week’s edition of The Newsletter, Chris Neklason continues his series about some old-fashioned service organizations that dedicate their time and money to making their communities, and the world, a little bit better. This week, Chris introduces us to Kiwanis, which, along with the Lions Club, the Elks, and Rotary, was founded by a different breed of businessmen, and which still rallies business leaders to do important charitable work.

Unlike today's Silicon Valley tech bros (insult intended), the businessmen who founded these organizations recognized that it was in everyone’s interest, including their own, to uplift their communities and help those less fortunate than themselves.

Elon Musk (a man I have previously publicly admired) and his ilk are at work to rewrite government regulations and tax laws to benefit themselves. They suddenly have a lot of influence over our nation's government, and there is no evidence that they care one iota about anyone but themselves. They represent the ugliest face of capitalism, and they give everyone in our industry a bad name.

As someone who has worked in and around Silicon Valley for many years, I will gladly admit that several of my close friends are tech business leaders (only a couple might be labeled as tycoons). They're good people, running good comapanies, building a better world, and in many cases also doing very well for themselves.

I want us all to live in a world where successful business people are not all selfish jerks – and I can report today, with evidence you can find below, that we do live in that happier, more magnanimous world. For example, meet the Kiwanis.