2025-07-11
30 分钟This is In Conversation from Apple News.
I'm Shemita Basu.
Today, why Americans love to hate the ultra wealthy.
In the last weekend of June, billionaire Jeff Bezos,
the founder of Amazon, got married to his fiance, Lauren Sanchez,
in an elaborate, days-long celebration in Venice, Italy.
Festivities included a pre-wedding foam party on their $500 million yacht
and a pajama-themed after party where guests were serenaded by usher.
The event was covered by news outlets across the world,
tracking who was attending, what they were wearing,
and the protests that came with it from people who were horrified by the ostentatious display of wealth in the famously sinking city.
That wedding felt like the confluence of about 50 years of decisions around politics, around wages, around wealth, around taxes,
all of which brought it to the point of making that kind of wedding possible.
That's Evan Osnos, a reporter for The New Yorker.
He wasn't a guest at the wedding,
but he's been following Bezos and the movements of the ultra wealthy for years.
His new book, The Haves and Have Yachts,
is a collection of his reporting on America's billionaires.
From their excessive lifestyles to their disproportionate influence on politics.
He says that when it comes to wealth,