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However, tensions have arisen regarding how audiences and critics receive these works. Do such depictions ultimately glorify or denounce the obscene levels of wealth and privilege enjoyed by those at the top of society? Some of us might say it’s more educational, but through layers of satire, absurdity, and complexity, we learn that billionaires are evil and should be objects of idolatry and desire. Some are calling for a clearer message: that it is not.
Enter the view from below. You’d be hard-pressed to find many ultra-wealthy people willing to share an unfiltered version of themselves with the world. But the ordinary people who make a living around those stars — their helpers, henchmen, hangmen — may have no such concerns (absent non-disclosure agreements). Through their eyes, we are given a front row seat to a glittering drama based on the perspective of someone whose moral selling point is that they are just like you and me.
Fidelity analyst turned MFA graduate Carrie Sun’s memoir, Private Equity, chronicles her years as personal assistant to Boone Prescott, founder of the Carbon hedge fund. (Sun has given pseudonyms to both the fund and its founder.) Carbon is more than just a hedge fund. It was explained to Sun as follows: rock star “Fund Guru”, “The World’s Most Popular Hedge Fund”, and Mr. Boone as a “once-in-a-generation investor”. According to the headhunter who hired Sun for the job, he also: the nicestThis is obviously strange enough for a billionaire, much less a hedge fund guy, to be worth highlighting.
Like Sun himself, who served as Boone’s right-hand man, money fuels all the wheels that move carbon and, by extension, the world. This allows businesses to maximize their returns by leveraging existing capital to access information that helps generate more profits in an accelerating feedback loop of success. This has allowed Sun to make every element of his boss’ life seamless, from luxury vacations to his private jet to his luxurious office and his parties. That’s what Mr. Boone gave Ms. Sun as her compensation: her salary, bonuses and, ultimately, an investment in the fund itself. And perks include spa days, designer merchandise, shopping, all-expenses-paid travel, and private fitness classes. . “Remember,” he tells her early on. “Money can solve almost everything.”
With these words, Boone told him everything he wanted to know about Sun. Initially she was not aware of it, or at least she professed not to be aware of it. After her first day on the job, she was ready to declare that she “believed again” in “the possibility of being a good millionaire.” Its simplicity is astonishing, almost unbelievable. It takes a certain amount of brainpower to understand that Sun is such a smart and capable person that at one point he seriously believed he could find fulfillment working for Fidelity. I needed gymnastics. And we thought that working at Carbon meant “serving humanity.”
Yet why does she persist in a hellish job that demands not only her time, attention, and effort, but also her physical and mental health? It’s a fundamental question that energizes Sun, whose stress in the role leads to injuries, disordered eating, and abandonment of writing and other personal pursuits. She deftly weaves together multiple threads, including her childhood of love and abuse, the complexities of being the child of Chinese immigrants, and the survival and sublimation of her college trauma, to suggest a kind of psychology. , suggesting a kind of blurred portrait of a human being. She can willingly harm herself for such work. However, her individual strokes of paint, while elaborate and vividly rendered, never quite come together to form a convincing whole. There’s something elusive about this artist, as if, even in her own memoirs, she’s regaining some of the private peace she lost during her stint at Carbon.
Sun has been much more candid about why he ultimately decided to cease his activities. “I thought Boone was driven by a love of the game” and “I thought making money was a side effect,” she writes of her realization in one moment. “No. All I had was money. Everything. other than that It was a side effect. ” From there, the epiphanies come fast and furious, even more absurd in their grasp of class consciousness than the next.
Distracting others was important to the billionaire. …All the delays, the impasses, undecideds, or indecisions about billionaire lifestyles, management styles, tax avoidance, and excessive influence, were victories for them. While they had time to wait out the storm in their palatial shelters, the rest of us had no shelter and were monitoring the weather to survive.
As the world burns up, life becomes more difficult for the rest of the 1 percent, especially those in precarious situations (often women, people of color, other marginalized and underprivileged groups, and especially their children). ) are worried that they will acquire more understanding. Alienation…As Karl Marx predicted, the system of capitalism will exacerbate alienation and exploitation.
I appreciate Marx’s excellent shout-out, but Sun’s call is awkward, like the final scene of “Succession,” Cousin Greg. He faced the camera and appealed to workers around the world to take possession of the means of production. It may have some good political messages, but it’s a boring conclusion to an engrossing memoir with enough gory details to stand on its own. Some lessons about the world don’t need to be taught as much as they feel.
Book World contributor Jenny G. Zhang is Slate’s senior culture editor.
Penguin Press. 339 pages $29
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