The New Celebs

Two decades ago, everyone was toasting the “celebrity CEO.” The celebrity CEO was the talk of the town and built sky high reputations — Bill Gates, Lee Iacocca, Steve Jobs. They soon lost most admired status for one reason or another but that was to be expected. What goes up, must come down. We’ve had a few other celebrity CEOs since then — Travis Kalanick, Mark Zuckerberg, Marissa Mayer, Adam Neumann. But despite their fame and fortune, there is no comparison to today’s over-the-top celebrity-ness of world politicians — Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Rudy Giuliani, AOC, Barack Obama, Vladmir Putin, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Boris Johnson, Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping and the list goes on. Millions of people know these world leaders’ names compared to any top 10 list of CEOs. Why are celeb politicians seemingly grabbing the spotlight everywhere we turn? Is it because bad behavior is good politics and even better news? Let’s face it…good behavior is half as interesting. Or is this political stardom because people around the world recognize that politicians are not trying to solve our problems but just trying to get elected and re-elected?, as the economist Thomas Sowell says. Or are politicians (not all) and their bad behavior the new entertainers? They keep us — their audience — shaking our heads and laughing at their antics. By comparison, we probably appear more boring. I will take that any day.