In my memory, I’ve been a good person all my life. I’ve consistently done the right thing. But in reality, it was a mixed bag, and I’ve fucked up and stepped on people’s toes. This duality exists because I’m a human. Billionaires—being human—do the exact same thing. 1
If you live a small life, the sharp, unpleasant corners of your life that your memory rounds off are small, too. But if you live a large life, the sharp corners are more prominent and cut deeper. Your human-revisionist memory has to sand them down more aggressively. 2
I’ve lived a life of moderate size, and my transgressions were moderate and my smoothing over is moderate (you may disagree with me). 3
But guys like Gates and Zuckerberg have lived lives of enormous magnitude. The number of lives they have trampled is huge. Consequently, the scale of their personal history reimagining is commensurately large. The corners they have removed are gargantuan. 4
We all do it because we are all human, and we all want to appear to be good people in our personal rear-view mirrors. 5
To be a good ancestor, you have to shine a bright light on your historical reimagining. You have to work hard to correct your instinctive desire to whitewash your historical image. 6
It’s not difficult for those who live small lives to fight the whitewashing. More moderate lives must work hard. But those who strode the world in 10-league boots must sweat and heave and bust a nut as they clean the Augean stables of their historical record. 7
