The Billionaire Age Pt 1 | How did we get here?

4 snips

Mar 31, 2026

Guest

Tim Wu

Guest

Paul Krugman

Tim Wu, Columbia Law scholar who studies tech power and antitrust, and Paul Krugman, Nobel-winning economist and commentator, discuss the rise of extreme wealth. They trace long-term inequality trends, the political and policy shifts since the 1970s, and how tech and concentrated corporate power reshape attention and democratic risk.

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INSIGHT

Two Historic Periods Of Low Inequality

Wealth concentration was low only twice in 700 years: after the Black Death and mid-20th century.
Guido Alfani explains the Black Death raised real wages and fragmented large estates, creating a medieval middle class for 50–100 years.

ANECDOTE

Modern Billionaires Outsize Rockefeller

Luca Chancel compares today's billionaires to John D. Rockefeller and finds modern billionaires richer both nominally and relative to the rest of society.
He notes today's top billionaires can purchase far more and are further removed from average people than Rockefeller was.

INSIGHT

Attention As A New Form Of Power

Control over human attention via screens and platforms is a new form of power surpassing old industrial monopolies.
Tim Wu warns that attention control plus AI and server 'mega farms' creates unprecedented societal influence.

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There are 19 centibillionaires and a growing list of 3,000 billionaires worldwide. So it might not surprise you that the richest one per cent possesses nearly half of the world’s wealth. History has never seen such an extreme concentration of wealth. Some economists argue the battle of the 21st century is between oligarchy and democracy. How did we get here? IDEAS begins a four-part documentary series The Billionaire Age.

Guests in this episode:

Ingrid Robeyns is a philosopher and economist. She is the chair in Ethics of Instutions at Utrecht University and the author of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth.

Lucas Chancel is the co-director of The World Inequality Lab and a professor at the Paris School of Economics.

Gabriel Zucman is also the co-director of The World Inequality Lab. He is a professor at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley.

Nitin Bharti is an economist and lecturer at The University of Western Australia. He is the South and South Asia coordinator at the World Inequality Lab.

Lars Osberg is an economics professor at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His latest book is The Scandalous Rise of Inequality in Canada.

Abigail Disney is an American film producer, philanthropist and social activist. She is a member of Patriotic Millionaires which advocates for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Paul Krugman is an American economist and the winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Tim Wu is a Canadian/American legal scholar and a professor at Columbia Law School. He is also a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. His latest book is The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity.

Nick Hanauer is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He co-authored his latest book with Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen, Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing The Lies and Half-Truths that Protect Profit, Power and Wealth in America. And he hosts the podcast: Pitchfork Economics.

Guido Alfani is a professor of economic history at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy. His latest book is As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West.