I don’t understand why the filthy rich ever drive. Sure, I get why Ferdinand Habsburg gets into the Eva cockpit: an F1 race is the modern-day tournament. But driving is a dangerous, high-liability, cognitively taxing activity and it’s easy for the rich to offload those hazards to a specialist. I don’t understand why, for example:
- Warren Buffett (alleged net worth $138B) supposedly drives his own older Cadillac to the office (though maybe not anymore, given that he’s now 93).
- “Little” Sam Altman (alleged net worth $1B) drives a low-to-the-ground sports car through stop-and-go traffic in downtown Palo Alto (it’s giving Dukakis).
- “Bumpin’ dat” Justin Timberlake (alleged net worth $250M) got busted for a DUI in Long Island.
- Alec Baldwin (alleged net worth $70m) settled out of court with a guy he allegedly punched in the jaw over a parking spot.
In the unlikely event that I hit centimillion status, the first thing I’m doing is buying a black, under-the-radar towncar and hiring a chaffeur with good personal recommendations. And before that, when I enter decamillion territory, I’m just calling UberXen. No alternate-side parking, no DUIs for me. I don’t know about Justin, but surely Warren and Sam have something better to do than be behind the wheel. They could be power napping, meditating, watching the market, or catching up on X (“the everything app”) the back of their car instead.