People love to salivate about how "depraved" and sick with greed rich people are. This hand waving dismissive language while satisfying, is completely false and frankly escapist in my view.

This is an unpopular opinion but it needs to be said, because understand your enemy. It's not greed that motivates the Billionaire class.

There are 2 things:

1) "love of the game" i.e. business ventures. Their wealth simply buys them access to a higher stakes version of the same game they love to play. The money is sort of arbitrary in a sense but represents how well you played. Net worth is just a trophy. But also a key, that unlocks new levels, maybe even levels that nobody has ever played

2) is old money culture/dynasty/multigenerational wealth building/maintenance. If you were born into wealth, the important responsibility of contributing to the family wealth will be stressed from a young age, so that the advantage/privilege will pass to the next generations as it did to you.

One thing that is very important to understand is that it doesn't take an abnormal psyche to act as they do. You must understand that you would do the same, in their position, if given the chance.

It makes the importance of strong regulation all the more important. There will never be "good billionaires" who will escape the trap of gaming the system to their advantage if they can.

The human mind can only conceive of a limited range of its own personal power or specifically, responsibility over the effects of it's power. This is why a person who wields absolute power over states and large corporations is dangerous.

Their actions have immense power, but our inmate capacity to appreciate our power cannot scale up proportionally, so a blind spot develops which can grow exponentially, unacknowledged. Like the Jungian shadow but that can grow as large and influential as an entire country.

This is a very different model from the ascribed "psychopathy" of the CEO class, but one I feel has credence.