The ultra-wealthy are not only not geniuses, but they might be downright incompetent.

The most recent episode of How Money Works (here on YouTube) demonstrates this during the recent bonanza of tech layoffs (these include the AI layoffs, attributed falsely to replacement by AI automation).

The story it tells starts with the COVID-19 epidemic and lockdown, which lead to mass telecommuting and then the great replacement. The working class got a modicum of class consciousness since it was clear that their jobs were necessary and involved skills that would be difficult to replace.

The tech industry had developed its own culture from this and had gotten used to being able to openly negotiate their salaries, and the C-suite didn't like that. In fact, the billionaire class openly resents the workforce on which it depends.

And thus, they laid off a ton of people. Too many, it turns out. It started with the RTO mandates, some of which were intended to incentivize workers to voluntarily quit. And some of them did. Specifically, the best and brightest talent were the ones most confident they could get work elsewhere at better pay that still allowed telecommuting.

So the billionaire class, via the great layoff, facilitated their own brain drain.

And now those same tech companies have found they've gotten rid of too many people, including essential talent that actually knew how to run the businesses (and the technology). So they're now hiring them back. The greybeards are negotiating at an advantage, and are asking for higher salaries. And the ones that are no longer available are being replaced with rookies fresh out of college.

So yeah, the tech industry billionaires, out of pure vindictiveness, collectively fucked themselves.

I hypothesize our billionaire class got rich in their early careers through a combination of fortuitous opportunity, family connections, infusions of generational wealth and ruthless willingness to sabotage their peers. Then they were subject to years of sycophancy and cronyism where they were shielded from any criticism. They gladly assumed they earned their lot, and got there because they are brilliant. At that point, having immense wealth, it's difficult to not fail upwards, and so they don't actually see the difference between skillful decision-making and incompetence.

Sadly, incompetence with extreme amounts of money is very dangerous, and so we have the high lords playing their games of thrones and wrecking the world for the rest of us.